M4800 Owner's Thread

Could anyone please suggest following for M4800 Ultrasharp FHD 1920x1080 screen (with AMD M5100)
1. Does it looks beautiful for movies OR has screen door effect?
2. Is the text with native DPi easy on eyes?

Thanks

 

1. Mine is OK for movies, and has no screen door effect. YMMV depending on what panel you get.

2. Yes. Nice and sharp.

 

I actually just replaced my M4800's stock 1080p matte screen with an aftermarket glossy 1080p panel I had purchased for my E6530. Works great. Total cost was about 75-100$ for the screen, and I was able to do the swap in about 30-60 minutes.

 

Just noticed on my windows installation on my primary SSD that I didn't notice my msata Sm841 drive. I restarted and the drive letter was missing. Then checked in the BIOS and noticed no label for the mSata ssd. I then took out the SSD and re seated no luck. Updated the BIOS, no luck. Any ideas? I have some VM's on there I dont want to lose

 

Hello folks,
My basic questions are two:
1. Should I buy the M4800 over the M6800 and why.
2. With prices coming within a couple hundred dollars of "business class" laptops, why not just buy a workstation laptop and have all its features and sturdy build, or have I completely missed a level of laptops ($1,000 to $1,500) that are just as sound and could fit my needs.

I need to pull the trigger on a laptop purchase in the next few days.
I've spent too many hours researching what to buy.

The workstation class is overkill for my needs, but I am considering the M4800 or M6800 for the following reasons,
1. Maximum connectivity offerings (second display for stock trading).
2. Expandability and ability to change out drives (to have more and to upgrade later).
3. Good strong keyboard that will be comfortable to type on three to four hours a day (my job is a college writing tutor so I am composing up to six 250-word letters a day and need good accurate tracking or mouse placement of cursor.)
4. Sturdy construction to last 7 or 8 years.
5. Latest i7 cpu with 6mb cache to optimize use of Dragon Voice Recog. Software because my hands and wrists are wearing out from Repetitive Stress.
6. Battery and weight are not important. Ultrabooks seem to be going in a different direction than where I want to stay: pure solid function and performance.

So, I turn 60 years of age this year and hope this will be my last serious computer and I want to make a good decision.

Can anyone out there help?

 

Just to follow up on the blue screens I was encountering since getting the machine, since I installed BIOS A09 on the 5th, I haven't had any new crashes. I'm not sure if it's related but that's by far the longest I've gone without a blue screen and I didn't make any other changes. I was previously crashing at least once per day.

 

Pros of M4800:

• it is portable
• it takes the same CPUs as the M6800
• Same screen resolution as the M6800, or ...
• even higher if you option the QHD screen (there be problems though)

Pros of M6800:

• it takes more powerful GPUs
• takes one more HD

Latitudes are good, solid business laptops, also with alloy chassis, but only have 1 cooling fan, not 2, and hence weakers GPUs, and a tendency to throttle under full load.

In terms of your wants / needs 1 ... 6, a Latitude will do most of those - except that you'll have a bit more mucking around installing a 2nd HDD (mSata + HDD). The Latitude 6540 has the same keyboard as the M4800 - but many people are unhappy with them, and their tendency to throttle (see the 6540 thread). The 6440 is better, but is 14" and only has a 1600x900 screen. A 7440 is also 14", but can be had with a FHD screen, and a 2nd drive can be installed with some mucking around (see the 7440 thread).


Aside: Dragon is not that CPU intensive.

 

To all of thinking about the FHD screen to your m4800. This is for you.

I bought the m4800 with the FHD screen because I wanted Optimus functionality. Also there are quite few programs that supports QHD resolution. With that said, if I´ve would have known what a crappy FHD screen Dell ships with the m4800 I would have gone for the QHD instead.

The FHD screen I got with my m4800 was the LP156WFC which is a LG screen. To get such a bad screen with a 32gb/512gb ssd/m4800 i7 spec. is just beyond. The colors where pale, the contrast really bad and viewing angels was a joke. After reading about the AUO b156hw01 v4 I finally found it here on Aliexpress.com. It was quite hard to find the exact panel since so many on Ebay sell "compatible" which is´nt the AUO panel. Anyhow, got it yesterday and it is so much better. Vivid colors, good contrast and the viewing angels are good. It´s not a IPS screen but compared to the FHD screen that Dell ships it´s significantly better. The whites on the AUO is actually white and not blueish white. Now I have a great screen AND Optimus,

It´s strange that Dell ships crappy screens with 3000$+ laptops but it you want Optimus functionality there is not much you can do. The QHD screen wont support Optimus ever.

Replacing the screen was really easy, took around 15 min. One screwdriver. Found this guy doing the same thing on youtube. It´s on a m4700 but it´s just the same on a m4800. How to replace the LCD screen on your Dell Precision M4700 - YouTube

 

M4800 and a external monitor if you need more screen. It's a laptop, I always laugh when I see people lugging around 10pound 17 inchers

 

Just purchased an M4800 with QHD screen. I have a WWAN card that I will be porting over to the new machine, so unfortunately it looks like I lose use of the mSATA slot.

Does anyone know the specifics of the "1/2 MC (PP)" slot? Is it a standard minipcie slot with USB? If so, I am going to fab up some minipcie cards with female USB-A connectors so I can place my logitech wireless dongle inside of the machine. Does anyone know if this will work? And yes, I am well aware minipcie only provides 3.3v to USB. the card I am creating has a 3.3-5v step up converter.