New M6500 Discussion Thread

Thank you very much for the update. That's somewhat more consistent with what I would expect. The NTSC color space is actually very close to AdobeRGB (and much larger than 45% of the adobeRGB color space), so what the Dell engineers said previously was a bit suspect.

I'm still puzzled though why the NTSC mode would have given you different whitepoint results, compared to when you had control point uninstalled. Your initial NTSC results were 7,262 kelvin @ 320 nits, while your "native" results were 6826 kelvin @ 344 nits. Maybe there was another variable involved? (Different NVIDIA settings or drivers?)

I'm struggling to understand why there would have been a difference in your results if NTSC is truly equivalent to "native." I'm not quite ready to equate Dell's NTSC mode to "native" although it is closer than the other alternatives (and maybe close enough for most folks, considering the other variables involved in monitor calibration).

If the Control Point NTSC mode is truly equivalent to "native" then it should be easy enough for Dell to change the name of the mode. But like I said earlier, I expect that it is close, but not quite the same. I've known software developers to BS their way around issues in the past, and from what I've seen so far, I'm not entirely convinced Dell understands the "science" behind their color controls.

That said, the monitor profiles close enough when Control Point is disabled, and to be honest, I haven't found a compelling reason to enable Control Point. I'm just jealous of the HP folks who have "real" color controls on their laptops, and the Lenovo folks who have a very accurate and easy to use built in color calibrator.

 

I will remeasure the display tomorrow with and without controlpoint. I have noticed slight variations in color temp based where the colorimeter is on the panel, how long the panel has been on, and how long the panel has been allowed to "settle" after a brightness adjustment has been made.

I have all of the historical information on the display and it has been measuring consistently.

 

Thank you for remeasuring.

I'm not entirely happy about the consistency of color/brightness across the display, but then maybe I was expecting too much. It's still leagues ahead of the laptop it is replacing.

I'm about ready to leave on a 3-week trip, and bumping up against several deadlines, so for now I will probably call the monitor calibration "good enough" and then recalibrate again when I return home in three weeks.

Thanks again for sharing your calibration results, and for making the effort to talk to Dell about the color issues. I suspect your efforts will end up helping out quite a few people.

Keith

 

AHHHH! I'm not patient enough to wait this long! What is taking Dell so long?

I just hope when mine gets here it will be all its cracked up to be and more! Then I just hope I can get the screen looking right.

 

How long have you been waiting?

 

didn't you know that you have to wait the obligatory 1.5 - 2 months? You've got another month or so to go don't give up yet! *seriously though, I hope they do get production going a bit faster than it's been.

Mine's been ordered since Dec 29th and I know others have been waiting just as long. You must have patience grasshoppa

 

I can tell you one thing, its (your favorite expletive here) fast. Throw crazy stuff at it. I think that the raw performance the m6500 is capable of is what we forget to talk about when we talk about the other issues. Its fast when you need it and it consistently runs three hours on the battery. Ok. Was that enough of a pep talk?

 

What about NVIDIA’s FX 3800M Graphics Card, and the RAM 1600MHz, 1333MHz, and 1066Mhz

 

Is the precision m6500 RGB LED screen the same as a precision m6400? Samsung? How do you set the colors correctly?

 

Turn the brightness down to 5-7 up from the lowest brightness and use the ntsc mode in dell's controlpoint software if you dont have a calbrator. Otherwise, read the posts here and calibrate.