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On Wednesday 20 July 2011 07:30:11 Mick did opine thusly: |
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> On Tuesday 19 Jul 2011 21:47:38 Alan McKinnon wrote: |
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> > Notebook renewal time has rolled around again, I've had the old |
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> > one for 3 years now. Amazing how much can change in 3 years. I |
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> > don't do notebook support so my knowledge is always out of |
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> > date... |
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> > |
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> > I'm tending towards a Dell Precision M4600 partly because I've |
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> > had 4 Dells in a row all troublefree but mostly because the |
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> > company discount is a big number that can only be properly |
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> > described as "obscenely big" |
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> > |
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> > I'd like to get some input from folks who might have used this |
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> > hardware. |
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> > |
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> > Screens; a choice between |
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> > 1920x1080 WLED |
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> > 1920x1080 RGBLED IPS |
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> > |
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> > The IPS screen only comes with an NVIDIA Quadro 2000M with 2GB |
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> > GDDR3, The regular screen comes with these choices of video |
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> > card: |
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> > |
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> > AMD FirePro M5950 Mobility Pro with 1GB GDDR5 dedicated memory |
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> > NVIDIA Quadro 1000M with 2GB GDDR3 dedicated memory |
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> > NVIDIA Quadro 2000M with 2GB GDDR3 dedicated memory |
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> > |
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> > The price difference is substantial. Considering that my usage |
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> > is |
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> > nothing more stressful than KDE eye-candy and mplayer, is the |
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> > IPS |
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> > screen worth the extra price? OTOH the machine has VGA, HDMI and |
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> > DisplayPort as well as internal screen and I believe the ATI can |
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> > drive all 4 at the same time whereas the nVidia is "pick any |
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> > two". Up to 4 screens might be more useful than outright |
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> > performance. |
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> |
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> I don't think it is. When I bought my XPS (a year and a half ago) |
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> the RGBLED screen was c. £150 on top of what was a rather expensive |
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> machine by my affordability standards. |
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> |
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> Perhaps it was an early version back then, but although it was |
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> claimed by those who bought it that the RGBLED has somewhat |
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> superior picture quality, it also had 2 more drawbacks besides the |
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> price: |
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|
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I *can* see a difference with the RGBLED screen (see why answer to |
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Stroller where someone in the office got one today), but its not a |
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compelling difference and not big enough to make me go Wow! yet |
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|
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> 1. You need to calibrate the monitor to get best picture and may |
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> need to repeat that every now and then. |
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|
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I will likely never do this :-) |
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Mostly coz I'm lazy... |
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|
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> 2. It will suck your battery dry (much?) faster than the WLED. |
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> |
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> If you're always on mains then the latter may be less of a problem. |
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|
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Mostly on mains, but I'd like to stay at more than 2 hours battery |
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life from a full charge for 2.5 years |
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|
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> A word of warning: the 1920x1080 resolution on a 16" monitor is |
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> *small*. Trying to read a typical website or even the content of my |
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> desktop menu would cause eye strain! Ha! Fantastic picture if you |
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> just want to watch videos in full 1080p HD, but if you are also |
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> thinking of productivity you may need to readjust your desktop |
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> settings to make reading comfortable. On e17 I had to change the |
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> Scaling setting to 80 DPI. |
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|
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Currently I have 1920x1200, 96dpi and konsole fonts set at 8pt. I'm |
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used to people looking over my shoulder saying "how the blazes do you |
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read those tiny letters?" |
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|
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> A final note about Dell's build quality: This is meant to be a top |
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> of the range laptop. However, there are no substantial rubber |
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> stops to keep the screen surface away from the keyboard. Even with |
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> 3 additional self-adhesive rubber stops that I added, the keyboard |
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> is still touching and scratching the screen. For the sort of money |
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> I paid to buy it I would expect some more thought to have gone into |
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> the design and build of it. I guess all laptops these days are |
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> being churned out of some Chinese sweat shop, but for the money I |
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> expect a better product. |
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|
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I can't honestly fault this XPS's build quality. The palm rest area |
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has warped, but it does run hot almost 24/7. The keyboard always felt |
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a tad lower quality than it should have been, but did take 2.5 years |
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for the legends to start wearing through. |
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|
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From what I've seen, the Precisions are better (there's quite a lot in |
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the office of varying ages). They are almost as good as ThinkPads - |
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not as good, but close. |
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|
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-- |
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alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com |