Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

I still have one more suggestion. Go check out the Dell Outlet Store and you can find an M6400 or another favorite of mine (actually I like the layout of the M6300 better) with a large number of different hardware choices and get a more 'robust' machine for less than a new Adamo will cost. They also have a good selection of the Latitudes including the ATG & XFR 'rough duty' models. The XFR looks like the Panasonic Tough Book but the ATG just looks like a regular Latitude but has a much tougher box and layout (coffee spillable keyboard, shock mounted drives, covers for all exposed connections, etc. As pretty as it is with it's Mac type milled chassis and all, the Adamo seems overpriced considering the few and low powered processors offered, as well as the poor GPU choices (is there even choices?). 2200 bucks will buy a lot more of everything than your choice offers. IMHO

 

I bought a SDHC card from svp.co.uk, 8GB was about £15. Apart from a hotfix I had to install to get XP to recognise cards over 4GB it picked it up fine. I believe the manufacturer was Kingston. It came formated for Fat32 and because I was copying a large file, I had to format it to NTFS first which wasnt a problem. Seriously slow transfer speeds though, it took about an hour to transfer 4GB.

By the way just in case any of you have found the middle mouse button a bit of an annoyance (Ive never had a middle button there before!) you can try Xmouse software (Free) which remaps it or disables it http://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/XMouseButtonControl.htm. You can choose how it acts in different applications and Ive chosen to disable mine in FireFox as I seem to always be closing tabs by accident with it

Veni

 

I meant Best build quality but not rugged,

in fact the thing that it costs so much makes me think that it is built solidly
and not everyone is going to have one

Im following m6400 for 3 weeks now at outlet and best i can find is 2300$
I really want a RGB screen, 2.93 processor, 512 mb graphics 2700m

No matter what you say
Its too much for this specs(also for adamo)
2000$ max and the 15% coupon would give me back 150$(bacause of the tax)

I didnt sell my old comp and cant decide
But i think im closer to adamo than ever.

 

Hey everyone... got a resolution and screen size question for all the M6400 owners.

6 Years ago i bought a top-of-the line Inspiron 8600 Pentium-M 1.7Ghz 15.4" UWXGA+ (1920x1200) laptop new from dell Canada.

I'm using it to write this and lets just say I certainly got my money's worth out of this baby.

My only BIG regret is paying for the 1920x1200 native res on the 15.4" LCD.. I have been forced to run it @ 1280x800 (16:10) all these years because the text was just way too small for software development.. my primary activity.

Now.. I really want a 17" workstation laptop. and i'm excited about the M6400 and the option for the E2E LED display.....

But will I regret getting the 1920x1200 resolution even @ 17".

I looked at the Macbook Pro 17" @ best-buy recently since it uses an LED 1920x1200 LED display and played with the display and found the text to be much better sized and high-quality.

Is the M6400 Covet with the LED display @ 1920x1200 going to look as good as the Macbook Pro for text and another 5 years of text editing in Visual Studio, etc, etc?

Text display quality is VERY VERY important to me..

I'm also a little concerned about Anti-Glare vs Glossy.. which one is the LED Edge-2-Edge.. I have never had a Glossy laptop.. can you get the E2E in "Anti-Glare (matte)" style?

I spend 99% of my time using my laptop in my house in medium to high ligthing (CFL and office lighting).. and also with background sunlight from living room and dining room windows. Is the LED display useable with ambiant sun-light comming into a room; i.e. Kitchen or Living room?

Any help or opinions would be well received.

Thanks in advance!

Heston.

P.s. Dell Canada is gouging the 16GB Ram price by about an extra $400 CAD (pre-tax) compared to the same ram bought on www.newegg.ca for DDR3 4GB sodimm pairs X 2.
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hi,

are you able to change the clockrate of the NVidia 3700m? i tried it with Rivatuner but nothing happens.

 

Anyone using a remote control with their M6400 for music, video, and powerpoint talks?

Make/model?

Thanks.

 

I apoligize if the answer to my question is in this thread already. I was wondering if the M6400 backlit keyboard light can me made to stay on all the time. Also , I have keyboard flex/spongyness and heard there are 2 Dell part numbers for this keyboard. Is one better than another? I have always had to replace keyboards on Dell laptops due to flex/spongyness.. The replacements were much better. Thanks.

 

Touchpad Speed setting is never saved in the Touchpad Settings.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Thanks

 

As indicated in my sig I have the matt RGB LED. It is very bright and an excellent screen. It is the brightest notebook screen I have seen and many M6400 users have asked how can they turn the brightness down to below the lowest setting ... (see previous posts). This screen is also excellent in minimizing reflections (lights, sunlight, etc.).

With any type of sunlight I would not recommend the glossy LED.

At max resolution things are small so I have the font size increased. Although there are also lower resolution settings as an option.

 

Sorry if I'm getting obsessive about this but this has turned into a plan for me. I have another 17" laptop and have been thinking of ditching it for something smaller and more portable and your questions got me thinking specifics. When I looked at the Adamo I thought I'd dropped off planet Dell and fell into Mac world. The machined aluminum base could have come from a powerbook. It's beautiful. But it was the lack of choices, which is one of the things I love about Dell that really gave me pause. Just two underpowered processors to choose from!? 1.2 & 1.4ghz? This can't be Dell. And you say you're looking for something that's "not rugged"? What's wrong with rugged? Especially when it's in such a beautiful magnesium case and starting with a 2.4ghz duo core and six processor choices later you're at the top with 2.93ghz. A big game or even a big photo project is going to have the Adamos expensive upgrade 1.4ghz top of the line processor wheezing. The whole 'build your own' thing I like so much about Dell seems absent with the Adamo.

And reading users remarks the high build quality was a constant point made by owners of the Latitude E6400 ATG . Building a machine you can drop 30" over and over again and all the other tortures you need to call something "mil spec" I would think would concentrate the engineers & builders minds on doing a quality job in the extreme. I only found a few remarks on the Adamo and the most frequent observation was of it being a 'fingerprint magnet'. This got me to wondering what you see in the Adamo that's so attractive. I'm just repeating what I read but with the 9 cell battery the Latitude doubles the run time of the Adamo. The Adamo really is attractive but I can't understand why Dell abandons it's regular system to offer just two sort of crappy processors on what is aimed at an upscale market. I'm not trying to argue with you, we all have different ideas and thankfully there's a laptop for about all of them, but this Adamo is so...so unDell. Now I'm trolling the Outlet store with the ATG as my first choice. Hell, if I can drop it 30" onto a hard floor it's almost like proactive Complete Care! And I think that building a stylish looking military spec laptop itself indicates a focus on 'build quality'. I got my Covet on a 20% Outlet coupon and they have them for Latitudes more often so I'm going to wait on a coupon and shop for an ATG. For the purposes it'll serve it's perfect, and I like the way it looks. If you can, post the final results of your perfect laptop search. And best of luck.