Dell Precision M4500 Review Discussion

The Dell Precision M4500 is the latest 15-inch mobile workstation featuring powerful Intel processors up to the Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition and Nvidia Quadro FX 1800M discrete graphics for video editing, animation, and CAD manipulation. The Precision M4500 boasts an optional 64GB SSD MiniCard for fast start up and your choice of up to a 256GB SSD or a 500GB HDD for file storage. Is this the most powerful workhorse on the market? Take a look and see if it's time for an upgrade at your office.

Read the full content of this Article: Dell Precision M4500 Review

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Awesome! I was waiting for this unit to be reviewed.

Thanks Jerry.

 

The article mentions:

But according to Intel ®, the 620M is a dual-core processor (with support for up to two simultaneous threads per core). Whether the processor is indeed a dual-core or quad core makes a large amount of difference as to whether the CPU performance results are impressive or lacklustre; can this be clarified?

Another question about the wPrime results: Would it be possible to include the processors that each model was using, in addition to the model names? As most of these models have many processor options, it doesn't help that much that the W510 has the lowest score. Either a link to the review, or preferably a mention of the CPU (or both) would be helpful. I know you probably don't make the graphs, but perhaps whoever does make them also reads the feedback?

Cool to see that a lower-powered-but-longer-lasting battery is an option. As nice as it is to have the longest possible battery life the first year or so, that rather wears off once the battery capacity plummets. On the whole I think I'd prefer the 81W 9-cell to the 90W one in this case.

I'm disappointed that the build quality is not top-notch throughout. Dell has spoiled me with good build quality, and I'd expect at least the Precisions to be rock-solid everywhere. Less weight is nice, but if you are buying a Precision, I'd have to expect that you'd want either stellar performance, or stellar durability, or both, and not care that much about weight. Who buys a 15-inch laptop with such powerful components and expects a featherweight, really?

I'd also prefer a slightly-less-widescreen resolution - something with lower DPI than 1600x900, but more than 768 pixels in height. Basically, I like 16x10 more than 16x9. But at least Dell has the sense to keep professional-level machines as matté screens.

Considering the price , not-quite-top-notch quality, and 16:9 screen, though, I think I'd just as soon go with the M4400.

 

Correct it is two cores with four usable threads (hyperthreading enabled).

 

The screen looks fantastic and the battery life is surprisingly good but the flex issues are surprising from a Precision notebook.

 

I am also a bit surprised with the screen flex. As far as I can tell, the Precision and E6510 have the same exterior, with minor design differences in the lid. While the lid of the E6510 does have some "give" when pressing down on it, it flexes in a manner similar to that of the Elitebook 2530P's lid- that is, it appears to be flex only with respect to the outermost skin layer, as opposed to being a structural issue. I cannot create screen ripples when pushing on the lid, at least not with moderate pressure. I also cannot make the screen/lid twist by applying pressure in opposite directions to the top.

The hinges on my unit are very, very stiff, and inspire as much confidence as those of a Thinkpad. I do see noticeable keyboard flex when applying moderate pressure on the lefthand side (K, L, ; area). There is also moderate left palm rest flex with moderate pressure. Neither are issues during normal use.

 

would be better with quad core. But the laptop looks really good.

 

Nice but taking everything into account, Dell always comes 3rd behind Lenovo and HP workstations.

 

Nice workstation, got the m4400 with qx9300. Biggest failing for this is that as a so called workstation it doesn't offer the 16gb ram option that many now do. Additionally 1920x1080, which is really annoying. I didn't realise the primary function of this was to watch HD?

 

Agreed but if you are looking for a cheaper workstation I think a Latitude is the way to go. Higher end HP and Lenovo workstation configs are even more expensive.

 

From my experience, Dell tends to be a little bit better built than Lenovo, though HP is a little better than Dell.

 

Agreed. Was also surprised about the screen flex. This is their business line and one expects more ... sturdiness I guess.

 

According to IDC Dell actually did lead the market with mobile workstations sold in Q1:

Dell Precision Workstation Momentum Continues - Inside Enterprise IT - Blogs - Dell Community

Dell had 39.3% share while HP had 38.1% of the market, so it's close. Of course, selling the most of a product doesn't always mean it's the best. It could just mean that Dell had a very large customer order a bunch of workstations in Q1. The Precision M4500 is impressive though and I think Dell has come a long way in the past 5-years with their business offerings in general.

 

Agreed, their business line has gotten consistently better overall IMO.

 

That's sort of a disappointing review --- flex in the keyboard of a high-end professional laptop is pretty much a dealbreaker as far as I'm concerned.

 

There's no mention of the fact that the M4500's GPU uses GDDR3 memory while the one in the HP 8550w uses GDDR5. You don't have to mention these technical details in the review, but a comparison of CAD or OpenGL benchmarks between the two models would be interesting.

I too am appalled by the flex and give in the screen lid. My E6400 has a VERY sturdy screen lid. The thing has actually fallen on a wooden tile floor while open, and fell SCREEN FIRST! After brief moments of panic I was relieved to see that apart from a minor chip in one of the corners of the lid, everything was working just fine. And the keyboard has no flex while I type normally, and very mild flex if I type like Shrek.

 

I don't think the lid is any more flexible than the M4400, the hinges are definitely weaker, mine doesn't wobble, but nowhere near as stiff as my M4400 that has been opened and closed around 4 times a day for the last 18 months.

At least they've improved the latch and put some bumpers on the bezel and palm rest this time, it's a lot better than it's predecessor here.

Benchmarks have shown little to no difference between the DDR3 FX1800m in the M4500 and the GDDR5 version in the HP, seems HP has more of a job keeping things cool than the M4500 going by temps posted by 8540w owners.
I'm very surprised by the lack of difference, maybe HP can't use memory speeds [heat] that actually make use of GDDR5, or maybe it just doesn't work as well with nvidia compared to ATI

 

That's exactly the kind of information that should be in the review. The 8540w is, along with the Lenovo W510, the main competition for the M4500.

 

What ever happened to be offering the RGBLED screen with this or the superRGBLED? In terms of the screen its a downgrade from the M4400 otherwise its a great improvement from the original one and these notebooks are becoming more and more compact every year and enegeried so much better. Now this is also available in the outlet!

 

I started a thread about the flex (with videos) I have in the 6500 back in October (that was not resolved even after a Dell backlit keyboard replacement). I've bought Dell business notebooks for over 10 years now & can't believe they would ruin them with this shoddy shiznit..

I'm often in the market for new high end business notebooks & frankly passing on Dell for now which is a shame as I've always previously liked their CTO price : performance models & considering HP Elitebooks or ThinkPads but will likely keep waiting. The pre-built 8540w appears to offer the most value & if I had to get one today would likely give it a go but will follow up further with the owners lounge to see if they'd still agree with that statement.

I hope business notebooks will come with larger & better multi-touchpads soon as well (8540w is rather small I've read but multi-touch can be enabled) & matte screens & good webcams & easily upgradeable batteries are important to us.

Also considering the Elitebook 2740p tablet but no discrete-switchable graphics makes it a more difficult choice. The 8540w seems like it will endure the most.

Appreciate any further thoughts.

 

My M4500 traveles with me to and from work each day. It is used for general computer stuff, server backup, CAD (Vectorworks) and Adobe CS5 applications. It replaced an XPS M1530. Most of the time at work and home it is used with an external 24" monitor, keyboard and mouse. I have never played a game on it - not that there's anything wrong with that but I can't imagine why so much focus on games is important for a workstation class product.

I was looking for a high performance portable machine and I am very satisfied that the M4500 delivers on that. On occasion that I use the native screen, the chosen 1600 x 900 screen gives a good readable balance.

My processor is the 820 quad. Reason for choosing is to have reasonable overall performance when running virtual machines. With 8G of memory it does a good job. For CAD applications (Vectorworks), I rekon overall the machine is about 10% faster than the XPS M1530. I was expecting a lot more. This was at first dissapointing but then I realised it is consistantly faster and does not tend to bog down. I would expect that a faster dual core processor would be a better choice for sheer performance when not running a virtual machine. I wish more attention was paid to benchmarking in dual vs quad because I think quad is only faster when most threads are kept busy.

I had earlier tried a MacBook 15" Pro but realised that the MacBook is designed for a different application and market. As much as I wanted to have a serious go at moving to a Mac platform it wasn't going to work.

In summary:

The keyboard flex is a non issue and has no adverse effect on use - don't worry about it. It is there but I would never have known without pressing down hard on the keyboard.

The screen hinging is perfect. Firm enough to hold the angle yet easy to adjust.

The 1800 graphics option probably doesn't bring anything to the CAD and Adobe applications vs the standard graphics. I would like to see this area benchmarked for the real applications.

A high end dual core processor will probably return a much better result then the quad core for straight application performance. On the other hand for VM work, the quad is better. Again I would like to see some real world benchmarking here.

I have no regrets with the purchase and would highly recommend the product.

 

I'm still happy with my M4500 820M. Although it can handle heat production by itself very well, I bought a Zalman laptopcooler in in summer because the appartment lacks AC and it was just getting too hot when gaming.

Speaking of gaming : imo, the FX1800M delivers a really solid performance in my recent fav game Splinter Cell Conviction. About 35 fps average at 1280 x 720 with medium fx settings.
3Dmark score has proven to be on par with the HP FX1800 ddr5. I guess HP had to limit clockspeeds due to heat.

For work I use Cinema4D, Zbrush, Maya and Photoshop. The M4500 performs very well in all apps. Only the recent A07 videocard driver didn't perform very well so I reverted back to A06.

The screenflexing is not so bad imo ; I had a Dell M65 before this one and it's about as sturdy. The image quality is definetely better than the M65's.

So yeah, I would recommend this laptop.

 

I read somewhere that Dell limited their FX1800M to DDR3 in order to achieve Energy Star Certification. I posted about it a while back in the M4500 Owner's Lounge.