Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

I'm just getting ready to order a m6400 and as far as the palmrest goes, any laptop with a full keyboard has the track pad off to the left. If you are a typist you'll realize that as long as your four fingers can rest on the A.S,D and F keys while at rest, then it's big enough. I agree, I don't like having the number pad keyboard on a laptop for that very reason. It just seems unbalanced and even if I need a number pad I prefer a seperate USB pad to having an extended keyboard that I rarely use. But that's just the way they make them. All of them to the best of my knowledge. Take a look at the m6300 Precision if it's really that big an issue. I like the abreviated keyboard much more than the full one. And as far as a mobile workstation goes, except for the more limited display choices (no LED screen) and no x9100 processor (but does have the x9000), you might consider the 6300. I'm only replacing mine because it was stolen, otherwise I'd have been happy to stick with that model. The dual drives is the major factor in my decision to go with the m6400, but you should take a look at the 6300 and see if it'd suit your needs. It is a fine machine and should suit anyone needing a 'workstation' class laptop. But if you want the upgrades offered in the 6400 then I guess you're just stuck with the funky keyboard arrangement. At least it doesn't have all the cable connections right on the front of the box, like a lot of 'high end' laptops. I'm using a borrowed one now and it's a lame place to have cables dangling. That little screwed up design cancled out all the Clevo built laptops for me. You think the offset track pad is screwy, you ought to see what it's like with four cable connections coming out in your lap.

 

Yes and no. Windows since Win NT 4.0 has supported multiple processors and as such multiple cores. HOwever while it can span threads across multiple cores. The OS itself really has not utilize the capability. As I stated before drivers as an example will load faster because of multiple cores. Services is another example.

XP was a good start. Vista is better. Win 7 is going to end up being the real deal in terms of quad core use.

 

"Win 7 is going to end up being the real deal in terms of quad core use."

In terms of the OS maybe.. It's still down to the Apps though to use the multi cores and thus far hardly any do.

Also remember that not all tasks lend themselves to multi threads. A large number of apps are, and always will be, run as a single thread.

This is why for 90% of people I'd still always recommend a faster dual core (say a 3.06Ghz) over a slower (per core) Quad. For what most people do you'll get a faster system.

Regards,
Smon

 

I was going to respond, but basically, this. That's why I said, "not really," versus, "is not."

 

windows 7 ( build 6956) runs great on the M6400!

feels much snappier than vista

 

Where are these elusive coupons for the m6400? I see lots of comments on them but I go to the Dell coupon page and it's all Inspiron Inspiron Inspiron. It'd sure be great to get a 10 or 20% discount. but 30%? Who do I have to kill?

 

I know this is probably a silly question, but does the above instruction also include Service Pack 1? For example, after you clean install the OS, do you first install all of the drivers, then SP1 and any remaining updates, or is SP1 installed immediately after the OS. I only ask as this is a new laptop and I don't know if there will be conflicts between updates that may be supposed to exist on the computer, and new drivers that Dell and others come out with. Thanks.

P.S. Got an e-mail today from Dell, the computer is delayed another week because of missing part ASSY,CBL,FPRDR,FFC,M6400. I'm guessing that's a Flexible Flat Cable for the Fingerprint Reader, though my product codes may be incorrect. New delivery date is Dec 29th, with shipping and customs PDI it should be around Jan 12th ...

 

yup, comes with sp1

 

I ordered the silver E2E screen and am very pleased after some convernings. For multimedia, games and photos the glasscover gives you a very great image! You have some reflections, but when you can control the lighting in your working room, you get better contrasts and deeper blacks.

 

Well, I can comment on that. In my experience, Dell used to have quite a good handle on software quality, but with my new M6400, things definitely seem different. This will be the first Dell Laptop I onw where I will reinstall, by necessity, the OS from scratch for that reason (of course, I have done clean installs nefore, but that was by choice, for upgardes and such).

First of all, after booting the machine for the first time, I can see three minidumps from around the build time of the system, meaning Vista was bluescreened three times during system setup. That's not a good sign at all, and I have never seen these on any brand-new Dell I have received.

Second, Dell's Control Point Connection manager is a piece of garbage, using up a significant amount of system resources (causing the nasty stuttering of the startup sound during Vista boots) and memory (it takes 40MB in its private set, which is a lot for an application with such limited scope). Finally, it turns out that glorious piece of software isn't even finished yet: If you open it, you get an information window telling you that it does not support wireless network cards yet (an update is promised for "early next year").

I do think the hardware is nice, and I do not perceive the keyboard flex as a problem at all. But to me it looks like you pretty much have to do your own clean-install of the OS for the machine to be trustworthy.