Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

Well, it would have been nice to have an opinion or two on the price since I do not follow Dell pricing. But considering pulling the trigger.

Can I get an opinion or three on processor? Will I notice a difference with 15 or 17? Dual or Quad core? If yes, I'll spring, but if not I might as well save some money.

I'm a power user. No CAD, but lots of Photoshop and Lightroom as well as a few other apps always open such as 90 tabs in Firefox if that helps qualify.

Do let me know your thoughts please as I hear this deal ends Wednesday.

~Bob

 

For the configuration you quoted above, $2500 is reasonable. You might find it a couple of hundred dollars cheaper somewhere else if you look around, but that's up to you.



OOTM

 

Hi, rebop,

what type of offer is it? Is it a refurbished one or the internet price? It would be good if you just called them and talked to the guy on the other end a bit. Start with a low spec configuration and then work your way up In the means of..."oh yes, i was considering going for a quad core but the pricing is a little heavy. You could convince me with a good offer though " or something similar. I think Quad cores are the better way to go if you have a lot of programs running simultaneously. And as programs do more and more support multiple cores it is a sensible way to go.

As you don't seem to be modelling or working with CAD the Quadro 1000M should be sufficient. If great battery life is not improtant to you you may even stick with the AMD Card.

Just give them a call. The agent will be happy to have made a sale and you might profit from it with even lower prices than you got know...for sure.

Greetz

 

Its the internet price on special right now, not refurb'd. Pricey. More than a comparable Lenovo W520, but maybe slightly more feature laden. 750 GB vs 500 GB for example. And I have never followed Dell pricing, so just trying to be sure that waiting a month won;t be dramatically less.

I wan't even thinking of a new computer, but Lightroom has ver 4 in Beta and will no longer support XP. So, to run Windows 7 well, I needed a bit more power. Googled mobile workstations and found this. And it looks good.

Thanks for the tips Greetz.

~Bob

 

The IPS screen is what ups the cost by about $500, but Lenovo does'nt even offer an IPS, only TN panels. The Dell IPS will be much better than the Lenovo or any other TN panel. So that's where the "priceyness" comes from. If you can live without the IPS then don't get this one and get a TN panel instead. Personally, I'd get the IPS (only offered these days in Dell or HP workstations) and wouldn't get a TN panel, but that's just me.


OOTM

 

nobody can help me ?

 

Note that JUST because a panel is IPS doesn't mean it's better than a tn panel in all ways. Yes, IPS is generally brighter with better viewing angles, but there are lots of cheap IPS panels with really poor color reproduction or color shifts that make them very unsuitable for graphics art work. Conversely, while most tn panels are pretty pitiful, and even the best won't have the kind of viewing angles even a poor quality IPS will have, the best tn panels have decent vieweing angles and solid color reproduction.

Further, tn panels usually pull less current resulting in a longer battery life, all other things being equal.

The IPS in the Dell workstations is top notch, btw, not some poor cousin. The tn 95% color gamut 1080p in the W520 is one of the best panels made, period, tn or otherwise.

You can't really go wrong with either, but depending on what you're doing one or the other might be a better choice. For customer presentations etc, the IPS is the obvious winner. For longer battery life / graphic arts design, I'd pick the tn panel no the W520.

 

Thanks for that sxooter.

I am on my third Dell ips panel at home. Currently with a U2410 and very happy. But I have a hard time paying more for the ips upgrade in the M4600 than I did for the U2410 which is bigger, has a stand, housing, etc and cost less than 2/3rds of what they are asking for the 15.6 upgrade.

I think I'll call them on that today....

~Bob

 

rebop, exactly. For a lot of folks a decent tn screen is fine for on the road use, and they spend $900 to $3000 on a top of the line calibrated IPS desktop monitor for the real work.

 

Well, the original question was not about just *any* IPS panel; it was about the M4600 option. So, although technically you are correct in stating that "not all IPS panels are better than TN panels (color quality-wise and under certain usage circumstances, etc.)...", that is not what I was talking about. I was talking ONLY about the difference between the M4600 IPS and its TN panel cousin. The M4600 TN is good -- as is the W520 screen -- but not as good as the IPS that comes on the M4600 as an option, in my humble opinion.



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