Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

I just asked the sales rep for the least expensive hard drive option, and that's what he quoted me. It may have something to do with my governmental purchase agreement.

 

Dear all, I have 3 short questions before I decide to buy this beauty:
1. Will I be able to upgrade to a newer quad cpu in the future?
2. what 64 GB SSD is used in this machine from dell if I so choose? Intel extreme SLC? Samsung?
3. Later, is it possible to swap the original optical driver with say, a battery smart bay or a bluray drive?

Thanks! any insight is appreciated

 

Sequoia,

Digidesign owns Pro Tools and the Digi 1394 certification I mentioned was the full Pro Tools cert, which also includes certification of their 1394 devices with the system. We've been making good progress on improving our support for Digi and are in the process of provided them with a unit for certification testing. We hope to have the results by the end of November. Feel free to ping me then if you haven't heard from me.

Regards,
David

 

Current M6400 owners - how's the sound, for someone who might use this thing for watching the occasional DVD?

 

Per my Dell Rep, I can upgrade to the quad core later if I need to. No info on the SSD. The optical drive bay can be swapped with other ones as Dell comes out with them.

I ordered mine yesterday and I cannot wait for it to come in.

 

Just ordered my M6400 Covet yesterday. Quad core, 8GB ram, 160GB 7200 basic drive, Vista 64 Ultimate and an E/Port plus docking station. My rep said 20 days to delivery.. possibly sooner. I'll be replacing my 3+ year old Dell Precision M90 T2600 2.16 GHz Core Duo with this beast.

I was planning on putting a Samsung 128 GB MLC SSD (MMDOE28G5MPP-0VA) which seems to have good reviews in as the primary, and move my 160GB 7200 to my secondary for data storage. I am becoming more interested in the new 256 GB Samsung MLC SSD which says it's goign to have seq. read of 200 MB/sec and write of 160 MB/sec. Or maybe the 160GB Intel SSD. Unfortunately, neither of these have dates when they will be available.

In the past, Dell upgraded the BIOS for the M90 to support Core 2 Duo merom processors, etc. I hope that Dell will support the Covet in a similar manner.. enabling us to upgrade the CPUs, etc at later dates when faster procs come out.

 

Dell is dumb. The system isn't in the Home/consumer section, so you have to sort of fake a business to be able to buy it. Then they give me $5k credit, but with tax the total is a little over 5. They won't take say 2 grand up front to finance less, they refuse to split the bill. So they'd rather have a no-sale?

I guess I could spec it down without the Quad CPU to get it even cheaper, then buy the Quad upgrade and put it in myself? It's like you have to jump thru these hoops for the privelege of giving them your money.

 

It's funny, they also don't accept Employee Purchase program for the M6400 - I tried today. I can, on the other hand, buy the W700 using my employee discount with Lenovo (yes, I work at a company that has both), and end up getting it basically maxed out for over $1000 less than the Dell.

M6400 advantages:

• RGB LED 100% gamut screen
• Integrated 3G modem option
• Larger drives, or, RAID avail with SSDs
• Integrated UWB with Bluetooth
• Longer warranty/ADP program (5 vs. 4)
• Case Aesthetic

W700 Advantages:

• Blu-Ray drive
• 400 NIT screen (guessing reasonable outdoor usability, even if not in direct sun)
• TrackPoint in addition to touch pad
• Digitizer
• $1000 discount

Decisions decisions. I don't WANT to like the aethetic of the M6400, and don't want that to matter at all in my choice, and yet, darn, it's pretty, and the ability to order either the 640GB dual-HDD or 128GB dual-SSD RAID 0 setup is attractive. Then again, the trackpoint/digitizer thing is huge. I've never used a touch pad I really liked, and wonder if I'd ever get used to this. Hmmm. And the drive encryption feature on the W700 is a good thing... I'm a lawyer so this is really a best practices question. Then again, I'd love an integrated 3G modem. Darn it... I SOOOOO wish I could see the two screens, or even hear someone else's comparison who's actually seen both...

 

For what its worth, may I also suggest closely comparing the sizes of the two systems - there is a noticeable difference between them. Just my two cents.

Also, have you talked to a sales rep stateside? I was able to get a nice discount off the web site's price through my rep. I have a premier account with them, so that may have made a difference; I'm not sure.

N

 

Yeah not sure, I was ordering mine just now & in order to get it under 5k I gimped it down to the DC 2.8 CPU, and asked if I can then upgrade it myself. She said no. I asked if she was positive, and she went to ask another, who said Yes, but it will void your warranty. I said yikes, I guess I'll have to cancel it then. She replied that they'd find out for sure from someone if I want to put the order on hold & will call me right back, so we'll see.

I see I've got an order confirmation in my email anyway, she better call back soon. Dumb!