Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

Just so you can hear from someone who has had an EXTREMELY good experience... I have had ZERO problems with my RGB-LED screen, and I absolutely love it! This forum provides a wealth of knowledge and fixes, but just remember that this is also where people are going to list their problems. In other words, the folks that are really happy with their product are not likely to post nearly as often.

I know that some folks have had problem with their RGB-LEDs, but I suspect that most people are not having issues.

Just my two cents.

 

That could as well have been my words!

 

Thanks everyone. It sounds like the m4400 would be a great choice, however, I think I have another problem. Choosing between the m6400 and the m4400...For around 1800, I can get either a new m4400 or a referb m6400. I'm having a tough time making the decision. As much as I like the FX2700 or FX3700 and the increased expandability, I don't know if it's worth the increased size and weight. I've currently got a dell i6000d so I know what 15.4" feels like.

Any suggestions?

 

So it took me 4 days but I finally made it to the end of this thread but it was totally worth it. I learned a lot about my new laptop ( it will be here on Tuesday) but also instilled a lot more worries too!

To my question:

I talked to dell support before I came to this forum and they told me that if I am to upgrade my ram and HDD that it will void the warranty on my system if I don't buy the items from HDD and ram from dell.

BUT it seems like no one here ever does that. I don't want to be swapping out my HDD if I ever need service so whats the story there?

Oh my new systems specs:

T9550
2gb Ram
80gb HDD
Backlit keyboard
RGB-LED LCD
1510 wireless
3yr warranty

Upgrades 500gb or 320gb 7.2k HDD and 4gb of Ram

 

First of all, you have my respect for reading the whole thread.

Sorry, WHAT? I certainly don't think so!

Imagine Dell telling their business customers that they won't repair the laptop, because the harddisk wasn't bought from Dell! No way...

Do Dell agents get more money whenever they're selling more expensive laptops?

 

HAHA I'm glad you said that. It turns out I got that info from the consumer chat thing. I went back to the Pro support through the business page and did the chat. The guy was sooooo better and made their policy very clear. If you buy from dell they will warranty the parts for the warranty period of the laptop, next day service, ect. If you buy else where those components will need to be warranty by the manufacture and your down time is your problem.

Well I'm really glad that is cleared up, look like I need to put together an order. YAY!

 

Well,one's quite a bit bigger than the other,so I guess only you can make the decision.I doubt you will notice any performance difference in pro-e with the size dataset's you would be using at school though.

Good on you,a lot of people can't avert their eye's 5 post's up the page let alone reading the whole thread!!

Wouldn't worry too much about it,it's been pretty much full disclosure in this thread,and there's only been a few people return them that I can remember.

Hope it goes well for you.

 

@r00bin

If you're looking refurb, the machines carry the same warranty and ship out faster; however, you won't be able to customize the build. I was looking at the M6400 vs M4400 and the most notable differences are:
-M6400 has 17" screen and bigger graphics card
-6400 supports 2 HDD's w/ raid
Processor support is identical, but to get a M6400 w/ WUXGA resolution and a faster processor than the base P8400, the price will shoot way up in most cases.
But with the outlet, since its live inventory, pricing and availability fluctuates a lot!

 

I run Linux.

That said, by doing so, I am actually adjusting the output to the panel as opposed to actually reducing the backlight output. While both will reduce contrast, reducing it in software will cause color accuracy issues and degrade the picture far more than reducing the brightness of the backlight.

My stuff is still flickering like mad even on maximum brightness. I about to punch this LCD. Then again, I can't get above half brightness anymore for some reason - I get about 7 or 8 steps above medium brightness and the screen just stops getting any brighter. This is true even when adjusting the slider in firmware setup. This only just happened...

r00bin, I bought the m4400 because of the keyboard. I need my pgup/pgdn/home/end/ins/del keys in the upper right hand corner. I don't use pause/sysrq/printscreen enough to care about their dual purposeness.

EDIT: Fixed the backlight issue. Had to unplug the power and pull the battery for a couple of minutes. Now I can adjust my backlight, and while the flickering isn't gone, it's way better than before I did it. (So I wasn't going crazy when I thought it was getting worse with time...) As flicker is nearly non-existent at full brightness, I can finally work without headaches again...

 

hmm trueserve, i hadn't issues with flickering so far (RGB LED that is).
if i really concentrage, i could think its flickering, but i can't tell for sure -> guess its nothing ot worrie about.

for the display i've 2 minor things: got one 'pseude dead' pixel. its apparently not really dead, if i push the back of the lcd a little bit, or open/close it the pixel becomes normal (otherwise its pure blue).

second, i can tell, that i sometimes get a little bit of color bleeding / unregular background lighting. but overall i can say, that im satisfied with the display.

oh forgot one very strange issue:
if i get sunlight on the right part of the bezel, at a specific point, the whole screen tints into different colors.

only thing i can add: i had 4 different displays, 1. laptop, display replacement cuz of the sun issue, and complete laptop replacement because of overheating, strange dark spots on the replacement laptop.
the side by side comparism between the replacement and the old laptop tell, that the displays have a very different contrast. the first display i had was much better contrast wise.

that said, all 4 had the sun issue, as far as i can tell (doesn't really happen in normal day use).

cheers, gordon