Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

firstly, you can customise the W520 with dual SSD's. One normal one in the bay, and one miniPCIe one just like the dell.

if you call dell, sometimes they make available options that are not configurable on their website. did you try that?

finally, buying one spare battery now and keeping it for 3 years is a bad idea. even if you DO NOT USE it, it still loses capacity from the moment it is manufactured. makes more sense to get one on ebay. i dont know about dell hong kong/china, but in the uk, us, and singapore, getting a new battery 3 years later from dell is not a problem- especially since this is an enterprise grade notebook and businesses often keep them for 5 years

 

afhstingray,
Thanks for saving me money. In the past, I often bought 3 batteries together with my notebook from Dell. But, no more.
For Levno W520, I like its keyboard. I find M4600's numeric keypad redundant.
Thanks again.

 

personally i prefer the M4600's keyboard. its smoother and more comfortable to use.

i find the numeric pad a bit useless too, especially since the offset keyboard and touchpad takes some getting used to

if only lenovo had a backlit keyboard, i really hate the thinklight after getting used to a backlit keyboard on my precisions.

also lenovo's support is pretty crap compared to dell's prosupport

 

currently, Dell UK is asking 359£ for SSD to pair it with 128GB minipci in RAID 0 or 1. I find it way overpriced and unfortunately it is the only option for RAID(unlike w520). Does anybody know if I can buy non raid option(SSD minipci+HDD) and upgrade it later to RAID?
Also, can somebody comment on w520 FHD screen vs DELL non-IPS FHD screen? I guess constant fan noise from IPS-screen M4600 without optimus heated with powerfull nvidia card will be worse compared to std FHD screen and switchable graphics. Noise vs screen quality. that is for reviews to find out.

 

fan noise has not been an issue at all with my M4600. i havent seen the W520's 95% gamut screen but the non IPS FHD dell screen is pretty amazing. the 2ccfl screen on my old M4400 was a pretty darn good screen and this tops it by quite a bit. when i first turned it on i almost thought they shipped me an RGB screen by mistake.

 

thanks. good to know.
I am currently debating RAID vs Screen. I have money for only one option.

 

Go with the screen. You can always RAID later, but you can't change the screen....well very easily haha

 

yea i would go with the screen too. the only disadvantage of the RGBLED is that its not as bright (but still very decently bright) , and consumes more power, and cannot use optimus. so the downside is just battery, but if that is not a concern then go for it.

 

I agree with someone153. IMHO, I doubt to have RAID on a notebook. With two SSDs installed, what would be the significant benefit of RAID?

 

exactly, personally i'd rather go for a minipcie card for OS and programs, combined with a momentus XT for media storage/unimportant programs