Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

Does anyone find it useful to have mobile broadband + GPS handy?
In China & Hong Kong, Dell no longer supplies Dell Wireless™ DW5630 Multi-mode HSPA-EVDO Mini Card (Gobi™ 3000) with A-GPS or Dell Wireless™ DW5550 Single-mode HSPA Mini Card with A-GPS?

 

Hi afhstingray, you make a good point. Going back to your original question, why should I consider it in the first place? As a software developer, I always look for opportunities to add more features. Then, it comes to the question: Does Dell supply the API to extract results from the fingerprint/smartcard reader?
No, I haven't finalized my M4600 order yet. If I cannot programmatically access the device, it's not worthwhile paying for it.

 

Is the M4600 LCD backlit sensitive to external light setting?

 

I'd be very interested by comparing how the i7 2720QM performs along the 2820QM or 2920XM (I know there's someone here who own one).

Mine is i7 2720QM and I'll post some CPU bench today, but if someone who own an 2820QM could make some real test like rendering a 3D scene or encoding in PPro CS5 in order to see the diff permormance between both...

Let's tell me and we'll do that !

 

My last two boxes (Latitude D820, then Precision M4400) both had broadband and I used it too. I was not overly satisfied both times since the network connection kept breaking down, especially on the train which is a pain if you have to reinitialise the VPN every time. This probably was mostly due to less than optimal software, but hey! GPS never worked for me.

The M4600 does not have broadband due to the fact that the mini SSD uses the same slot. I'm pretty sure that I will not miss it, I'm using a Huawei MiFi hotspot for a while now which I find much more flexible for my area of usage:

• Will serve any device that has Wifi, so I can also use it with the netbook and iPad
• Allows me to use inexpensive prepaid SIMs abroad in connection with my smart phone - I'm reachable on my usual number but do not need to pay horrendous data roaming rates
• Appears to provide a more stable connection maybe due to the broadband connection being decoupled from the actual connection to the Laptop

Cheers

Joe

 

they do not release the API, maybe check the white paper from the manufacturer of the fingerprint sensor. and considering the laptop is pretty damn expensive, the additional cost isnt that much, especially when you take into account post-configuration discounts from the rep

no, there does not seem to be an ambient light sensor

just go to notebookcheck.net and check out the CPU benches

 

If it isn't something you're likely to use, it'll only add more clutter to the keyboard area. It wasn't an expensive upgrade, but I opted not to get it cause I didn't think I would really use it.

 

Problem is those are only synthetic benchmarks, I was proposing to do real tasks like 3D rendering or video encoding in order to see if the largest 8mb L3 cache of the 2820QM really makes a noticeable difference or not comparing to the 6mb of the 2720QM in real life working...

 

I'm not sure about the M4600, but up until the M4500, the fingerprint readers in all Dells have been a complete disaster. They use a proprietary chip (a Broadcom hub) in such a way that the fingerprint reader isn't even visible to the OS (so, no way to use Win7's built-in biometric device support, at all), and the absolutely only software that can do anything whatsoever with that fingerprint reader is the POS Wave software they ship with the laptop, which is just about as close to useless as it gets. Even if you bought third-party software you would not be able to do anything useful with that reader, since there is no software in existence that can recognize it.

Like I said, I have no idea if this has been fixed by now, but it has been a consistent complaint for at least the last three generations of Dell business laptops, which has been completely ignored by Dell so far. If this has not changed, then getting a fingerprint reader is still a complete waste of money.

 

Pirx,
Thanks for your high-value info. But I still wonder how Win 7 could utilize the fingerprint reader to wake up the M4600.