I no longer own an M6400.

Sorry to hear about your experience a laptop at this price point should be pretty much flawless and support should be the same well good luck, the 8730 is a FINE machine.

 

Spot on, Red Dragon....Spot on....

 

thank you thank you

You have quite a machine there electro

 

The only things I don't like about the 8730 are:

1: No keyboard light.
2: Capacitive buttons.
3: USB cables come out the front edges not the back and get in the mouse area. (super minor)

RAID I can do without, and I won't be buying 16 gigs of RAM at Dell's price.

When I had the 8710, I was often hitting those buttons without intending to. Tapping the top row of numbers with my index finger places my little finger over the capacitive button bar and launches random crap. And I frequently work in the dark, because when you're painting textures you sometimes end up with a color range of black to very deep brown (i.e. brunette hair texture).

(And no that wouldn't eliminate the reflection problem - the light of the Photoshop interface alone on the covet's screen is enough to make my face reflect in it.)


There has actually been some forward movement with my case though, finally. There's a slim chance the Covet bezel can be replaced with an M6400 bezel to eliminate the pane of glass. Theoretically I hear back today whether it's possible. If it is, I might take the Covet out of the shipping box. If it isn't, I found an 18% off coupon for the 8730 and will enjoy the battery life it offers. (That 8710 got 8 hours work time with Maya and ZBrush running, with the extended capacity battery! Quadro 3600 and Core2 Duo T9600 even. I'm starting to regret returning it when they sent it into Hurricane Ike for repairs and gave me a two month ETA for its return.)

 

Sorry to hear you have given up. This machine - when working well - is awesome. Based on the issues that folks seem to be having - it is evident that this machine was brought to market - before there was sufficient testing. There is NO reason - when you spend this kind of $$$$ -- that we should be beta testers.

I wonder if the issue is with components provided by different suppliers. Dell purchases each component from multiple sources -- so maybe it is a quality control issue with one or more of them. I think this is why you see different part numbers for the exact same item in their catalogs when you go to purchase upgrades and accessories.

Guess so far I am pretty lucky

I rebuilt my Covet OS from scratch with Vista 64 and have not had any issues other than the graphics driver causing a BSOD twice.

Had a problems with one program - although based on the website - 64 bit is not specifically supported. (Nikon Capture NX2)

I just installed the 180.48 drivers - and so far its been rock solid. Time will tell. Will probably re-test the Capture NX2 to see if this change in driver helps.

No audio stuttering - and I do have the FIPS fingerprint reader.

No wireless issues - Intel 5300

Best wishes to you - on whatever direction you decide to go.