Precision 7740/ 7540 specs / release date

Yeah, it’s better than having those odd shaped msi cards...

 

They're here!!!
https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/sho...bile-workstation/spd/precision-15-5540-laptop
https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/sho...bile-workstation/spd/precision-15-7540-laptop
https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/sho...bile-workstation/spd/precision-17-7740-laptop

Time to dig in...

[Edit]
Support page is up as well. There are some driver downloads but no manual yet.
https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/precision-17-7740-laptop/manuals

 

Looking at the 7740.

* i9 9980HK and Xeon E2286M offer turbo up to 5 GHz (wow). These eight-core CPUs have a lower base clock than the next level down six-core CPU, but a higher turbo clock, which I can understand because of the higher power utilization and heat from the extra two cores; I wonder how that works out in the end.
* No option for 128GB ECC.
* Quadro RTX 5000 is $2350 OUCH. Over double the price of RTX 4000.
* 7740 cannot be configured with 4K display and WWAN, just like before; however, they are allowing it to be configured with 4K display and IR camera, which was not an option previously.
* 4K display upgrade from base costs 2x more than it did when the 7730 launched; I wonder if it is a better panel, if the "starter" panel is actually that much worse, or if they're just looking for more money.
[Edit] Possibly the cost increase is because this panel now "automatically" includes the aluminum lid.
* TB18DC dock is not listed for purchase, only the new WD19 series ones.
* I don't see an option to change the lid style anywhere, are they only offering it with the new aluminum lid? That seems to be what is in the pictures.

New fingerprint reader, I wonder if this is the FIPS or regular.

[Edit] Turns out this is not new. It's the non-FIPS reader. I've never seen it before, just the "swipe" style one from older generations.

One picture of the internals. Looks like the same layout as the 7730. This is the dGPU-present heatsink but the DGFF card is actually missing from the picture.

 

- OLED is only available for the 5540, not the 7540. Not too surprising since from what I understand the 5540 is based on the XPS chassis ?
- You cannot choose Ubuntu + OLED: it tells you it is not compatible. WTF !

 

I'm very skeptical about OLED in a laptop. OLED still suffers from image retention ("burn in"), which is going to be yucky for a desktop OS which has elements that in a fixed position on the screen nearly all of the time. I haven't heard any reviews/reports from people who used the system for a few months or more. (There can't really be any, these 15" laptop panels are still brand new.)

 

Yes it's a bit unknown at this time and I'm skeptical as well. The new XPS users as well as users of all these new models with OLED panel are going to beta test it, and we'll see how it goes.
I think Samsung is supplying them to most of the manufacturer, hence OLED being a thing all of sudeb on many new models. Though I do not think it would be produced at scale if there was a known big issue with them, including burn-in. But time will tell.
I wonder if Windows has anti burn-in features that Ubuntu hasn't, hence the "incompatibility" ?

 

@Dell-Mano_G are you available for questions?

 

That picture has been around since the 7730, and that's also missing the DGFF card.

Makes sense: Alienware itself last put an OLED into its Alienware 13R3, some four years ago. They haven't done it since.

I've called my local technical support number, and asked for a quotation on the Quadro RTX 3000 card for the 7540. See if I can upload the PDF I receive tomorrow morning, given it's 11.30 pm here now.

Thanks for the info, @Aaron44126. I'm looking forward to seeing someone with an aluminium 7540 + a Quadro RTX 3000, so I can get the part numbers off them, heh.

 

Uh, so both Dell and Lenovo are designing workstations that require flipping the motherboard to get access to the fans and cooling system? So not cool if this is so.

 

OLED screens have been offered for Alienware m15 for a couple months now.