M4800 Owner's Thread

Depends on which screen you have.

 

Say with the 1080

 

My M4800 (1080p display) lasts for about 3.5 hours on battery with light usage. This is with Optimus enabled, screen at full brightness, "Balanced" power setting, and no other particular effort to extend the battery life.

 

Hmm I guess that is the price you pay for power

 

I have a Dell Precision M4800 with a FHD Matte display but I don't know whether or not its an IPS panel or not. Here is the part number from the support web site based on the laptop's service tag.

DC9YJ 12 LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY, 15.6FHD, WLED, AG, LEGEND

Can anybody tell me whether or not this panel is an IPS panel. Also is it a wide gamut or wide view display or not. Your prompt replies will be appreciated.

 

Mine says 3874Y 1 LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY, 15.6FHD, IN PLANE SWITCHING, EDP1.3, AG, LEGEND. Yours is not IPS I'm guessing.

I have noticed that with Optimus enabled the Intel GPU doesn't output true 32 bit colour which leads to dithering that I find very distracting.

 

I"m thinking of upgrading the display panel on my Dell Precision M4800 to an IPS display from the current Non-IPS display. I've been looking at the LG LP156WF6 SP B1 and the AU Optronics b156han01 .1 does anybody have any opinions on which one is better as far as image quality etc. Your prompt replies will be appreciate

 

Guys, honestly as far as I am thinking and knowing. this model of precision is not worth spending on in terms of time. I pushed for refund thinking to get new one and maybe get better but when I got my cash back in my account I thought again and understood that this NSA bug riddled machine was designed for windows 7 and even with windows 7 it has so many bugs to iron out every day! that it makes it rather an expansive TOY not workstation.

also for your information there are 3 categories of the same m4800 with SAME specs out there.

1. one that passed QC 100/100 and uses all samsung chips. works well for a year then requires support which instead of fixing it the first time does it in 3 rounds. (I am by far not the only one who had this game played out on me by Dell)
2. second class machines are those that have (lack of the components excuse) they may have had non critical failings, use Hynix instead of Samsung chips in GPUS which are slightly less powerful due to variables in such components (which are natural) read here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning (use GPUz https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/ and check)
3. and finally refurbs that failed and had a 1,2 parts replaced and went into second tier cycle.

I took images, ran tests determined hackability of this machine. some quick thoughts (don't use UEFI unless you are on secure networks etc there is a bug that can lock you out into PXE not found message and you wont be able to do anything but swap or have to re flash NIc which isn't what you can do http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19577102)

don't think that future is behind portable workstations anymore. save your cash and move on to other platforms. (this is my personal opinion I admit I'am wrong because I can only be right for myself)

can post images of GPU chips so you can see it, but I believe that those who know what I am talking about don't need any image proof.

wanted to like it but, buggy performance of this unit lets down good idia behind modularity and terrific engineering apart from components semi compatibility, lack of optimus, ect ect)

I give idea of design 9 out of 10 (wish it had glass to protect display) (m3800 is... btw)
4 out of 10 to matching of hardware which resulted in numerous issues.
and I would give 0 out of 10! to next business day repair promise. They do come to fix it sometimes even next day! (with garage size screwdrivers), but they make sure they comeback to finish what they started several times.

after years with laptops I sign off especially... in the light of windows10, that is buggy for a reason

I am sure you have not been bribed By dell to think otherwise!

 

Wait what?

All of this seems completely without any references? I followed your link about the UEFI BIOS - no one on that thread has this model of laptop, so what on Earth are you going on about?

FWIW, my machine has been solid.

Also, Hynix and Samsung are two different companies - what does binning have to do with anything in that context?

 

He seems to be implying that they are using different GPU memory based on the bin of the GPU itself.. that is nVidia making those chips and they are not just in this workstation. If you don't like it just put in a firepro. There have been several hardware revisions to this notebook since it came out including CPUs (4x00Mx vs 4x10Mx) displays (1800p -> 2160p) and those are just the most obvious. It is therefore simply not possible to make generalisations such as he is making.

On that I do agree, for large companies virtualisation is where it's at since you can have supercomputer class performance in a 13" netbook that way. But for small companies or those without reliable network connections this is still the only way to travel with a workstation, to say nothing of the engineering student or self-employed power user.

You had a bad experience, and I feel for you, but here you're implying that we're all lying to sell Dells ... what a dick move.