M6800 Owners' Thread

Yep, you're essentially right, although I don't see why the presence of the docking port is important if you plan to use it mostly when not at home.

Also mind the large footprint and weight if portability is an important factor...

 

I plan on installing it before I boot up for the first time. It's coming with 2 - 2.5 SSD's already.
Is this the correct way?
Will I have to format it before it’s recognized?

 

I'm in the US, and kitted out the way I'd want, it's just shy of 2000. The other laptop I was considering is the asus G75, which is a "gaming" machine. However, the best you can get for this price range is the 770m, and the firepro m6100 is about the same to about 5% faster than the geforce card, so it seems like I'm not giving up a whole lot in terms of performance. Additionally, by the time you factor in the 3 years of warranty vs the 1 year, the ~250 dollar price difference pretty much negates itself.

Asus also uses several panel vendors, so you run the same risk there with them. I know dell support isn't the best thing in the world, and I'm seriously considering trying the ProSupport to see if that's any better. However, it can't be worse than the sager laptop I've had for the last few years. This one has also been through several motherboards, a couple GPU's, had to have the chassis replaced, and the monitor was replaced once due to bright spots, and they are back now but they refuse to replace it again because somehow that's my fault. I'm no stranger to warranty issues, and at least with dell eventually someone comes to your house to replace stuff. With the laptop I have now, every time something goes wrong, you have to ship it (on your own dime) back to California so they can fix it, which takes 2 weeks at a minimum. Being without your computer for that long sucks.

I've always had 17" laptops, and I feel like the size and weight trade off is worth it for the extra screen space. It also seems like the battery life on these units is much better than the 2 hour max I got when my current laptop was brand new, which is a plus as well.

 

Basically, this machine will become what I use day in and day out, at home and away from home so long as I'm not gaming or doing something where I need the beefier GPU. So being able to dock it and get dual (triple with the internal) monitors, as well as a keyboard, mouse, and charging would be nice.

 

Here are just a few things to add to the above comments.
Price per performance the Dell is a little expensive. Yes it is built well and has a decent form factor for the size of laptop it is. But as they mentioned you are paying for the extra things that may not be relevant to what you are using the computer for.

As far as what was mentioned above as warranty problems, I have heard such things.
While it is true that dell offers 3 year warranty, they generally change many components between each generation of computer. So when they replace parts after 1 year, you tend to get refurbished, used, or similar parts not new parts. If they replace the unit altogether, chances are it will have cosmetic defects of some sort, (ie dents, scratches, small bent edges)

Asus is a decent gaming company and put out generally good products. But as you mentioned you are somewhat limited as to what you can upgrade. They also tend to be more expensive and huge in size and weight.
Side note: the difference that you mention in the performance between the GPU's is not very significant in real world results; there can be more of a difference in between different games from the two card manufacturers than the 5% on paper.

Sager/Clevo models are generally the best price per performance, most of the resellers here are good to work with, and as far as upgrading, they are probably the easiest to work with. One panel with 4 screws (depending on the exact model) and you have access to the RAM, CPU, GPU, and sometimes the HDD.
They can also be had as plain models, with no extravagant looks.

You can find lightly used models with 680m (which is superior to 770m and has much better overclocking potential to reach above a stock 780m) for around $1300 or so.

As for your negative experience with them, I cannot comment. This could happen with almost any company, and I have never had any real issues with them (I have owned 6 of their units)


If you want to go dell, I would suggest Ebay, as many units are sold their with new warranty for much cheaper than you could configure them for.

The Dell precision series has a lot more screws to access the CPU and GPU, several times more. You also have to pull apart the entire top and bottom of the computer to gain access. There is a good video on M6500 disassembly on youtube, aside from removing the screen (which is not necessary for the m6800) it gives a good idea as to what all is involved. But once you have done it a few times, it does not take long.

They are also more limited in the upgrades that they can take unless you can flash bios and other things. Dell machines do not support every card out there, although they are better than some other manufacturers. The screen options should be about the same, as this is a user upgradeable part.
Also if you do plan on upgrading, keep in mind the effect that it may have on the warranty.


The most enduring factor it seems that you are looking for is the dock. There are other generic docking options available for most laptops. But if you are planning on gaming with a dock, check to see if the latency would make it better just to connect to the monitor directly.

Just giving you things to think about. And this is only looking at price, performance, and convenience, obviously there are other factors that are more important to you personally that we don't account for. But in any case I don't think you will be disappointed. I have owned several Dell and Clevo, and 2 Asus in this class at different times each has some quirks but if you can fix them or work around them they are all good machines.

 

There are a ton of screws but the good thing is that most of the usual stuff (other than the CPU and GPU) isn't that hard to access. The secondary memory slots are not that nice as you have to remove the keyboard but most of the other stuff is quite easy to access by removing the bottom panel, which actually only has a couple of screws. But if you need to completely disassemble it, it definitely seems to take quite long even if you have a lot of experience on such tasks. I know, because I have watched Dell support people using 3-4 hours to do that on several occasions.

 

My 2c on other people's 2c:

The Dell (and HP) 17" WS are not that different in size / weight from other 17" gaming notebooks. Same ballpark, much better construction.

Compared with Clevo and MSI, the Precision line is indeed more difficult to upgrade - but only if the CPU and GPU are involved. As far as the rest of the hw is concerned, it's easier to upgrade or clean the fans / heatsinks (fewer screws).

Even so, the disassembly is not terribly complex (I've done that a dozen times). I'd say 20-25 minutes to get to the CPU / GPU once you're comfortably familiar with the layout (Dell manuals will give you a step-by-step); perhaps 40-45 min. on first try. And less than that to put it all back.

Screen options are not that different (unless you go HP and Dreamcolor). Same Chi Mei (CMO1720), AUO (B173HW01) and LG (LP173WF1) screens, essentially, on Dell, Asus, Clevo MSI - and these are the better options, in fact.

The blacklisted / whitelisted components may be a problem if you want to upgrade the GPU (not on HP's WS, though) or the wifi and wlan cards, but that's essentially it.

Third-party docking is not docking proper but a port replicator (essentially, one of the notebook's USB ports is "replicated" into several ports - USB, DVI etc., all of which depend on the bandwidth of the original source).

 

I'm not an owner yet also, but I think this is the most active place to get an answer to my question, I have read Dell Precision M6800 Mobile Workstation where it is specified that special features and standout performance in M6800 Covet Edition, I don't see any difference between base model and covet (LCD options) in the configuration page except the cover color. I want to know is there any advantages with the Covet edition and worth almost 40 days delay?

I'm sorry if this is not the appropriate place to post this question, but I would very much appreciate helping me because I waited this machine to be fully configurable almost 9 months

 

Even though when I configured mine on the 6th of Feb it showed April 10th delivery, I received it yesterday....

 

I use a mouse and cannot seem to get my Dell Touchpad to stay turned off. When I restart the laptop it turns back on. There is no "disable" in the Device Manager.

Any ideas?