Precision M4600 Owners Lounge

Hmm. I'm trying to order one with a tray drive instead of slot but because of the web bundle discounts it works out to costing $71 extra even though on the base model the tray model is $30 cheaper. Maybe I could just order with the slot and find someone to trade me for their tray. Although that might mess up my warranty... at least on the DVD drive anyway.

 

Your work will be done before you start it.

 

I'm very new here but have read through many of the owners threads for the laptops I am thinking on getting and I gotta say that these are some long threads, though very informative. It also seems very difficult to use the search function to find info so I apologize in advance for asking redundant questions.

First, I almost just pulled the trigger on a m6600 with the 3000m and fhd non touch screen but at the last minute I couldn't do it as the size of that beast is just so large! I would like to know from anyone who owns the m4600 with the 2000m if they feel it is limiting in anyway and they would have preferred the 3000m found in the m6600 (the 4000m is too pricey for me)? I plan on maxing out the ram and getting ssd aftermarket.

Also worried at the 15 inch screen size for FHD but think that has been answered as well as possible - depends on the person and use. I have not bought a new laptop in a long time and am really perplexed at the lack of decent aspect ratio options so am glad others feel that way too.

thanks for all the really great info in this thread!

 

Also my point..... Could be very nice, boot times around 5-7 secs

 

LOL, fasten your seat-belts when you log on!! i remember a few years ago reading a blog and some poster asked: "why can't computers start up and go immediately, like a TV set or other electronics?" And now I hear about some laptops that have "instant on" web access (but not the other hard drive installed components) through some kind of Linux insta-boot or something like that. And now this RAID SSD set-up. So cool!!



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Yes I agree the search function in this forum is poor, really need to improve on this because the posts are active here.

M4600 bottleneck is graphic card, and M6600 problem is the size. I have M4600 and i really sad about the graphic card; but yet that can't make me move to M6600 just because of the size.
This is user dependent, if you need strong graphic card, M6600 is the only way to go. 2000m is just not enough for power user.

If you need 15" laptop yet the best professional graphic card, Clevo is the only choice provided you can live with the moderate LCD, lousy keyboard, without docking station and not so good support.

15.6" FHD, you need good eyes for that, i have eye strain looking at small fonts after few hours. 17.3" FHD is more comfortable.

 

I'm fairly happy with my M4600 in terms of performance, but that may be because I've never had anything better to compare it to. Before my purchase, I have been doing all my work on a Radeon 3870x2 (desktop), so the 2000M has been a whole new experience for me. I could see how a better graphics card like those in the M6600 would be a major bonus for rendering, but for running cad programs, Adobe CS, and Starcraft 2, the 2000M seems to be sufficient.

 

I've been reading a lot on the specs for the M4600, and it seems like the chipset only have 2 SATA 6GB/S, so i'm wondering if demount the CD-rom drive and install a harddrive in that slot, will i then get 6 GB/S performance from that port?

I've called Dell tech support, but they don't know anything about.... So, is there any of ya brainy guys who knows it?

Seems a bit pointless to buy another 510 disk if i only can get raid with sata 3 Gb/s...

 

Does the Quadro 2000m support use of hdmi, display port and vga at the same time..?? 3X monitor output? Could be very useful for video editing.

 

Great input thanks! I went the same route and was close to getting a Clevo but decided the docking station is really great to have with multi-display setups which I use.

Based on the comments given on this forum I went with the m6600 after all and kept repeating to myself that it is a desktop workstation replacement and I really don't want GPU card limitations.

Thanks again all. This is such a great forum it is too bad it is hard to find the info.