M4800 Owner's Thread

Just want to update that Dell tech support told me today that the M4800 will not support Optimus with K2100m and QHD+. As a result I will probably be returning my system on Friday, as my return period expires next week. I will give them a couple more days to hopefully get things straight and make sure this is definitive. Very disappointing for me considering M4700 had Optimus and W5x0 series for the past few generations has gotten close to 10 hours on battery with just 1 battery (light use). I can only get 4 hours light use, and I enjoy pretty much everything else about the system (other than the broken wifi also).

One thing I want to say about the M4800 that hasn't been said before. The cooling system is the best I have ever used on a laptop. Under regular use you will not hear the fans, and while the warmest part is the center of the base, it is still very cool. The fans are only loud (jet-engine mode) when the system is under heavy CPU and GPU use; heavy use of either by itself doesn't result in that much more noise. Even with the CPU and GPU at 100% we haven't even reached the maximum potential of the cooling, as when the fans go full blast during a BIOS update, they are still louder. This means you have flexibility in the temperature of your working environment and room for overclocking.

Keyboard is also very good. Coming from MacBook keyboards for a while I had forgotten what it felt like to use a proper keyboard. Even after a few days the cramping I get from the Mac keyboard was gone. Too bad it isn't centered.

I'm looking more towards W540 now, but I am sure the build will be worse, it will be more expensive, and there will probably not be 2 fans. But I am sure it will have better battery life.

 

RAM-wise, I just installed two of these this morning, and they are working great: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model CT2KIT51264BF160B. I ordered the machine w/ 8GB, and Dell installed it under the keyboard, meaning it was a matter of taking out the battery and removing two screws to get at the free slots in the base.

That's not great news about the Optimus, but I personally think I will keep the machine, as battery life is not a critical concern for me. I definitely agree that the fans/cooling on this machine are great. On the balanced power plan and under general web browsing, I barely hear them. The old Optiplex i7 desktop I have is about 5x louder from 5 feet away.

 

I hope the support agent is lying, as obviously YMMV with all of them. I still can't think of any reason why it can't have Optimus, even the M6800 has it. I don't want to part with the great deal (in my opinion) that I got.

 

Me too. I sent a message to a support rep today asking if a BIOS update might enable Optimus. I will let you know what I hear.

 

That would be a strange statement, the M3800 with QHD+ and K1100 support Optimus. A member of the forum M3800 group have/had a pre production sample and confirm this working feature.

Gesendet von meinen LG G2 mit Tapatalk Pro

 

One more update. The support agent called me back and said that engineering tested a few M4800 systems, all with K2100m and some with QHD+ and some with FHD. Optimus works on FHD models but does not work on QHD+ models. As of right now they are not planning on releasing any type of update to enable Optimus for QHD+ (even though M3800 and XPS 15 both support it, but apparently those systems run on a different BIOS type). alexhawker hopefully you can come up with some contradicting news!

 

Current m4800 owners - can you tell if the eSata port on the back is 3GB/s or 6GB/s? Thanks!

 

Has anybody with a QHD+ display managed to replace the Dell Wireless 1601 with a 1550 or Intel Centrino Advanced-AC 7260 card?

Dell refuses to configure anything but the 1601, but I'm not the least interested in WiGig. I need proper Bluetooth 4.0 and want 802.11ac.....

I'd be willing to to buy the machine with the 1601 card and replace it myself, but I need to know if the necessary antennas (2.4 & 5 GHz) are available alongside the ones for the broadband card (which it seems I also have to add myself).

 

I was able to configure my machine with the 7260. I talked to my rep. No issues.

 

M4600/M6600 and M4700/M6700 (non-covet) have always come with the full set of antennas regardless of the configuration ordered. I'd expect the same to be true for M4800/M6800 (but it'd be nice to have confirmation).