Next Generation Dell Precision Mobile Workstations press release

Yes - absolutely correct.
The bezel is not screwed on anywhere - it's held in place by clips all around and 2 little magnets - 1 in each top corner plus it has a sticky surface to hold it nice and tight against the LCD panel. You need to use your fingernails against the screen to pry it up and pull it off. At first, it looks impossible but as you move your fingers against the bezel it will start to lift off enough to actually get a fingernail under it or If you can find a spot where there is maybe the tiniest of space to get started - just work at it - it starts to make a creaky sound as the sticky surface comes off and the clips will start to come off as well - the bezel is very flexible so when you get the edge up a wee bit the clips will pop off very nicely.

In my case, I started at the right upper side of the screen. I don't know if it matters. Replacing it is just as easy - I just laid it on and the magnets help pull it in place against the top so I kind of started there and then went around everywhere to just snap 'em in. If at any point the bezel doesn't look right - it's because you missed some clips - there's lots of 'em.

Forgot about this part ... Now you have 4 little Philips screws to undo to remove the panel. Then just lift the panel and lay it face down on the keyboard so you can remove the connector on the back. You'll have 2 pieces of tape to remove first and the connector is held on by an itty-bitty spring clip. I used my smallest flat-blade precision screw driver and inserted at the edge of the socket and pry slightly and the spring clip pops-off both sides. The spring clip is hinged to the connector so it won't get lost. I found it helpful to use a magnifying glass to examine the connector and socket first. It probably sounds harder than it is.

This video will help and it may answer your upgrade question: https://www.laptopscreen.com/English/video/Dell/latitude/e5550/

Thank you for the info re: Type-C ... I'm just not getting it ... What works and what doesn't ... I don't get the purpose of having a Type-C <> USB3.0 adapter if it doesn't work ... More research I guess.

 

Mobile Quadro M5500M has been announced yesterday: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10219/nvidia-announces-quadro-m5500-details-professional-vr-plans

I sure hope it will be available as an option for the 7710 coming May.

 

150W (vs. 100W for M5000M)... yikes. Wonder if you'd need a bigger power supply?

 

240W may not be sufficient for charging, but perhaps sufficient for powering it. Most of the time it won't be drawing that much power. I wonder how long until Pascal based Quadro are available for notebooks. They are supposed to be very efficient. 150W seems crazy high, but Eurocom has 300W AC adapters so I guess Dell could go that route too. It is nice that we have an MXM Type B standard for future upgrades.

 

Pascal GPUs are dropping this summer (right?) --- I think the earliest that we'll see them is in the Kaby Lake Precision refresh (i.e. Precision 5520/7520/7720), which could drop around the end of the year if Intel sticks to their schedule.

 

Kabylake is very late 2016. Rumors say that it's in the final 3-4 weeks and any little delay could push it into 2017. Plus Dell typically has some serious lead time so we won't see any xx20 generation till 2017.

 

Probably 2017 indeed then, Dell usually takes 2-3 months after new CPUs are available before the new Precisions are announced. I was still under the impression that Kaby Lake was launching around September.

 

Pascal Quadro for notebooks could be further out on the timeline than that possibly. Remember, Nvidia didn't release Maxwell Quadro desktop cards as quickly as it released Maxwell GeForce desktop cards. I think it is because of the certification process. It took awhile even for Maxwell Geforce notebook GPUs to appear. And we didin't see Maxwell Quadro for notebooks until much later, not until Oct 2015.

 

On the flip side, Kepler Quadros were out pretty promptly. Kepler desktop GeForce cards (6XX series) were released around March 2012, and the mobile Quadros were available in the Precision M4700/M6700 which was available for purchase in July 2012.

Also recall that there was a rather large time gap between the Precision M4800/M6800 and the 7510/7710 (a bit over two years I think), this was because of the trouble Intel was having getting the Broadwell CPUs to market, we ended up skipping that generation of CPUs for the mobile workstations. Maxwell dropped in the middle of this long cycle. NVIDIA did not prepare new mobile GPUs until PC manufacturers were ready for a product refresh, which is usually timed against Intel's CPU release cycle.

I think it's rather likely that they'll have Pascal GPUs available for the next Precision refresh. I haven't seen Dell try to refresh the full set of GPUs outside of a full product line upgrade.

[Edit] Corrected, thanks ygohome

 

Good points. But did you mean to say Pascal above instead of Maxwell?