Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

I don't even know why I have so much rep, lol. I don't even know how the system works really. The only posts I have made have been asking for advice for a hybrid college/gaming laptop, one of which was over a year ago. Maybe someone's giving me the hint to become more active in the community? You guys seem like cool guys around here anyway.

Anyway, at this point I'm debating between the M2400 and M4400... obviously the M2400 is more portable, but I need something powerful enough to last me 3-4 years for university and maybe play some of the newer games along the way, although I mainly just want to give The Orange Box a whirl. I'm not much of a FPSer anyway so I'd doubt I'd be playing any Crysis type stuff. I looked over some M2400 reviews and they seemed to have concerns about the video card.

Overall, however, I am EXTREMELY impressed with this series of laptops, for battery life, build quality, etc. It seems like the right fit for me. I just hope the folks can pull through with some financial support since we're a bit strapped at the moment and this series is a little more expensive. I have a feeling it's worth every penny, though. I'm definitely hearing less problems with it than the Studio XPS 13, which also caught my eye.

And here, have one of my rep for being so helpful, lol.

 

If you click "User CP" (on the top of the page), you will get an overview of what you got rep points for.

Yeah, this is definitely one of the better forums out there. No flaming or stupid behavior. I recently followed a thread about "Classic Start Menu vs. Vista Start Menu", which did NOT escalate...!

Do you have any specific questions about the M4400 at this point?
I've never owned or used an M2400, so I won't comment on that for now.

Well... that's what you say now. Maybe there will be an Orange Box 2, for example... then you're Doomed.
Buying a laptop that will be good enough for the latest games for 3-4 years is not exactly the most easy task. I guess even the M4400 might not be able to do that.

 

Thanks for the info on the rep, much appreciated.

Assuming I would be getting M4400 (I'm heavily leaning towards it versus the M2400) right now, the only question I would probably have other than "how was your experience with it, how do you like it, etc." (there's plenty of that in this topic, I think though personal experience is welcome) is which kind of RAM to order for it, though this seems easily researchable. Unfortunately Dell is very stingy with the pricing on its extras; the current M4400 only starts with 1GB and upgrading to 4GB through them costs $150+, not to mention the starting hard drive space is 80GB! Pretty pathetic but I don't think I'll need much space away and getting an external HD seems easy enough if I need it down the road.

Really though, I just want to play TF2 with my buds since they're getting a team together over the summer. I've been wanting to get the game forever but sitting on this ~2004 Apple eMac has left me with few options gaming wise. It can barely even play WoW on the lowest settings, a testament to how much of a piece of a garbage it is. Anyway, I just want my revenge now, and the M4400 seems like a great compromise between school work and pure power. Color me impressed.

 

I have had the m4400 since october and it has been flawless. I have now updated to windows7 RC1 and it runs even better than vista did.

I am using rmclock to undervolt the processors so that it stays cooler longer. I don't know if you know about this. Do a search in this forum. There is a thread with a great tutorial. Search under "Undervolting Guide".

I have also installed the new ubuntu 9 on this laptop. This new version of ubuntu has the option of installing it within a windows folder (for those of you who are like me and don't want to commit to it 100%. You can even uninstall it from within windows like any other application.

Once installed, you get a prompt to choose your OS when rebooting. Just choose the OS you need and you are good to go.

I don't use this laptop for gaming but I do a lot of video rendering and photoshop stuff. It runs that stuff without any problem.

2 things to consider tho, make sure you run this laptop with a 64 bit version of the OS you choose, and don't be stingy with ram.

Again, Windows 7 runs better than Vista. It is lighter on resources and you you want to game with the laptop, it may make a difference.

Hope this info helps.
Cheers!

 

I really like this machine. I started looking for a new laptop in last summer. initially, I wanted to buy a Thinkpad, but the quality of the Thinkpads seems to get worse and worse, so I looked for the Dell Latitude an Precision series. And when I heard that Dell will have an RGBLED display for the precision, I knew I had to buy a Precision. I knew I would be using the machine mostly on stationary workspaces, and hardly be using it on the go. First, I wanted to buy a 17" Precision M6400, but I would only need such a monster if it had a higher resolution .
I'm, totally satisfied with the M4400. The keyboard is great (the backlit one - the non backlit one is different). And the software and drivers from Dell have improved this machine over time. When I got it in last december, I can remember that one of the first things I noticed was how loud the fan was. That has improved with new BIOS revisions, so now my M4400 is completely silent under light load (when surfing the web, for example) because the fan stays off. You most likely won't get such continuous support with consumer machines.
So far, I prefer the M4400 over the latest Thinkpads. The only thing I don't like is that the back of the lid is so sturdy. It's not an issue, though, there's enough space between the lid and the screen panel. I can remember that (some? all?) the thinkpad's lids are curved outside to withstand pressure, so this could be a similar thing.

Dell wants an awful lot of money for RAM and HDD upgrades. But you can easily upgrade the HDD and RAM of your machine. That's another thing I like about the M4400(I don't know about the M2400): There's one single screw on the bottom which holds the bottom plate in place. If you unscrew it, it pops out, and you can take the bottom plate off. If you ever had to take apart a consumer laptop with 20 screws and a dozen parts lying around in the end, you know how good this is.

If you want to put in another HDD, there are four screws on the HDD. After unscrewing, you can slide the harddisk out, attach the "handle" to the new harddisk (which incorporates another screw), slide it back in and put the screws back in. You don't have to take the bottom plate off for this procedure. Dell has detailed manuals for all these tasks for download, complete with pictures of the laptop model you have. It's really super easy compared to most consumer laptops.

Indeed, it is. That's why I bought it. I'm a big fan of UT2004 and like to play newer games occasionally, but don't want to buy a "gaming machine". I don't like to have blinking lights and dozens of function keys all over the laptop, I'd rather like a decent build quality, high reliability and good support for the laptop I'll mostly do work with.



Wait... did I really just say that?

Well, the M4400 is covered with lights... The optical drive has one, the LAN port has two of them, even the battery has five.
I don't want trouble because of cheap parts and marketing tricks. Business laptops won't have cheap parts just to make them cheaper, which is exactly what I want. I don't have enough money to buy cheap things.


And one thing: If you can anyhow manage to afford it, get the backlit keyboard! It's the best upgrade available for the Dell machines, even if you use your laptop in bright lighting conditions only.

 

Well, you don't HAVE to, have you? I'm curious what makes you think so... is it the 4GB (3.5 on Windows...) limit?
Maybe it just runs snappier than 32bit? If so, how did you compare that? Was the comparison with Windows 7 already?

It does, indeed, but I highly advise against using a non final version of a software on a machine that you use for productive tasks. But if you know what you're doing: Windows7 RC is already very, very, very stable for a non finished version...

 

Thank you both for the helpful information again. I think we may have a winner on our hands here, hopefully I'll be joining your ranks fairly soon. I don't think I'll be messing around with any of the inside parts besides the RAM right away since I'll have on-campus support but I'm sure the manuals will come in handy for when I need them. I'll keep the backlit recommendation in mind.

Oh, and don't worry about Windows 7. I'll get my hands on it one way or another, lol. I've heard great things about it too, or at the very least it's better than Vista.

 

Download it from Microsoft - it is available to everyone until late July. http://www.microsoft.com/windows7
And, as has been said, the M4400 screams on Win7

Best of luck!

 

I am running Windows 7 on my M4400 (specs in sig), and I tried both the 64bit and 32bit of Windows 7, and I definitely feel like 32bit is a bit snappier, and boots much quicker than the 64bit version. Once booted, I didn't feel like the 64-bit version had any quirks or issues, but I haven't really had issues with 32-bit, other than one bug I found that involves permissions and saving files (mainly .jpgs) off of the internet.

I really do enjoy this laptop, and in my mind it does run a bit hot compared to my previous laptop (Gateway M285 Tablet), and other than that, I dont really have any complaints. I bought one off of eBay for very very cheap (I got mine in my sig for $1025) and I just need to invest in a DVD-RW or BD-RW, but I dont want to pay Dell's prices for it, so I'm trying to find one on eBay for slightly cheaper.

Also, I want to know if I can add the integrated webcam to it, as opposed to using the external one I have now. If that could be added somehow, then this laptop would be perfect.

 

Kira, regarding RAM and storage, I just ordered with the 80gb pathetic drive and the 1GB of RAM. Ended up getting a 4GB PC2-6400 low latency kit on Newegg for ~$30 shipped, as well as ordering a Hitachi 7K320 EA (since I run this beast 24/7). Dell, thankfully, makes working on their notebooks easy. This chassis is a departure from the C- and D- style chassis, but is still very easy to work on and much less plasticky / much more solid than the old models.

ViPaDawG, regarding the integrated webcam, I am not sure - there is only one cable (at least on RGBLED models) that goes to the LCD (not including the 6 antenna connections), which I believe carries the data lines for the mic and camera assembly. How these break out and to where, I am unsure, although knowing Dell there is likely a connector for a ribbon cable. Actually adding the assembly is somewhat easy. Here is a link to the service manual: http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/M4400/en/sm/index.htm