Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

thats pretty close to what i got.
well, from my pov the heigt is quite interesting, as the overall 'look' changes alot with it.

also it barely fits into my bag, i can't close it anymore ...
gonna be interesting, what dell answers on the height mismatch.

 

Hello everyone,

My father bought a M4400 using the phone, but the dell rep didn't add a wifi-card, and my father didn't ask for it. I had to install and configure everything, and I found out his laptop doesn't have a wifi-card in it... Is it possible to just buy a wifi-card and add it?

His laptop does look fancy

 

Thanks for the info on the ram, IRam. I need the memory for independent film making. Basically when using in combination, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and After Effects especially I end up eating a lot of memory. I'm also going to be running Vista 64 which taxes the memory a little bit more then 32 bit. But like you said for anyone that does basic graphics, games, and other normal applications the 8gb worth of memory is really a waste. Besides 4gb is so cheap its not funny.

 

Hi guys, on monday i will final getting my precision M4400 but as i want this to last at least 4 years , i want to know what mxm type is the fx770 and what graphics cards i could possible upgrade to ?

 

Yes, just be shure you buy a half-size mini pci wlan card (e.g. Intel wifi link 5100).

Sorry, the M4400 has no MXM solution. The Quadro FS 770M is directly soldered to the mainboard. You can't upgrade the gpu in the M4400.

 

Ok I just spoke with Dell about my order. Blu ray is pretty important to me for authoring HD. It is on the tech specs that the laptop does support Blu ray but when the sales rep reviewed it between other sale reps and tech's he said there was no road map for adding Blu ray to the M4400. The other thing that he mentioned that kinda worries me is that when he spoke witht he tech he said they mentioned that I could not swap out the current DVD burner for a Blu ray drive. He thought that the laptop would have to be reconfigured. Does anyone know if the DVD drive removable? If so is it sata? What type of drive slot is it? Thanks!

 

Ok, thanks for the quick reply

 

Yes it's a sata port and it is removable:



The problem is that the Dell order system can't change orders. That's why he wan't you to reconfigure. I ordered my M4400 without a DVD-drive to get the blueray drive when it was available.

 

Hey guys... got my machine (specs: on page 78 of this thread, post #772) . Thought I'd give quick first impressions.

The LCD is definitely glossy. It's not as glossy as a Macbook, but it's pretty glossy. That's a bit disappointing. Aside from that aspect, the screen is very nice. In some ways, it's not as good as my old T42P... the viewable angles are less, especially in the vertical, but the colors are great. I did notice some fairly major bleed through of the back light on dark screens. If you display a black background, you can see some seemingly random light and dark patterns from the back light. That's a bit annoying, but you can only see that with very dark/black backgrounds such as when windows is booting.

Any sure fire way to confirm that this is an RGB-LED screen?

The keyboard has some flex, but it's not too bad. Overall, I'd say the keyboard is slightly better than my T42P, and that's saying a lot.

The trackpoint is a little disappointing. It's a little harder to use than the T42P's due to its concave shape. (The T42P has a convex trackpoint.) The buttons used for the trackpoint are pretty crappy. They're smooth and it's hard to tell if you're pressing them or the case itself without looking, and they require a fairly deep press to make a click.

I can't figure out how to login to Windows with my fingerprint reader. Once you setup your fingerprint it requires you to swipe it when you turn the machine on (before Windows boots), but doesn't seem to to anything at the login prompt or while in Windows. What am I missing?

The speakers are crappy, but not as crappy as I was expecting. I can deal with them.

I can't judge performance yet because my Crucial 4GB kit hasn't arrived and I'm running on 1GB, which is absolutely brutally slow.

The machine itself is heavier than my T42P by at least a pound. It's on the edge of being too heavy for comfort. That's obviously 100% personal preference.

The DVD R/W seems kinda flimsy to me. First time I put a disk in and pressed down I heard a loud crack/snap. Thought I broke it but it seems fine. I think the tray came off its track a little and then snapped back in by itself. It's also pretty loud when in use, but so was the DVD R/W in my T42P.

So far, fan noise isn't bad at all. It's running A09, and the fan seems to speed up and slow down as it should based on CPU activity/heat. A lot of the posts on here made it seem like a huge problem, but so far, so good. Again, only 1GB of ram is keeping me from doing a whole lot with the machine other than installing software, but once I get my Crucial shipment I'll run a game or something to see how it behaves.

The ambient light senor is kinda cool, but it consistently makes the display too dark for my preference, so I turned it off. Still, kinda neat to cover the sensor and watch the screen adjust automatically.

I'll post a full review once I get my ram and have had a chance to get to know this machine. So far, I'm fairly happy.

 

It seems everyone getting "glossy" screens are getting the "WUXGA (1920x1200) RGB-LED TRUELIFE Display".

Has anyone gotten the "WXGA+ (1440x900) LED Display"? And, since it's *not* a Truelife screen is it not glossy?

I can't think of a single good reason to have a glossy screen on a machine geared towards work and not entertainment.