Dell Precision M3800 - my mini-review
After 2 months of using my Dell Precision M3800 for hours a day, I must say I am very happy with this computer! Very solid construction, gorgeous 15" display, very thin and light for its size, and a lot of horse-power under the hood! By far the best computer I've ever owned, not just in its power, but also in its overall ergonomics.
Here are some random comments and observations:
Specs
- Intel Core i7-4702HQ quad-core CPU
- NVIDIA Quadro K1100M graphics with 2GB GDDR5.
- 15.6" UltraSharp™ IGZO QHD+ (3200x1800) with Touch.
- 16 GB RAM
Battery
I've opted for a smaller 61Whr battery (in order to make room for a dual-drive configuration). But even with this smaller battery I easily get solid 4 hours even without going to the Power Saver mode. Enough for a typical flight: and that's all I really need, as I am plugged in most of the time.
Storage
My M3800 came with two drives: a 512 GB SSD - the boot drive (Samsung SM841 6 Gbits/s mSATA) and a 512 GB Hybrid SSHD (2.5" Seagate ST500LM000). 1 TB of total storage!
The Hybrid drive is essentially a hard drive with an SSD buffer. I really like the dual drive configuration. Not only it gives me huge storage space, but also an extra level of redundancy: I can do an internal backup of some most important files from the SSD drive to the hard drive. And it will be very easy to upgrade the data drive down the road without replacing the system SSD drive.
Construction
The laptop has a solid metal (aluminum?) frame, solid aluminum cover with Corning Gorilla Glass and a carbon-fiber base. Feels very strong and solid. The palm rest is soft to touch: nicer to your palms (and to your eyes too, being all black) than a solid aluminum surface of an MBP, but the downside is that it collects the dust easily and might be harder to clean.
Display
The QHD+ (3200x1800) display is gorgeous! Probably an overkill for my purposes, but hey, what the heck! I love it! The colors look right to me. I haven't done any calibration, but those who have claim it's pretty accurate out of the box. Just make sure to disable the Splendid Color mode in the Mobility Center, otherwise the colors would be oversaturated.
Display Scaling
Windows 8.1 that my notebook came with, does a great job scaling to the QHD+ resolution. You don't even have to change the DPI manually, it does that automatically. The menus and text don't look tiny in spite of this near 4K resolution. Windows 8.1 even supports different DPI settings for multiple displays - very useful when using an external monitor simultaneously with the internal display. Most Microsoft products, including Visual Studio and of course Microsoft Office and the Internet Explorer, all scale very well. The Remote Desktop doesn't scale, but there are workarounds. Unfortunately some third-party vendors (including Adobe) are not always up-to-speed with HiDPI support. No problems with Adobe Lightroom 5 however, which I use for photo editing. If the scaling becomes a problem with third-party products, I simply lower the screen resolution to 1080p or even 1600x900, which looks pretty good. Because the pixels are so tiny, there is no problem using non-native resolutions, unless you are working with graphics. Just make sure to log out and then log in back after changing the resolution.
Keyboard and touchpad
I like the keyboard. Good response. It's backlit and can be easily used in the dark. The touchpad is ok, but not nearly as good as on my MacBook Pro: one area that could certainly be improved. But it's not bad. I am getting used to it.
Touchscreen
The touchscreen is very responsive. Almost like on my iPad. I do need the touchscreen for development and testing purposes, but I didn't expect to use it too often. Surprisingly I am getting the hang of it! Certain things, like scrolling the pages, are just easier to do with the touchscreen.
Ports and features
I really like having four USB ports! And I do need all four of them! Three of the ports are USB 3.0. There is also a mini-DP port and an HDMI. Unfortunately no Ethernet port (rather strange for a workstation class laptop), but it does come with a USB-Ethernet adapter, (I got another one, which is USB 3 and also a USB 3 dock). WiFi is fast (AC), but I am having some occasional issues with connection stability. I haven't checked the updated drivers yet - hopefully that will help. Or perhaps it's an issue with my router - still looking into it.
The huge thing for me is that this laptop is user-upgradable and can have two internal drives: one mSATA and one full-size 2.5" SATA. Both are 6 Gbit/s.
Overall I am very happy with this machine! It is expensive, but in my opinion, the cost is justified. It's a true mobile workstation: light, yet very powerful!
