Hands on Dell Precision 7710

Just got my 7710 today... I had a nice long review written up but then lost it on browser crash...

I'll sum up: Feels cheap to me. The whole machine feels like plastic, I don't really care for the rubbery feel.
No gigabit wifi... ugh.

Personal preference: Windows 10 sucks, I should have ordered 7 pro.

Monitor brightness is capital P pathetic compared to my 6800

 

The bottom panels are magnesium alloy, the edge anodized aluminum and the lid carbon fiber. Just laying the CF layer must be labor intensive as it is done by hand in a mold. The hinge mechanism is aluminum as well . The polished edge of the aluminum is machined with PCD tooling, which leaves a polished edge. The soft touch I suppose is a matter of taste, but far from cheap.

As to gigabit wifi, I don't remember that as an option so I don't see how that can be a source of complaint. In that sense at is well known that the palm rest is a soft touch material and the lid has a soft touch coating.

As to Win10, you should have downgrade rights to Win7. Though it has its quirks Win10 still blows Win7 away. And if you want to make it feel more like Win7 that's not too hard as well.

I have the same technology screen on the 7510 and I think it's super bright, maybe even more so as I use it. If the Fn key brightness doesn't fancy you try tweaking the settings in Intel's display control, may be an Intel driver thing.

 

Thank you for the informative review!

One important issue to clarify:
Can it be connected to the good old Dell E-Port replicator (E Dock) rather than the new Dell Thunderbolt™ Dock?
Dell’s site says yes: “Enhanced docking: Make using your peripherals and displays easy with the Dell E Dock, or use the Dell Thunderbolt™ Dock (available in 2016)”,http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m7710-workstation/pd?oc=xctomp771017us .
When I watched the reviews, the laptop did not seem to have holes/connectors at the bottom. However, your last picture (bottom side) clearly shows eport replicator connectivity.

It is important for us to know (we’re thinking about at least 2 of those laptops) as we already have Dell E Docks like this:http://accessories.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&sku=331-6307

Regards,

 

Hello,

You'll find the stats here :
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52727038/results_20151212T0020_r1.rar

A peak to this :
Viewset Composite Window
catia-04
53.90 1900 x1060
creo-01
45.86 1900 x1060
energy-01
2.82 1900 x1060
maya-04
42.55 1900 x1060
medical-01
24.60 1900 x1060
showcase-01 :
38.79 1900 x1060
snx-02
60.80 1900 x1060
sw-03
68.95 1900 x1060

When I tried to run the bench with AMD driver (card seen as M390x), the soft could not detect the card (ensured it would in crimson control pannel). So no stats on that.

 

Hello, T

here is indeed a E port under the laptop. I did not try it out yet, but I don't see any reason you could not dock it on PR02X and PR03X docks. It has the same layout as smaller latitude series (e7240 and so forth), meaning to position the laptop correctly, you need to buy a spacer to put on the dock.

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&sku=452-bbid

This is optional, but recommanded in order to ease the docking procedure. You can notice the E port is at the edge of the laptop unlike on the older series, where it was not really at one edge, but 1 /2 inch away from edge.

My model is not compatible with thunderbolt dock as it does not have the actual port on it;

 

@varnum, forgive me the question, but did your really pay only €2000? Precision 7710 seems to be much more expensive, even in basic configuration. How did you do that?

 

Has anyone tried playing simulation or FPS games on 7710 with a FirePro W7170M? Notebookcheck says it's a good card, particularly if the driver update identifies it as AMD Radeon R9 M390X . Sounds childish I know but it's good simply to know that it can play games

 

The 7710 will work with existing E-Port docks.

 

I tired Dota 2, and in full HD, all options activated, vsync off, it would show around 100-115 FPS while watching a match. When I changed it to WQHD (2560x1440), it dropped to around 70-90 FPS. In full HD, I got similar FPS compared to my GTX 680 in my desktop, but in QHD, the 680 does arount 100 FPS most of the time, and it could have some drops to around 80FPS. So I'd say, you should have the performance of a 680 minus 20-30% depending on conditions.

You are right, when I configure the same machine on dell website, the exact same configuration would cost me around 3260€. I ordered the machine on a website dedicated for students, so I got nice discounts on public prices. This works in France, if you are a student. If you are not student, you could still order, but with ID of a friend who is student.
http://www.portable-etudiant.com/?Id=WN6926NVZQPCXRRGWB4Y
Click on "Les offres", "Acceder à nos offres", "puissance", you'll see the selection of hardware and prices they offer. If it was not for this website, I would naver have ordered this laptop, too pricey.

Original pilote has version 15.201.100 something... This one can rune specview perf.
If you go to AMD site and manually choose to download a drviver (selecting manufacturer/model, you'll end up with 15.201.2401 . The card will be seen as w7170m . I believe specview perf will run with that too. To obtain the latest crimson drivers, you need to download AMD auto detect software, then it will install crimson with driver version 15.300.1025 . Once this is done, the card will be shown as a m390x, but specview will only detect the integrated intel. Impossible to run the benchmark :/

 

I never said it was cheap, I said it FEELS cheap. Big difference.

DELL never said one way or the other if they were coming with gigabyte wifi, hence my complaint. Gigabyte wifi will be standard on the new ZBook and the new P70, so DELL missed the boat on this.

I use my machine for work, and I work 70 hours a week, so I have no time to be messing around with swapping the system.

The screen on my 7710 is about 20% dimmer than it is on my 6800 at max brightness (honestly, I can't even use my 6800 at max brightness because its just too bright). Granted, my 6800 has the absolute top of the line screen, but still, it's a step backwards.