M6600 and M4600 are coming in Feb.

Really?

How about this one:
Runcore T50 6Gb/s 120GB EXCLUSIVE mSATA SSD Review - The Worlds First 6Gbps mSATA SSD Hits The Streets - The SSD Review

 

gents - just for those that are running Windows 8 and have the touchscreen - it appears NTrig have finally released the multi-touch drivers I've just installed them and about to test.

They can be downloaded from the NTrig website.

cheers

 

Just got my M6600 with N-trig screen.

I purchased this laptop for animation (2D and 3D purposes, storyboarding... etc)

I post this for others considering this laptop for the same purpose.

The digitizer operates very poorly in nearly every major art program. There are WinTab drivers in addition to their software package to make the digitizer more compatible, but are very limiting. ALSO there are 2 (x32 and an x64 bit) WinTab drivers and you cannot have both x64 and x32 drivers installed simultaneously; so if you work with x64 and x32 bit digitizer friendly programs... you're out of luck.

I use the following programs; I list the issues next to them

Photoshop CS5/6 x32 (does not work with N-Trig's 32bit or 64bit WinTab driver)
Photoshop CS5/6 x64 (inconsistent pressure detection x64 WinTab; none x32 WinTab)
Toon Boom *entire line (cannot detect tablet; no pressure sensitivity)
TVPaint (no pressure sensitivity)
Zbrush (will not start with x64 WinTab driver; Starts, but with no pressure with x32 WinTab driver)
Anime Studio Pro (no pressure sensitivity)
FlipBook6 (no pressure sensitivity)

Works with:
Sketchbook Pro

Unknown:
Maya (pressure used in smoothing and texture painting...etc)
Mudbox (never used it before, don't know)

It's a shame. If it wasn't for the digitizer, this would be the BEST animation station.

I was hoping to keep this and get rid of my Cintiq and HUGE desktop.... looks like I'm keeping both... darn DIGITIZER!!!!!

I wouldn't expect any difference if I upgraded to Windows 8...

3D Modeling performance is great using the Nvidia Quadro 3000m
Screen looks fantastic
I'll use this for my music station too, I'm sure the finger touch screen will be used in place of some external controllers and keyboard shortcuts... but still ERRRR!!!! !!!!!DIGITIZER!!!!! why N-Trig??? Wish so badly it was WACOM (I'm sure that would have added an extra 1500-3000 to the price though)

 

a few additional wishes would be faster adjustable Edge motion on the touchpad and... is there a way to keep the back-lighting on all the time?

There are no settings in the bios (that I found) and nothing in the pointer software (that I could see)

Did I over Look anything... is there a system perimeter that I could modify for the light time out, from 10seconds to 10minutes?

Thanks!

 

Try power options ->advanced settings

 

While the only program we seem to use in common is Photoshop my touch screen with pressure sensitivity works quite well. What version of the n-trig drivers are you using? Driver 4.6.5100.18 with Firmware version 9.12.2.39.16 from ntrig's website work much better for me than Dell's drivers (and it fixes that annoying wintab_dll.txt file creation issue.

You really haven't indicated anything that you've tried to resolve the issue so I would suggest that you run the Touch Tuning from the N-trig DuoSense Digitizer Settings if you haven't already done so. This is different that the calibration where you touch the screen.

EDIT - I'm using Win7 x64 with Photoshop CS5.1 x64

 

For the keyboard backlighting? I looked but couldn't find. Bios has the brightness settings, I would suppose it has timeout settings too, but it doesn't. Just yesterday I realized I'm on A06, and A09 is out.
I'll upgrade to see if there are any changes.

I got the drivers from N-Trig's site as well. Did the touch tuning as too (kept getting ghost touches, that fixed it). If I listed all the troubleshooting measures I took, that post would have been 4 times longer.

I appreciate you letting me know which versions you are using and that it can work.

Oh well, I plan on wiping the system and installing an mSATA drive in the next few weeks. Also as stated above, I found that I'm on the old version bios (A06 when A09 is available), that might have something to do with it.

Only versions of Photoshop I have in the studio are CS3, 5.5 and 6... I may have to find that version, just for this system.

notice how only the x64 Photoshop works with pressure and not the x32 (if you opted to install that version too). N-Trig's drivers only let you install one version (32bit or 64bit) of their WinTab drivers - Wacom's installer installs both for their systems ( with cintiq and intuos 1,2 & 3 drivers)

I messaged N-Trig to find if there is a way I can have both simultaneously installed due to working with both 64bit and 32bit programs, but have yet to receive a response.

this N-Trig screen also works flawlessly with:
Art Rage 2 and 3

I'll update this thread in a few weeks once I make the aforementioned changes. I hope the review will be more positive

 

Photoshop 5.1 is the version packaged with CS5.5. Didn't mean to cause confusion. It might just be that you have a bum touch screen or stylus (I'll assume you tried a fresh battery). I had to get the touch screen replaced on each of my m6600's at one point or another. I never had an issue with the pressure sensitivity, just the screen registering constant touches that the touch tuning couldn't resolve.

 

I hope I don't have to flip hardware around.. but that may be the case. I feel the following may only be corrected by using a different workstation.

Stress with the system has turned WAY up today. done with the cycle of art program tests, today was tests with my audio recording equipment. The second and equally important reason I purchased this laptop.

My external hardware is Firewire based; I'll summarize problems and troubleshooting.

Could not Daisy-Chain Firewire components (have multiple sound units that daisy-chain)

Soundcard>Soundcard>Hard Drive
Soundcard>Hard Drive
Soundcard>Soundcard
Hard Drive>Soundcard

Single Units would work with flaws

Hard drive seem to lose connection.
SoundCards drop connection (not just pops and clicks, full disconnect with zero sound)

Tried multiple firewire cables. Different, manufacturers and lengths; all high grade, shielded + 1 free that came with my hard drive.

Switched drivers from Windows 7's default, to the "(Legacy)" drivers... even random manufactures (which all operated the firewire port surprisingly), but with the same hardly functioning results.

I could get the soundcard to maintain the connection by using the PC as its clock-source. Daisy, Chaining still didn't work, clicks and pops persisted (both ASIO and WDM buffers were adjusted with no success).

Tried using external clock sources. didn't work

I attached an ExpressCard from 2 manufacturers
1st was a Dynex; which didn't work (I knew it wasn't going to work, was saving the best for last)
2nd was a 2 Port ExpressCard with a Texas Instruments Chipset.
I could get 2 daisy-chained sound cards to connect at 44.1khz, anything higher didn't work. Daisy chaining didn't work - tried EVERY combination from above with the same results.


So sad because I want this computer to work... I found a possible replacement If I have to go that route, similar specs, different manufacturer... just no touchscreen or mSATA.

 

Get an RME , end of story