Precision M4400: Refresh soon?

Hi all. I'm a bit out of the loop. Is the M4400 due for a major refresh any time soon? If so when, and what major components will be replaced (gpu, hopefully)?

Brett

 

Q1 2010 when Lenovo refreshes their T/W series. CPU will be Intel dual core i5/i7 w/ switchable graphics and probably newer GPU too (at least the M6400 is supposed to get the FX 3800M).

 

Ha, why do I get the impression you're one of the few people that pays attention to this sector of the laptop market...

Thanks!
Brett

 

Forgot to ask: will the refresh be under the same model name?

 

I saw the stuff about the T/W refresh over on the Lenovo board. Are you making an educated guess that the Dell Precision line will refresh at the same time or has there been an actual announcement from Dell?

 

Since the New T/W Thinkpads will use a newer Intel base it would be epic fail not to do a update, too...

Hopefully Dell will not use the ancient G92 chips but newer ATI FirePro chips... but who knows?

PS: latest Updates say that dell counts the Hundrets or tens up from Update to update.

(=> See Dell LAtitude D600, D610, D620 D630 and so on, as well as Dell Precision 4300, 4400, 6300, 6400.)

i Think the new 15" Workstation will be eiter M4410 or even more likely M4500

 

since the new M6400 is known as the M6500 (someone at dell slipped up and some accessories are being shown as compatible with M6400 and M6500)

im thinking its gonna be the M4500

oh well, it was a nice year having a current model i got my m4400 barely a month after it was launched. at least since business models are supported better, we should continue to see bios and driver updates relatively frequently even after its replaced.

 

There has been no official announcement but there have been little details hinted by users who have tested the updates such as the Dell Precision M6500 with FX 3800M and i7. I'm basing my info from past history. Dell and HP typically update the same time Lenovo does and Lenovo has released a roadmap for updates in Q1 2010.

Dell already uses the newest HD 4860 based ATI FirePro in their current Precision M6400, so it's reasonable to assume that they'd continue to use the newer cards in their refresh.

 

I'd squash my left nut in a vice before using fireGL's for solidworks again, I for one certainly don't plan to revisit the frustration of previous year's with their cruddy driver releases that don't fix known problem's [that nvidia just don't have to begin with] nvidia just work's, and that is shown by who has what as far a professional market share go's [nvidia = 90%] ATI look's good in benchmark's and that's it, same with consumer cards to a lesser extent

I hope they give a non RGB WUXGA LED option next time around, would prefer WSXGA but seem's unlikely to ever appear again, I find WXGA+ too limiting as far as workspace go's even though the screen is by far the best quality notebook screen I've owned.....this is of course providing 16:9 doesn't ruin the party, which is a big possibility

GT230/240 based midrange quadro would be good [if 300 series isn't out by then] even GTS 250m GDDR5 would come under the TDP of the current FX770/1700m while performing considerably better looking at the bandwidth.

I really do hope they just use the same frame spec again and improve on some oversight's like screen bezel/palmrest collision, battery slop, RAID0-1 support,bottom panel fixing etc.

Worst case scenario, latitude z based 16" 16:9 with low end fireGL