Precision M4500 Owner's Lounge

Defopt - if You are looking for reliable laptop and long battery life at least change from FX1800M to FX880M! No need for applications that you mention such high end (and heat generating) graphics card like FX1800.

I think that DELL E6420 or E6520 will be the best solution (rugged build) also with 9-cell 97WHa battery. Your config is way too ecpensive for Excel, Outlook, Word and many others even running simultaneously.

 

The Dell E6420 & E6520 are 17" screens though arent they? I was skeptical going as big as 15.6" as I would prefer 12"-14". I wonder if I have to cancel my order to make the above noted changes. Does anyone know? I already paid for it.

For the above noted changes, would you guess that this would be maybe at 10%-20% improvement or are we talking like 2%-5% or is it entirely how hard you work it?

I apologize for my ignorance, but my mindset when I order these (and I am realizing Im probably very wrong), I increase the components thinking they are better in quality or more modern (newer).

 

6420 is 14".

6520 is 15.6".

Also, consider that there are extraordinary diminishing returns when you spend on anything and computers are probably among the biggest offenders.

Just based on what you said you use, any modern computer would be able to do that and then some. Heck any computer within the last 5 years will still steamroll the applications you plan on using it for. Truthfully, even the lowest end processor in any new machine is probably WAY more than enough. The biggest disparity will be screen quality/resolution, warranty and build quality. Get a computer with a nice screen, great build quality, good warranty (next day at home is well worth it) and modern components and you're set. If price is no object, a solid state drive wouldn't be a bad investment either.

If you are looking at 14" laptop...that particular latitude will have both a1366x768 resolution and 1600x900. Higher means you will have more real estate to work with but conversely the text and everything will be smaller. Make sure your eyes are comfortable with the smaller text etc. Me personally, I LOVE higher res screens.

 

Update....

A07 BIOS is way better for me although the symptoms still persist, they are more consistent.

First press of the power button, I get nothing. I will let it sit there for a minute or so just to be certain. I have let it go as long as 5 mins...

Second press of the button, it goes to the DELL splash screen and takes a long time to get through it. Maybe a minute? Then, sometimes it boots to windows from there, other times it gets hung up right after leaving that screen. If I get by the intel RAID drivers it goes.

Third press of the button, maybe every other boot. It actually boots pretty fast, zips right by the splash screen and starts loading windows. Pretty much like a normal system, albeit a bit slower.

I'm convinced it's a BIOS / system configuration issue, maybe even a bios configuration issue. The only things I changed in the BIOS was the boot order and the time... I think.

Any suggestions?

 

If the M4400 and M4500 share the same chassis, can I replace the M4500 display and lid with a WUXGA (1920x1200) ratio display from the M4400? I want more vertical pixels than 1080p. Are the connectors to the motherboard etc the same?

 

I was just told by the below mentioned Dell rep the M4600 release date in Canada is Midnight March 31, 2011. They gave me another $690 off my M4500 being built.

Kurian Devasia
Account Manager
Dell | SMB - Sales (Canada)

 

They don't share the same chassis, they're actually very different sizes and shapes, it's not going to happen sorry.

 

@ Weegie, Thanks, didn't realise that. I have just ordered both m4400 T9600 and M4500 i7 laptops from eBay. The dilemma is I need 1920x1200 as the added height is valuable for my work but sadly modern 15" laptops only do 16:9 which is terrible. I don't want a 17" as they are too bulky.

I might look at either

- moving the m4500 motherboard to the m4400 chassis
- keeping the m4400 and upgrading to QX9300 quad CPU

Naturally I want to it to be future proof but the resolution real estate is more important to me at this stage.

 

I have one of each, I would bet the mother boards are not going to fit either. To be honest the loss of the 120 vertical pixels is not really even noticeable. I wouldn't give up the power of my i7 for it, that's for sure.

 

It's more about the ratio and pixel density, it may not sound much but it makes a huge difference in a working environment with two programs/a4 documents side by side. Will have to see, I may have to choose between i7 power and real estate, I can't think why anyone would need more than a qx9300 unless you are really pushing to the limits. I don't ever play games either..