New Latitude and Precision's

Really Envy 15 has just two RAM slots? I didn't knew that.
But ... aren't usually two 8 Gb DIMMs quite expensive compared to four 4 Gb DIMMs, for the same total amount of RAM?

My taste is different about optical drive (the lack of an integrated drive is one of the primary reasons I dislike Envy 15) and I'm afraid, just like knight427, that make a smaller chassis could lead to cooling issues.
M6500 is a big and well cooled machine and it seems, judging by owners' reports, it has no overheating issues (nor throttling!).
I'd be very happy to find M4500 is a smaller sibling of M6500 (but relatively lightweight, of course! ).

 

The Envy 15 has 4 memory slots. There is no such thing as 8GB DDR2/DDR3 SO-DIMMs as of now. Also, most users do not use the optical drive and hence an external optical drive is sufficient and even desirable. Even Windows can be installed via USB with ease...

 

I agree with that. We are quickly getting to the point were all software and media (music, movies) is downloaded from a vendor, with no physical media involved at all. The only time you need physical media of some sort is for OS installs and, like you say, that can easily be done from USB sticks these days (hmm, well, unless it doesn't work, as in the case of Win7 on my M6400, but that's a different story...).

As a matter of fact, given the price levels at which you can buy low-capacity memory sticks, I wonder when vendors will start selling their software on memory sticks rather than CD/DVD. My guess is that for volume purchases, you can probably get 4GB sticks for about a buck or so.

 

A dollar for a 4gb stick seems somewhat low, but even still is a lot more than the $0.10 or so it might cost for a DVD.

Optical media is here to stay for a little while.

 

Sure, for a little while, but not that much longer. People have already pointed out that BluRay is going to be the last optical drive format, with optical drives going the way of floppy drives within something of the order of five years or so.

Point is, for many users, the optical drive is barely ever needed. I can probably count the number of times I opened the CD tray on my M90 over the past two years on the fingers of one hand. Of course, YMMV...

 

....nothing yet....

 

As I said, there won't be anything before we reach spring/early summer 2010.

 

That might be, but I hope for Q1. I have seen with my own eyes the dell fasttrack spare parts db and E6410 and E6510 are almost complete. Not much on the M4500 yet......

 

I personally don't see a reason to rush for a refresh. The best time for a refresh is when companies finally have the capital to expand. Currently, that is not the case. If Dell were to spend large amounts of money now on a refresh when the demand is not there, it will cripple their ability to function.

 

Are the screens the same part numbers as the current models?, unless Dell breaks tradition, precisions should be the same except for maybe the top end screen.

It would be stupid to do away with the removable optical drive, for one thing you lose the ability to have multiple hard drives as I do....we have enough form over function nonsense in the PC world as it is, the only size I care about is footprint, extra thickness is usually accompanied by cooler running, which imo isn't a negative.
Having said that, I rarely use the optical drive module and prefer to use a 4X faster mains powered one.I certainly don't want to be burdoned to even more cables using e-Sata though