E6500 screen to M4400?

Hi Everyone, i've been reading this forum for a while now and have found lots of useful information here! however, i now have a question that I couldn't find an answer to in the forums.

I work as a sys admin for a medium sized company and we have been getting in a few of the new E series laptops and the Precision M4400.

I'm off to University later on this month and I am looking for a laptop for this. I'm going to be reading Electronic engineering, so the Precision M4400 seems to be ideal however the grey plastic back just seems flimsy and lo0oks cheap and tacky to me. What I was wondering is, given that most of the parts between the Latitude E6500 and Precision M4400 seem to be "common", is it possible to swap the screen / rear screen housing from a E6500 onto an M4400?

Or is it possible to swap the Graphics card from the M4400 into the E6500?

Thanks in advance,
Graeme

 

You likely can't swap the graphics card, but I think that you should be able to swap the panel back.

Good luck getting one of those from Dell though, someone on here tried already.

 

Thanks for the quick reply Speedy.

When you say someone tried, did they fail? or were they successful?

 

That would be me. You are welcome to ask Dell USA though to confirm and that they weren't bluffing, because I asked in Dell spare parts in Australia, and they said that it was an incompatible post-sale swap. Also, you can try ask pre sales if they are allowed to ship a Precision base with a Latitude screen and back. Those surely would work if they allowed it. The key word here is "allow". I would be very interested to know if they would let you order the parts from different machines like that (I'm speculating no, but it doesn't hurt to ask).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3862727&postcount=84

 

i'll have a chat to my Dell UK Account Manager, and possibly the parts department then.

Thanks!

 

There is actually a chance that it does fit, because when I told the spare parts people on the phone that I opened it and checked already that dimensions and locations were the same. The person on the phone kept saying that the latch were in different attach points, but from what I can tell online, the E6500 and M4400 have exactly the same. I asked them if they are allowed to sell it to me anyway, and if it fails to fit I'll cop the cost myself, they still said no, not allowed, so it might be more of a "won't" case rather than a "can't". Then they said to try stickers but I don't think I'm going to go down that path. I really am considering exchanging it for a e6500 or 6400 though. Do the spare parts salespeople have a reason not to sell it? I can understand if it was the other way around, but Precisions are the more expensive counterparts.

 

Because.

That's not in their product catalog. It's like asking a cookie maker (chips ahoy! for example) if you could buy some of their red cookie boxes with the soft-baked sign on it and not the cookies...most likely not.

 

Haha that's a good analogy. Any analogy with food is good! mmm I'm hungry...

 

mmmmmmm, cookies!

Even if they would sell me the parts i'll be a happy bunny HAve to see how I get on. Our Dell account manager is notoriously slow in responding to any E-Mail!

 

If you wait a couple of months E6500 LCDs will probably start to pop up on ebay.