M6600 and M4600 are coming in Feb.

No. They will be officially released on May 10th (that's when the press might get one) and it appears that it will take them a couple of more weeks to actually get going on real orders (the ship date was something like June 1). If you need one now as in "a couple of days", then look elsewhere. If "now" means "within a month or so", then wait a little bit.

 

I wouldn't even be thinking about the m4600 if it didn't have a keypad.

I absolutely need one for Nuke, After Effects and PPro =D

 

I don't really mind it either. I'm just worried about the keyboard/trackpad being aligned to the left relative to the screen, but I guess we'll see when it gets here.

 

The left aligned trackpad is weird. Doesn't seem very ergo, especially to left handers. I use a wacom tablet 90% of the time, so it's a non-issue for me.

 

As a right hander, I can't disagree with you, but if anything, I would have guessed that a left aligned trackpad would be better for a left-hander.

 

I hope so as well but have noticed that the SATA version is conspicuously absent from any of the specs i have seen so far.

 

Hey all. First-time poster, super-intermittent reader.

I've been thinking about an M4600 to replace my current Inspiron 6000, but I was curious about something, and figured that this was as good a place as any to ask.

Do current Dell machines - and by optimistic implication, this one - allow for the installation of video card drivers DIRECT from Nvidia or AMD? Or, like my Inspiron, will I have to A) settle for an older, Dell-approved driver or B) seek out a third-party utility to modify them?

Again, the M4600 looks like a fine machine, but the "vendor approved" driver system is, from a user standpoint, asinine.

 

I am pretty sure you can install direct drivers now with your current machine. Just uninstall current drivers and download the ones you want. They dont have to come from dell. This is true for I think all machines.

 

nVidia has started releasing mobile GPU drivers so there's no reason why you can't get drivers for nVidia GPUs from nVidia. I think ATI/AMD has mobile GPU drivers as well. Even before nVidia started releasing its mobile drivers, you could've gone to laptopvideo2go.com to get desktop drivers that have been modified to be able to install on mobile devices. Dell has never tried to prevent users from installing "3rd party" drivers, they just weren't as readily available.

You can probably go on nVidia's site right now and see if they have updated drivers for your 6000.

 

Raj, Bchen, I appreciate the replies.

In my immediate case, it's a moot point. The Inspirion I have has a ATI Mobility X300 which has been placed in AMD's "Legacy" category. So, for the moment, I'll get by.

Although it's refreshing to see that there doesn't appear to be restrictions on driver use. Anyways, back on topic:

I priced an M4600 using this link, and was curious about the impact of the dual-core i7 versus the quad-core. Looking at the clock speeds alone, the choice looks obvious, but there's probably something more going on.

There was also another thread here that brings up the memory bandwidth of the FirePro card having as a gaming advantage over the Nvidia cards, which both have more RAM. As I play games far less than I did (especially on a PC), and I'd be using this machine for audio/video/picture editing, I cant' help but wonder about the merits of more RAM over faster bandwidth.

Again, thanks for the replies!