News on Haswell based mobile Precision M6800 ?

Hi

is there any news on Haswell based mobile Precision M6800 ?

e.g.
when will it be available?

will WLAN AC be supported?

will there be screens
- with touch?
- with resolutions higher than 1080p?

will the graphic-switching for energy saving purpose be possible with ATI GPUs too?
Will the integrated Haswell support 10bit displays so Optimus will be usable with this type of display?

will there be LTE mobile right from the start in europe?

 

No news. You can bet it will show up here pretty fast once it shows up anywhere else. Precision is always towards the end of the refresh cycle so you will see other products like Latitude show up first.

 

maybe it'll take some more time than we expect. The chipset belonging to Hashwell seems to have a problem with the USB3 and a sleeping mode of the processor.
Since this maybe more important for business notebooks than for consumer desktops, Dell may wait for a new revision of the chipset (C2) which will be shipping in july...

 

if you swap in an AC mPCI card I can not see why not. you may not be able to preconfigure for awhile though

from what I am reading sofar no. but I am however hoping that FirePro cards can throttle with the new power saving technology to negate a lot of the need.

 

The high-end mobile CPUs won't be available until the end of May (at the earliest). Given the normal lag in getting the Precision out, I wouldn't expect anything earlier than July anyway.

 

Err, though I'd post another update. Intel today gave out some new information about Thunderbolt.

Intel’s next Thunderbolt version doubles speeds, can multitask | Ars Technica

Apparently some high-end Haswell chipsets will include an integrated Thunderbolt controller. Assuming their high-end mobile chipset is included, I don't think there's any reason we why won't see Thunderbolt on the M4800/M6800.

 

Hope they bring back the 16:10 display so we serious business users will have 1920 x 1200 resolution again as with M6400/M6500. 1920 x 1080 sucks, especially on what is supposed to be a premium laptop--why skimp on the display--it is like cheap tires on a Mercedes.

 

We beat up this topic in the M6700 speculation thread last year. Even some Dell folks weighed in. Sad as it is, 16:10 is not coming back, so time to get used to 16:9.

 

Yep, as much as I am with Backbutton on wishing they'd bring back a proper aspect ratio, I don't think it's going to happen. Heck, even external monitors with 16:10 are getting fewer. I'm just waiting for them to go Windows 8 only. That'd be the final straw for me, and the point that I would switch to a Mac. Heck, sure, it's OS X, but they come with 16:10 screens that are pretty decent, I hear, and Windows 7 runs o.k. on those things, too. It's not Precision-level performance and reliability, but not too bad, either. Cheaper, too...

P.S.: As an aside, and just in case any Dell executives get to see this: I'm still on my trusty M6400, and the only reason I have not upgraded to the newest Precision model is the screen. I absolutely abhor that inane 16:9 aspect ratio, which has no business to be on a professional-class machine. And, no, I will not "get used to it".

In other words, the decision to go 16:9 is costing Dell real money with people like me. I would even be happy to pay a premium for such a screen, but without it, Dell won't get my (well, my company's) money.

 

You can rest assured that, at least for business machines like the Precision, Dell recognizes that many business users prefer to stick with Windows 7 for the now (and the next few years anyway). After all, XP is still fully supported on the M4700 and M6700 — sure, you can't have the machine ship with it, but all of the drivers are available, you could get it set up without much trouble.

As for the Mac, the lack of a 17" option, matte screen, and decent serviceability make it a non-starter for me, and things like this are exactly why I chose Precision. Admittedly, the latter two of these apply more to the "retina" model, but that's clearly the direction that they're going. However, I don't think there are any other manufacturers left using 16:10.

Life is full of compromises...