M4700 Owners Thread

It is now mid November and the restriction has not been lifted on the Dell France website; I checked and it is the same on the Dell US site as well.

Worse - the Dell France site has an error (the description of the IPS screen has been translated, but the wrong SKU was added). So if you know about the strange fingerprint/smartcard reader trick and manage to order an IPS screen in France, you get the TN screen instead!.

My M4700 arrived today, with the wrong screen, and is going back.

Compare the descriptions (which match, for those who don't read French) and the part numbers which are obviously different.

Ecran LCD:
Écran Full HD UltraSharp™ 39,6 cm (15,6") (1 920 x 1 080) avec grand angle de vue, technologie antireflet et rétroéclairage par LED, garantie Premium sur les écrans plats 513829 1
[230-12575] 760

vs.
LCDs:
15.6" UltraSharp™ FHD (1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare, Premium Panel Guarantee, USH FHDU 1 [320-3709] 10

 

Definitely very odd. It's obviously saying the same thing and I just checked the part list and my screen says: 15.6" UltraSharp FHD (1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare, Premium Panel Guarantee, Mobile Precision M4700 [318-2685] for what I think is probably also the same screen. I was thinking that the one that I ordered was the regular TN panel so I'd be somewhat startled if mine turns up and it is IPS.

It is very strange that all three screens have different part numbers even if they have the same description (Dell's part look-up is seemingly useless for this kind of thing).

However, on the page for the m6700 it explicitly states that one of them is an IPS display: 17.3" UltraSharp™ FHD (1920x1080) Premier Color IPS RGB Anti-Glare, Premium Panel Guarantee so maybe you did get what you ordered?

 

Dell in the US uses different SKU coded compared to Europe.
You also must note that the SKU codes for certain components change, depending on whether it's a FP-smartcard base or not, and some component SKU codes (like the webcam/microphone array) also change depending on the screen type.


Now I've had a replacement approved by Dell, and was supposed to get the M4700 with IPS screen, but that screen wasn't, and still isn't available. I've waited at least a month in the hope that the IPS screen would come available, but no luck with that. Since I didn't accept the TN screen on the M4700, even though I didn't want the 17.3" sized M6700, I went with the M6700, because it at least had the IPS screen.
I must say, in the US the IPS screen actually was available to order for some months, but not configurable on the Dell website, but I believe that option has been made inactive at Dell US as well about a month ago.

Now in those months I've done allot of research, also trying to get the correct SKU codes for the IPS screen on the M4700, which I actually managed to do.
The person at Dell notified me that the code IPS screen is set to inactive, and so, cannot be applied to a configuration, but I requested to have the M4700 IPS SKU-code anyway, just in case, so I would know if it's correct, if it would become available.


The SKU-code for the FHD TN LCD screen in the US with Windows 7:
with no USH base is 320-3708
with FP-smartcard base is 320-3709
The SKU-code for the FHD TN LCD screen in the US with Windows 8:
with no USH base is 318-2685
with FP-smartcard base is 318-2672

I haven't been able to get the SKU-code(s) of the IPS in the US.


The SKU-code for the FHD TN LCD screen at least in Europe, all configurations is 230-12575
The SKU-code for the FHD IPS screen at least in Europe, all configurations is 230-12574 (inactive & not configurable by anyone)

 

Hello all,

I had hoped the IPS screen would become available again but since I work in front of external monitors, it is not that tragic and I ordered a M4700 with the 750 GB harddrive and a i7 3820QM.
No I was wondering if I can also install a 128GB SSD Mini Card and use this SSD as the system partition. Any experience with that?

I was thinking about the one from crucial Amazon.com: Crucial 128GB m4 mSATA Internal Solid State Drive (CT128M4SSD3): Computers & Accessories
For Ram, I would like to get 32 GB : Crucial or corsair

However, I am now wondering whether I should go for 1866 Mhz Ram because the M4700 owner's manual states:

Type DDR3
Speed 1600 MHz and 1866 MHz
Connectors
• Intel Core i5 and i7 Dual Core processors — two DIMM slots
• Intel Core i7 Quad Core and i7 Quad Extreme processors —
four DIMM slots
Capacity 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, and 8 GB
Minimum Memory 2 GB
Maximum memory
• Intel Core i5 and i7 Dual Core processors — 16 GB
• Intel Core i7 Quad Core and i7 Quad Extreme processors —
32 GB
Does anybody have any experience with either of these parts in a M4700? Or is there anything else you recommend instead? What should I pay attention to?



Thanks in advance

 

I get this SSD Amazon.com: SAMSUNG 830 Series 2.5-Inch 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-7PC256B/WW: Computers & Accessories

And 4 x 8 kingston 1600 mhz, i think that exist a limitation with 1866 mhz Ram to 16 gb.

I think that the setup ith 32 gb is only available with 1600 mhz memory.

 

Thanks elzuma,

I wanted a micro card SSD, not a 2.5 ", so I decided to get the crucial one.

In regard to the RAM, you are right. http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/precn/en/dell_precision_m4700_spec_sheet.pdf claim you can use 32 GB at 1600 Mhz and 16 GB at 1800 Mhz.

However, according to dell technical support, this is only true with the discontinued IPS Panel.
The FHD WLED Panel allows only 4x2 GB = 8GB at 1866 Mhz.

I will go for 4 x 8 GB at 1600 Mhz then.

 

All the other SKU seemed to be the same.

Yes, but both builds had the same selections there.

I'm hoping that isn't my only option, just because of the weight. I'm tired of lugging around my ancient M90, which is also a 17" Precision.

Yay. That is what I need to know.
'Inactive' just means you can't select it on the website. In my case it is being ordered through a Dell representative who deals with large companies, so knowing the SKU is enough.

 

So quick poll

Which GPU would people get the M4000 or K2000

 

It really depends what you want to do. For gaming, the M4000, for CAD or for longer battery runtime, the K2000M.

 

I went with the K2000 myself, because, well... CAD. (And battery life. And I'm prejudiced against AMD. ¯\(°_°)/¯)

Status page says it's supposed to be delivered tomorrow!