Did dell drop the ball on the new Precision line ?

Tech support at Dell are usually completely untrained in real-world working on the machines, and with the tiny-market segment of the precision, let alone the 17" m6400, which even FEWER can afford (or of those who could, do, vs. another machine or one they bought 6 months before) so there's not a lot of INCENTIVE to make it the "Rolls Royce" of the portable CAD workstations.

Sure it's really nice, but usually these precisions are simply slightly modded consumer machines with some re-branded chips that can be flashed to the consumer counterpart, or are from almost identical manufacturing batches (I.E. the difference between a mobile quadro2700 vs 7900gtx is almost nil in the real world, and only exists on paper; you can flash either to the other).

I personally think that the M6400, while I love it, is the XPS 1710 meets the inspiron 1720 with an updated motherboard chipset to handle the new 45nm cpu's. I'll bet you can plug ANYTHING into any of the Dell motherboards that can handle the 45nm CPU's, qx9300's included. I'd love to try it out but no time.

That means anything inside a 17" Dell that has a 45nm cpu stock, could be converted to similar specs to a, say, m6400. Dell CIRCUMVENTS THIS CUSTOMIZATION intentionally by limiting the power to the GPU via a proprietary GPU interface jack (their own annoying version of the MXM slot). Without this limit, one could turn an inspiron into a m6400 without issues. Dell knows this of course.
I've taken them all apart (except the m6400) and they've identical guts, with a few minor differences, like MXM-II vs MXM-III ports (can't put a 7950gtx in an inspiron- not enough power). The XPS 1710 could have a qx9300 with a new chipset (of course you can't do that yourself, I know; you'd need a m6400 mobo) and hold ALL the other stuff. There's room in the case. Same with the inspiron 1720.

So it's like the alienware of CAD laptops, at a premium price. My non-Quadro XPS is FASTER than all the other CAD-certified laptops in the REAL WORLD SIDE BY SIDE working with clients who bring in their loaded M90s and m6300's and now, their m6400's (but those rock my old xps 1710).

This- HERE- is where the real knowledge (outside of the 14-25 people who designed the Precisions and don't frequent forums) will be found. The "Tech's" dont know half the stuff you guys do on here, and don't have time to visit as they're on the clock.


Drivers will always be a problem as there are too many people involved with conflicts of interest based on money.
Best thing to do is go with an OS that isn't about money, Open source! Windows camp sliced their own throats on the vista development fees, and things haven't changed much with Window7. Even now you can't get solid drivers for windows 64-bit systems, due to conflicting interests of all involved.

Linux will rock and solve half the issues of any of these things for these machines most likely, IMHO.
Short of build quality, Dell OEM and Tech's simply ..well... there's not a lot of money in it, and not a lot of customers to deal with, and so not a lot of experience, let alone m2400~m4400s~m6400's down in India. Maybe they get one in a service center to play with for a week or two, and maybe a few techs have taken it apart at best. They spend all their time with headsets on talking to main-stream bread-and-butter 95% corp clients.


Yeah?

 

my only problems are the audio stutter and it only occurs in Vista. I'm on XP and I dont experience it, and the beta Windows 7 doesn't seem to have that problem either. Since i'm likely to skip Vista, i'm not so concerned.

some minor annoyances for me.. I'm not sure why the palm rests and certain other areas have these indented lines rather than being entirely flat. it makes cleaning harder as dust collects in their and these indentions make it harder to wipe.

 

My Dell Latitude D800 has lasted for almost six years, bought it in August 2003. It's still nice and fast, and I've never had any major problems aside from things I caused (such as dropping it and breaking the hard disk, or spilling a drink on the keyboard). I'm using it right now and I still love it - but I've been thinking of picking up an E6500 or an M4400.

 

tangograndma: dell prosupport is really very good. they know what they are talking about. most of them have MCSE, N+ A+ etc qualifications along with dell's DCSE internal qualification. and the precision line, being their top of the range business machine, has its own dedicated support team within the prosupport group. chances are when you call precision prosupport, you'll get the same person or same few people. its a relatively small team, dedicated to the precision line, they really know the ins and outs of it, so most of the time your problems get resolved very quickly over the phone.

you obviously havent used that service before. they're based locally (for uk its in scotland etc et)

in addition to this, the geforce and ati workstation cards and consumer cards have been quite different for over a generation or two now, its impossible to flash them to convert.

the chassis of dell's consumer variants and business variants are completely different. business class notebooks are semi ruggedized, all aluminium chassis, rollcage, etc etc. they also undergo different testing programs and are designed to last 5 years vs 3 years for consumer grade.

it would be more accurate to say that the precisions are based on the latitudes, which in fact they are, to ensure part compatibility in the corporate environment. and the latitudes are not low volume sellers.

check your facts, and get a clue about business before making spurious claims

 

@afhstingray: wow, I didn't know about the physical difference between the workstation and geforce cards...I'm behind the times!! I thought they could be flashed....wasn't going to do it anyway.

Yes, Dell support on the phone seems good to me. I work on my machine and need on site support, otherwise I'd have gone for a Sager NP8660.

The fact that the m4400 will take a quad, and 8 gigs of rams is nice to know also.

 

You have touched a very important issue. I'm not saying Dell should compete based on specs; rather, it should recognise that comsumer value design and build quality (think macbook pro).

I have a precision M90, and have handled an inspiron 1705 which have pretty much identical design, except that the casing of the precison is different (metal lid, no cheap paintjob etc. And this DOES make a difference. The inspiron 1705 is just another laptop with good GPU etc.The precision M90 is an elegant machine. And this is for the old design, I believe the current precision look even nicer.

Dell is not pushing the "elegance" part of the business laptops. They should be gunning after the high end consumer segment with those.

Their XPS line targets the gaming segment with gaudy designs; it does not really appeal to a lot of us.

I wish they would have precisions with "gaming GPUs" instead of CAD ones.

They seem to have some great ideas, the RGBLED for instance, but they dont capitalize on them, many of the screens need to be calibrated before they look nice; a big big mistake on part of dell.

I'm no expert, bu I sincerely believe the precisons are missiing out a lot of prospective buyers. They are priced well below the MBPs and if dell just got its act together, the precisions would attract a lot of buyers.

I've had one experience with dell precison support (it was US based), and it was very pleasant. I was not happy with the light bleed, and they replaced it without any hassle or me having to jump through hoops