Precision 7730,5530,7530 (Coffee Lake) pre-release

So are the laptop structures the same regardless of ordering with 3 or 6 cell battery? In other words, the 2.5" bay is there even on the 6 cell but it's just covered by the larger battery?

 

Yes. The bigger battery takes in the space. Structurally, there's no difference. The 2.5 inch drive has a removable mounting bracket.

 

Nope - in order to have the secondary (2.5") hard drive, you can only order it with the 3 cell.

There are reports that one can install a PCIe SSD with the 6 cell - but definitely *not* with the 6 cell (larger) battery.

 

On researching photographs from reviews of the XPS 9570, it appears that the 6 cell battery is the 6GTPY.

Would appreciate anyone confirming from their Precision 5530...

 

They will almost certainly be different batteries and not interchangeable between the different laptop models.

 

Err, why? The latest XPS15 and the Precision 5530 are almost exactly the same, aside from the CPU choices (more available in the Precision) and GPU (GeForce vs. Quadro). They share the same chassis. This needs confirmation, but I don't see why Dell would bother coming up with multiple battery variants.

 

Exactly!

Further, it appears that the older XPS15 9560 was equipped with this same battery during later production...

 

You are absolutely right, for some reason I thought you were comparing XPS 15 9570 to Precision 7530 - my apologies!

 

The 2.5 inch bay is fitted into an interposer of m.2 to sata connector. If you remove the hard drive and interposer, you will see an empty m.2 slot for nvme drives.

 

I know this is the case with the 7530/7730, but I don't think that it is the case with the 5530. Prior systems allowed only one M.2 and one SATA, not two M.2. Dell only allows this system to be configured with a 2.5" drive as the second drive so I am thinking that there are not two M.2 slots.