Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

Could anyone write about real-weight of M4400 with 2CCFL (with and withouth battery, etc...)?

By the way, @Thomas: Are you RGB "truelife" or "matte" screen?

Thanks!!

 

Checho: Thomas's screen is matte..

 

Font Issue update:

Well did not get to listen to much on-hold music, I was hoping for some snappy holiday music to quench the Grinch in me.....

Called Dell, explained font issue. Had to give a brief lesson regarding the different font file types, the Tech had never heard of an .oft or .pfb, Tech said all fonts were supposed to be ttf fonts. Open Type Fonts (.otf) are the standard nowadays......work on PC or MAC (most of the time). Anyway, I checked on my system some more and discovered that it was only otf and pfb (post script font) that would not install. I installed the same font files on two other machines with no issue.

I told the Tech that I had seen several instances of very similar font issues during research on the web and they were all pointing to graphics drivers.

Finally he got around to asking about the graphics card and talked to a L2 Tech then came back and says were are going to have to replace the graphics card. Then he says the graphics card is part of the motherboard on this machine.....I am looking at Nvidia's site while he is saying this looking at a picture of the 770m card....I say, well I think it is not integrated on the motherboard, he says it is, so I am thinking whatever.....just fix it.

So he does what he has to do to schedule someone to come and replace the MB and GPU. I told him about 10 times that I think it is simply a driver issue, but that Dell's site only has the one available Graphics driver. No he says the graphics card is "corrupted", exactly what he said.

I was ready to be off of the phone so I quit talking and just said yes or no for the rest of the call.

Then I had already looked at:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers

And decided if Dell did not have a solution that I would try a different driver. I installed 178.46, cause that was the first version that supported the 770M and I was reading about issues with the 180 series of drivers, so, I wanted to stay away from them for now, well what do you know, after the reboot all fonts are fine and dandy. I ran about 10 minutes of
http://downloads.guru3d.com/FurMark-v1.4.0-download-1965.html
Furmark....85f max gpu temp and all seemed well with laptop doing double duty as a hand warmer.

So I really do not want someone poking around in this machine, so I guess I call them and tell them I saved them a few hundred buck and they can just send me a check rather than having the Tech stop by to replace the integrated graphics on my 4400 ......

Would end up being about $400 or $500 min. to do it Dell's way, and it still would not have been fixed, or hey just cut me a check for $1200 Dell, which is my day-rate, which is about the amount of time I have spent finally getting Dell to ship the right config and then fixing it. But I have only had it for a day, maybe I should keep the ticket open in case I need to add some more fees to it.

 

Great story Thomas - it's funny to read all this about Dell needs to save money, but allways go for the most expensive solutions.

Maybe my opentype and postscript fonts wont work either on my M4400 with 1770M card.. but i can't really see how FONT FILES can have ANYTHING to do with graphic driver?!

I got a bit worried today when i saw my order confirmation again..:
"Power Supply And Power Cord : Worldwide 130W AC Adapter with European Power Cord " - oh no - thats not that HUGE brick the M6400 also is shipping with? i can imagen that thing will be heavy to carry around..

 

Thank you I think I am leaning towards getting the M4400. The M4400 is the best option right now.

 

How is the build quality of the M6400 compared with the M4400, I do not like the finish of the 4400 palm rest, the paint quality is not very good, do you know if the M6400 is a different finish, different material or paint ?, thanks

 

i dont think so, the m6400 has a 230w power adaptor right?

yours should be the same as mine, the various reviews have pics of it.

 

i dont think its paint. i think its just black plastic (somewhat reminds me of an old thinkpad). which is good, because paint will wear off/discolour slightly with time with heavy use and sweaty palms.

 

The outside looks black plastic, but I've seen the insides of the palm rest...it's gun metal chuck norris.

 

uhoh, i hope it dosent wear off. was hoping it was just monotone plastic.