New M6500 Discussion Thread

"Oops".

Pulled the trigger on a Covet 920XM with a nice rep discount. Shorted on ram, so I'm shopping for it and SSD's now. ETA's about a month out (i7's and the print reader are both 8 day leads), so plenty of time to get stuff in.

In talking to our rep, I was in fact able to get the Intel 6300 added to the build instead of the 5300.

Guess this is where I start watching the clock way too much....

 

Congrats....love mine...I started my ordeal at the end of December, and got delivered on 4/2/10 after a concellation, waiting period, and reorder. Its' worth the wait.

 

Wow! 40% increase, thats wild! I wonder how much better the 6300 is compared to the dell wireless card. I'm all excited now woohoo!

 

Dunno. Ripped this blatantly from another post here in the forums comparing the 5300 and 6300 specifically...

The Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 is the next generation 3x3 (450 Mbps) Wi-Fi Adapter from Intel. Key differences between the Wi-Fi Link 5300 and the Centrino® 6300 are:

- Support for the latest Intel® vPro™ Technology which adds the following features/capabilities:
o HW-based keyboard, video, mouse remote control enabling an IT administrator to lower his/her support costs by being able to see the various states of the Laptop such as Startup/Shutdown, Blue Screen or OS freeze, Disk Failure, or Network Software issues to name a few
o Support for Intel® Anti-Theft Technology which can disable a PC if it is lost or stolen helping to ensure data confidentiality.

- Support for an enhanced receiver algorithm that can provide in some instances up to a 40% performance improvement over the previous receiver algorithm we had used in the 5300.

 

So - no answer on WHY the screens are the way they are? I hate these all-in-one threads, I might have said before...

 

that's cool if it's true...that a very easy and relatively inexpensive upgrade for us 5300 users. But I'll have to see it to believe it also.

 

I am pretty sure about the call i made it last time, the lady told me the 0831K is io board with usb 3.0 port, and normal io board is cheaper than this.

Let us ask havoctex!

 

Not sure of how you got a white point that low. Is this a measured native white point? Did you have the brightness turned all the way down? Most of these screens are over 7000k at the brightest settings and settle from 6300-6600k at lower brightness levels. Maybe if you had the brightness turned all the way down it would be that low - not sure. Looking at your pic that includes the mac in the middle I can see that the lighting in your room is really warm - the silver mac is orange/red. Is there a chance that you have some kind of light pollution happening from tungsten lights or bright sunlight during the calibration?

The purple tint looks like the flawed srgb profile in controlpoint. If you are calibrating, always set controlpoint to NTSC or uninstall it.

Also remember that your Macbook pro is limited to around 72% of the NTSC color gamut with a native gamma of 1.8 by design. I have no idea of what the gamut or white point of the Macbook Air is. Macbook pros that I have seen have a very slight blue tint out of the box. Apple may change that with their next refresh.

 

Of course, I'm not comparing gamut. In my post + photo I was more interested in WHY the M6500 RGBLED (and if I remember, the 6400 too to maybe a lesser extent) has such a comedy sRGB setting - if there was any logical reason at all behind it. To HAVE to calibrate (and I'm still not 100% happy) before you have something halfway usable is ridiculous.

 

I will take a stab at this one.

I think you are dealing with two issues. The first is the Dell ControlPoint software and the other is your frame of reference.

The sRGB and aRGB color space settings in the Dell control point software both have color casts to them. I have no idea of why Dell has not fixed this yet. I would recommend only using the NTSC color space.

Your sig line says that you use an Early09 and Mid09 17" macbook pro with non-glare screens. Both of these use the same 17" 1900x1200 WLED backlit display. Measured max brightness is probably 230nits across the center of the screen. Early review samples of the umbp17 could measure up to 250 and as low as 175 on different parts of the screen due to backlight issues. Your contrast ratio on the non-glare is probably 450:1. Your color gamut is geared towards showing almost 100% of the sRGB gamut, but Adobe and NTSC gamuts are around 72%.

Comparing that screen to the Dell M6500 screen, you can just increase all of those numbers by 30%. The Dell has a max brightness of over 300 nits, a contrast ratio of 650:1 and does a little over 100% of the Adobe color gamut. The only thing that did not go up would be the price - you likely paid around $5,000 for your Mac and your M6500.

If you crank the Dell screen up to 300 nits, that contrast ratio of 650:1 does not collapse. You get a very glowy kind of primary color compared to what you are use to on your Mac. Turn the brightness on the Dell down to 230 nits and see if the colors are closer.

Also, if you are reading a native white point of 4900 on the Dell, something must be wrong. Either its a software error, a user error, a hardware error on the calibrator, or a hardware issue with your M6500. Put the brightness on one of the middle settings and make sure you don't have the screen auto adjusting brightness or auto dimming from Windows power settings.

On the upside, maybe Apple will finally release an RGBLED backlighting option on the 13th when the new MB Pros are rumored to be announced. You can let us know how the new ones compare to the old ones and the M6500.