M6800 Owners' Thread

I believe the question here is whether that touchscreen is a digitizer, not if you could use a pen to operate it. A digitizer has vastly better accuracy, and typically supports additional functionality (such as pressure sensitivity) than a primitive touchscreen. I believe the M6800 is not offered with a digitizer. Some of the older models (M6600?, M6700?) could be ordered with a digitizer.

Overall, when I look at the M6800, all I see is Dell going backwards. With the exception of faster CPU and GPU, previous models offered better features in a number of areas. Heck, I am looking at my trusty old M6400 here, and I wonder why the heck I would want to "upgrade". Yeah, CPU is a bit faster, GPU is a lot faster, but other than that my four-year-old M6400 Covet is a much, much better machine. So, here I am, sitting on my money, deciding I am really not interested in buying another Dell. And then the PC industry wonders why their sales are tanking. Offer me a super-bright, 17" 16:10 IPS screen, and I'd order one, at any price. Make the thing thinner and lighter. Do something. The stuff that's being offered now? A design that is essentially unchanged for half a decade? Meh...

 

The M6800 is not offered with an IPS panel. The 10bit interface requires a separate port on the motherboard to bypass the CPU HD graphics chip. I don't recall seeing a separate port on the motherboard of the m6800, so I do not think it is compatible at all.

One of the other owners that received the touch screen should be able to comment on whether it has the digitizer or just a touch screen.

 

My assumption is that Dell doesn't care much about the large Precisions. The new M3800 is where Dell sees workstations headed. Thin, light, high res screen and weak enough to need upgrading in two years.

Flown in by carrier pigeon.

 

Well I just ordered mine.

8GB (2x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3L
Internal English Backlit Dual Pointing Keyboard
AMD FirePro M6100 w/2GB GDDR5 (I didn't need it for professional work, and this performs on par with the k4100m in casual stuff)
1TB 5400 rpm SATA Hybrid Hard Drive with 8GB Cache
My own Samsung 830 SSD
Windows 8.1 (personal copy, I purchased it with linux)
8X DVD-ROM Tray Load
Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 802.11ac/a/b/g/n 2x2 + Bluetooth 4.0 LE Half Mini Card
3yrs Pro Support
SWIPE Fingerprint Reader and Smart Card Reader (Contact and Contactless) Palmrest
Intel Core i7-4800MQ Processor (Quad Core, 6M Cache, 2.7 GHz, w/HD Graphics 4600)
44cm (17.3") UltraSharp FHD(1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit Premium Panel Guarantee


Estimated delivery on or before March 17th. I'm pretty excited. I didn't miss anything, did I?

 

Also, I just went with the dvd drive because I have a laptop now with a blu-ray drive I wanted to swap. I know most of them are compatible, it's just a matter of swapping the face plates. Is this laptop the same? It's coming from a sager, if that makes a difference.

 

Any standard 9.5mm "ultra slim" optical drive should work fine. (Note, regular "slim" 12.7mm drives are too large.)

 

This is what I am seeing too. Just by looking at forums and counting the number of threads for each individual precision laptop (m3800 - m4800 - m6800) you can clearly see what product is the one crowd wants the most (hint: m3800). It is pitty because I am too, sitting on my money willing to invest in 17" IPS sRGB 16:10 super-duper workstation with NBD worldwide guarantee, multidisplay support via dock, great build quality (alu + carbon) and military testing and dual raid 0 SSDs. But there is no such product, the market for such a high quality laptop would be too small = low profits.

In my eyes there are only a handfull of very well thought out products right now but they are targeting different markets:
- Asus G750JX offers great VALUE for what you get but is targeted towards gaming market and maybe some multimedia / content creators (I would be ashamed to bring something like this to a business meeting)
- Retina Macbook Pro 15 retina is overall generally GREAT and PORTABLE laptop, targeting several market groups (photo/video content creators, prosumers/geeks/powerusers/simpletons, iOS/Web/Other developers, ...), but I really dont like OS X

But what do you get for business critical workstation market? Dell Precision M6800 and HP ZBook 17. Unless you really need the most powerfull Quadro cards, there is no real advantage to their 15" inch counterparts. Wasted space. Who uses the DVD / BR today??? A joke. I cant see any good all-around product nor any innovation!! Probably because the market shrank to the size of "not interesting enough" for the manufacturers - just look at Lenovo, they abandoned the 17" W line long ago and gave birth to the 15" W540 piece of crap (saw it in a showroom - some pieces were already torn off !!).

I got fed up with what the market offers, did some analysis and I am gonna built my own super-workstation desktop (clean desk wireless peripherals) with several 27" dell IPS touchscreens (P2714T - a joy to use). It will run 24/7 and and I will remote to it via some ultraportable ultrabook laptop when I need to be mobile / away from the desk.

Okey, just my 2 c

 

Well apparently the one in my current laptop is a 12.7mm drive. I was looking around online, and I can still get a blu-ray drive for less than the 200 or so that dell wanted for it, but is the dvd drive it comes with really not even a writer?

 

Yes, but if one needs a portable ws, a super-ws desktop will not help, even with wireless peripherals (for what it's worth, the peripherals connected to my docking station are all wired). So what's wrong with the M4800 and the Zbook 15 or, indeed, the Zbook 14? I know, no 16:10, but that's true of all Windows notebooks. But besides that...?

Fortunately the Precision and the Zbook / Elitebook XXXXw lines are still very capable and sturdy pieces of equipment, clearly much better than anything else currently on the market in virtually all respects except for sheer price. I too think the M3800 is a compromise - as in not a "true" workstation, primarily on account of lacking a docking port -, and I bemoan HP's decision not to put a standard docking port on the Z14 and limit the CPU options to ULV versions, but the 15" and 17" remain a class above anything else.

I've just raised your 2c.