M6400 Reviews (post here)

1. It a disadvantage of the technology, when you hear the slot-in of the XPS 1530M or other consumer books, the M6400's drive sounds normal to quiet. When you're not common with the sound it's really some kind of supprising.
2. The adapter can be ordered with the system for about 15$, it's a fair deal.
3. The option is preinstalled with every M6400! It's a feature you get even without order it. Just like the trackpoint.

4. Every dedicated graficcard can use their dedicated memory + the system Memory.
5. This depends on the driver you have installed for your quadro fx. From 800x600 to 2560x1600 everything is possible.
6. The docking stations for the E-Series + Precision Notebooks are all the same. You just need to be shure to get the 210W power supply with the docking station.
7. DDR3 SO-Dimm

You get all information in the broschure: klick

or in the manual: klick

They don't print the manual for enviroment safing puposes for their business line (a company orders 20 systems, 1 admin sets up and looks for all systems), but you're right, they should give a note about the downloads.

 

Intoxicate,

1. No, There are many notebook slot loads much quieter than the m6400 cookie monster (or maybe its poor isolation of the loader mechanism from the m6400 chassis).

2. Correct. And the display port adapter *should* be standard. Shoot, companies used to giving away HDMI dongles left and right. (What is the $15 Dell part# for DP adapter? I'm having a heck of time finding it).

3. Exactly what is the feature called? How do I make use of this feature? No, this information is not readily available because there is, in fact, no user manual for this product (and in particular this feature). (brochure + quick start + service manual <> user manual) From the brochure: "Integrated Smart Card reader, Contactless Smart Card reader (optional)" are these the same? So it's installed? Where's the software? Is the "option" just software that makes the hardware work? In reality, I could just do with out the extra weight and confusing logo that has to be explained to anyone using or looking at my laptop for the first time.

4. 500MB of system memory is not available to a Precision M6400 configured with Quadro FX 3700.
Example: (I've done this)
1GB installed = 500MB available to system.
4GB installed = 3.5GB available to the system.
Conclusion: 500MB of the system memory is "dedicated" to the graphics card. Despite the fine print, it makes the following quote from the brochure sound a little misleading: "NVIDIA® Quadro™ FX 2700M 512MB dedicated memory, or NVIDIA® Quadro™ FX 3700M 1GB dedicated memory"

5. Ok, Say I have a Quadro FX 2700M. What's the max resolution out the display port? Can you tell me? My point is: the documentation is *poor*. This is data helpful for making purchasing decisions.

6. Ok. Still haven't answered the question. What is the mating docking port product number(s)? I understand if you don't want to look it up, Dell's website can be a real pain to find anything specific.

 

erichtg

Ejsy s fovl

 

Intox and Evil + rep to both of you we appreciate the pictures

 

I recently acquired a used M6400 from a seller on eBay for a very reasonable price. It's not a covet, but this unit is decked out very nicely. I've got the following options:

• Intel Core 2 Duo X9100 (3.06GHz, 6M L2 Cache, 1067MHZ) Dual Core X928C
• 17" UltraSharp WUXGA (1920x1200) LCD Display FR879
• Integrated 2.0 MP webcam with dual digital array microphone TX613
• 4.0GB, DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM, 2 DIMMS H299F
• 320GB Hard Drive, 7200RPM with Free Fall Sensor (Seagate Casey) N530F
• 8X DVD+/-RW Slot Load w/Roxio and Cyberlink PowerDVD T532C
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M, 1.0GB Discrete D949K
• 9 Cell Battery G102C
• Internal English Backlit Keyboard F759C
• Intel Wireless 5100 802.11 a/g/n 1x2 Mini-Card M038C
• Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module P889G
• 210W 3P, A/C Adapter D846D
• USB Modem NW147
• No Fingerprint Reader

Build
Upon unboxing this unit and examining it, I was thoroughly impressed with the build quality... it's very sturdily constructed and aesthetically pleasing, in my opinion... the construction is such that you don't see a single screw anywhere on the outside, and yet if you need to get into the unit to add ram, or a hard drive or something, it's dead simple, requiring only a couple of screws. I rather love the build of this thing. There's even two easy-to-access slots for additional RAM modules, aside from the two installed under the keyboard. Also, the second hard drive bay includes the drive cage, port adapter, and screws already in the bay. I couldn't believe it when I saw that - I think that's extremely considerate and generous of Dell to offer that, rather than to try and force you to buy the stupid parts from them for a 500% markup. Absolutely wonderfully executed. There appears to also be space for a Wireless WAN card, and something else which I can't identify... does anyone know what that extra hole on the inside is reserved for?

Input Devices
The keyboard on this thing really shines (in so many ways) - it bloody rocks my world. Probably one of the best laptop keyboards I've ever used, with a darn near perfect layout. Some complain that it flexes, which it does, slightly, but it doesn't bug me at all... it's quite comfy to type on. Love the number pad, and the backlights - which are a little bright, because I haven't yet found the utility that allows you to change that. (Maybe this utility isn't available for Vista64 yet?)

I do find it a bit annoying how the keyboard lights keep turning themselves off if you don't type anything for a minute or too - I'd rather have them dim a bit or something - does anyone know if this behaviour can be changed?

Where do I get the utility to control key brightness and do osds for built in functions? Is this not available for Vista64?

Oddly, they lit up the keyboard, and (when used as jog) the touchpad. It'd be nice to have the touchpad buttons backlit too, because due to it being a little off center, and because of the inclusion of a (sometimes handy) middle button, I find I often hit the middle button thinking that it's either the right or left button. It'd be nice to have them lit up so that I could see which was which more readily.
Also, it'd have been really nice to have the volume control keys illuminated. As a matter of fact, you can see that there are lights right behind these buttons, and yet they don't make them translucent so that they light up.... also, why hasn't Dell included your standard pause/play next/previous track buttons. They are on almost all their other laptops (and ironically, on most of their laptops these are the ONLY keys that illuminate.) That's a slightly sad exclusion, I think, but I can work around it thanks to all the extra buttons you get with the numeric keypad.


I love the jog functionality - it's a neat add on. One thing though, is that you'd expect that since the jog disables your ability to control the mouse with the touchpad, that you'd be able to use the pointing stick to do this while using the jog controls.

Well... you can, except that for some reason, all the pad mouse buttons get disabled - even the ones for the pointing stick. A bizarre feature, and one that I hope gets fixed. But thanks to misterbk, I now know that you can tap the pointing stick to click and drag, which I totally would never have thought of unless I discovered it by accident. (By the way, you can and should reduce the sensitivity of the pointing stick tap with Dell's drivers if you do lots of typing, because your fingers WILL hit that thing by accident and it will drive you bonkers if it keeps clicking your mouse all the time and sending your cursor to odd spots.)

To toggle the jog on, there's a little dot at the bottom left of the pad you tap quickly. Many HP laptops have a hardware switch to turn off the touchpad, it'd have been great to have this kind of a button to toggle the touchpad mode, rather than having to find an area on the touchpad and tap it just right to toggle this - I find it often takes a couple of attempts to switch modes.

Display
A problem that the seller on ebay notified me of was that my screen tends to show green colors a bit yellowishly, but personally I don't find it anoying enough to warrant upgrading to an LED screen or anything like that... I got the resolution that I wanted, and that's mainly what I came for! I was told that perhapd this screen is defective - things look normal on an external monitor... but other than some greens being a bit off, the display looks wonderful. The finish of the screen surface isn't really matte antiglare, but it's not shiny and reflective so that I can do my hair while I wait for windows to boot either - I think Dell has actually managed to find a nice happy medium with the satin finish that the screen has. It's almost a tad glossy, but not annoyingly reflective. Nice job on that one, Dell!

Audio
Dedicated Headphone Audio interface, which can be handy for using telephony software and the like. The default behaviour of the main audio interface is to route audio through the speaker, and then switch to headphones if headphones get plugged in. *However* if something then gets played through the dedicated headphone audio interface, the sound will get routed through the main speakers.

Does this make sense? I can use my DJ software, for example, and have the main audio go through the speakers, and have a secondary interface for my headphones, which is pretty neat... I might be able to use this in a pinch in the case of a failure of a real pro audio interface, but mainly it's handy for practicing and demoing stuff or the like. I think the real application of this would be for using a softphone or skype or the like, then you get your headphones for hearing the caller on the other end, and your main speakers can act as a ringer and such.

The speakers sound alright for a laptop. For the sheer size of this thing, I suppose one could expect that they'd sound really great, but they are merely acceptable. I can certainly enjoy music being played on these, and they definitely go loud enough to fill a good size room with sound, so no complaints in that department. They are probably much better than most laptop speakers I've heard anytime recently.


Ports
One of the main reasons I bought this particular laptop, and not another, is that it has an incredibly diverse array of ports that allow you to connect almost anything you'd ever want.
You get:

• A 6-pin POWERED Firewire (IEEE 1394a) port, which is great for those needing to power an audio interface or such.
• Four USB 2 ports, one of which also doubles as
• An e-SATA connector for high speed disk drives
• A smartcard reader, legacy PCMCIA slot AND
• A full size expresscard slot
• Apparently there's an RFID card reader, although I'm not sure if that's installed or if there's just a spot for a module to install.
• A Multi card reader that does memory stick, SD, XD, and related formats.
• Microphone jack and headphone jack - both have dedicated audio interfaces so they can be used independently of the built in speakers and microphones.
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Although a modem isn't built in (if you even care), Dell is nice enough to include a very svelte USB modem in the package, for the odd scenario when you may need that feature.
• For your viewing pleasure you get an old fashioned VGA port
• and a fancy new DisplayPort.

The DisplayPort is probably going to become the standard for computer (and maybe even television) displays in the next few years. It's possible to get an adapter to use it with HDMI and DVI connections, although I haven't tested this yet. Displayport is really cool as an emerging open standard, but it does feel a bit bleeding edge right now, since barely any displays are available for it at this time. I think it would have only been fair to include an HDMI adapter in the package, frankly.

Power/Battery
Battery Life is about 2.5 hours from my experience, but that's not a real important feature to me, so I don't do anything special to conserve battery life. I didn't expect miracles from this behemoth monster, especially after seeing that crazy power brick.

The huge power brick that this thing comes with is quite something, but one thing I do like about it is that it takes standard power cords that everyone probably has lying all over the place. So much of the time, if you transport your machine between a few locations, you can just keep extra cords handy there, and unplug the cord from the laptop. That makes the brick much easier to pack up, because you don't have to contend with the extra few inches that the power cord adds to the already nutty length.

Optical Drive
I've got the slot load optical drive. I wouldn't have paid for this option if I were customizing the build for myself, but it's a neat feature. Does it have advantages over a regular tray? I dunno... it's just cool and doesn't pop out the side. I suppose conceivably, there's less chance of it getting damaged when it pops out at an inopportune time, and it's a little bit slick.

The thing that took me a couple of tries to figure out was that you have to insert the discs with a very slightly "upward" slant, or else they don't get sucked in. By default, someone would probably try to insert a disc with more of a downward slant, and I was so frustrated with this before I figured it out, that I tried inserting a disc, and it wouldn't take. So I pushed a bit harder. Then I got mad and said - "SUCK IT B*TCH" and shoved the disc into the drive with a great deal of force.

Well... that was a little embarrassing because after that I had no way of getting the disc out. I ended up taking the battery out, and removing a single screw from a tab that holds the drive in, at which point I was able to remove the drive, and give it a good couple of shakes until I could pull the disc out. So at least I didn't break anything permanently

That slot load drive sure does make its fair share of odd squeaky grinding noises and it sounds rather unpleasant, but whatever... it's not like I'm using optical discs all day. It works fine. (Once you figure out how to insert discs).

Conclusion
All in all, I'm really impressed with this machine. There is no way on earth I would have paid what Dell would have wanted for a machine with these options, but since I got a sweet deal by buying a very slightly used machine, I'm thrilled. It's pretty much everything I have ever wanted in a laptop (within reason in this decade).
My complaints are minor, such as a lack of illuminated media control keys, lack of backlit touchpad buttons, and the failure to include a DisplayPort adapter standard. It's not a readily totable machine with its high weight and possibly record breaking construction brick style power box, but that's not something you could expect when you get this kind of power and capability.

I hope that the high points of this machine, such as its great backlit keyboard and wide selction of ports set the standard for notebooks in this class from other manufacturers.

 

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

That is basically saying that this notebook is a fail; as you dont feel that the manufacturers price is worth the laptop.

BTW, if I may ask, how much did you get the laptop for ? Any warranty on it ?

 

No, I certainly wouldn't call this laptop a failure - but I do consider it overpriced when decked out with all the options. For some people for whom price is no object though, perhaps that's fine, but I'm far from rich, so I couldn't have afforded a $4,700 machine.

I got mine for a bit less than the price of the base model M6400 because the seller was unhappy with the color reproduction on the screen, so I'm happy because I think I got a great laptop for the money I paid. Unfortunately, I was told that there's no warranty on it. I know that Dell should allow ownership transfer, but since he also got it from an eBay vendor, he didn't have that handled, and it makes it all crappiness.

I suppopse if something awful happened to the laptop which required warranty, then I'd have to try to figure out who the original owner is, and get that dealt with.

 

You can check the warranty status of the laptop online ...

 

According to the Dell support status, there should be all kinds of warranty on it for the next three years!

What does the process for ownership transfer involve?

[edit]
I found an automatic ownership transfer form, but even though the seller I purchased it from was also located in Canada, the laptop was apparently originally purchased in the USA. Thus, I need to use an international tag transfer request form.... This could be a fun process to get it transferred, but hopefully I can get the seller to cooperate on this.
[/edit]

 

I think you may be able to get the warranty transferred without knowing the details of the original buyer, provided you do it online on the laptop for wchich the warranty is being transferred for.