new Dell Precision 5510 (Twin of XPS15)

I have a feeling that could be an issue of the size of the last row of keys, too. If you position your hands by coming UP from the bottom of the keyboard, you may not be hitting that spacebar on centerline; rather you strike it slightly lower since that row is wider, necessitating you to strike it harder. This probably wouldn't be as much an issue with a mechanical switch which is restricted more or less to up/down movement, but it could be a factor with a scissor-style switch which could potentially "tilt" the key with an oblique strike.

 

Haha Probably not going to do that, but i'll keep it in mind.

 

Sorry if this has been covered already, but how does the build quality of the Precision compare to the XPS? And are there any other notable differences apart from CPU, GPU and screen types?

 

It's the exact same hardware.
The only difference is the GPU firmware.

 

Different MB, chipset, GPU, and CPU options. Otherwise the chassis is the same.

My 2 cents

 

Build quality is good but durability is a question mark. The only Precision that is non military grade certified. Probably it can't take a beating like the usual Precision line up.

 

I repeat, the hardware is identical. The motherboard is the same, but you have slightly different CPU options between the two. Specifically, the GPU hardware is exactly the same. The Quadro just runs different firmware, and is clocked slightly lower.

 

That was true for the M3800 and XPS 15 9530 (well, other than the NFC chip being omitted on the M3800 and present on the XPS 15 9530, but the solder pads were still there for it...)

I'm not sure that's true for the XPS 15 9550 and Precision 5510 (M5510? ) -- if it is, they're disabling a moderate number of CUDA cores in software, as well as the newer DirectX features:

For the XPS 15 9550, it's got a GTX 960M with 640 CUDA cores, and supports DirectX 12 FL 12.1 : http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-gtx-960m/specifications

For the Precision 5510, it's got a Quadro M1000M with 512 CUDA cores, and supports only DirectX 12 FL 11.0: http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-for-mobile-workstations.html

 

The hardware FL is a function of the firmware really, so that's not the issue, but I wasn't aware of the difference in the number of cores. You may be right on this one. However, it is worth mentioning that there's other versions of the M1000M out there: HP's ZBook Studio G3 (HP's direct competitor to the Precision 5510) has been confirmed to have a version of the M1000M with 4GB of memory rather than the 2GB that NVidia lists.

 

That's fascinating.
And does anyone know the latest ETA on the Thunderbolt 3 Dock (TB15)?