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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 one |
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> for 3 years now. Amazing how much can change in 3 years. I don't do |
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> notebook support so my knowledge is always out of date... |
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> |
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> I'm tending towards a Dell Precision M4600 partly because I've had 4 |
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> Dells in a row all troublefree but mostly because the company discount |
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> is a big number that can only be properly 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 GDDR3, |
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> The regular screen comes with these choices of video 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 is |
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> nothing more stressful than KDE eye-candy and mplayer, is the 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 drive |
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> all 4 at the same time whereas the nVidia is "pick any two". Up to 4 |
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> screens might be more useful than outright performance. |
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I don't think it is. When I bought my XPS (a year and a half ago) the RGBLED |
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screen was c. £150 on top of what was a rather expensive machine by my |
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affordability standards. |
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Perhaps it was an early version back then, but although it was claimed by |
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those who bought it that the RGBLED has somewhat superior picture quality, it |
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also had 2 more drawbacks besides the price: |
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1. You need to calibrate the monitor to get best picture and may need to |
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repeat that every now and then. |
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2. It will suck your battery dry (much?) faster than the WLED. |
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If you're always on mains then the latter may be less of a problem. |
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A word of warning: the 1920x1080 resolution on a 16" monitor is *small*. |
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Trying to read a typical website or even the content of my desktop menu would |
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cause eye strain! Ha! Fantastic picture if you just want to watch videos in |
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full 1080p HD, but if you are also thinking of productivity you may need to |
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readjust your desktop settings to make reading comfortable. On e17 I had to |
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change the Scaling setting to 80 DPI. |
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A final note about Dell's build quality: This is meant to be a top of the |
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range laptop. However, there are no substantial rubber stops to keep the |
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screen surface away from the keyboard. Even with 3 additional self-adhesive |
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rubber stops that I added, the keyboard is still touching and scratching the |
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screen. For the sort of money I paid to buy it I would expect some more |
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thought to have gone into the design and build of it. I guess all laptops |
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these days are being churned out of some Chinese sweat shop, but for the money |
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I expect a better product. |
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-- |
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Regards, |
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Mick |
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