M11xR2 worth it? - Advice needed please

Yup... you got it... the 11.6" screen is ok for viewing documents - that's about it. Plus being a glossy screen makes it hard to use for my applications. I have the screen calibrated for some minimal colors, but it is nowhere near what is needed - just enough to get by.

I use a couple of 26" LCD's for primary work.

But having a portable power package (GPU & CPU) you can transport easily is valuable.

 

I keep my Lifebook T4215 for photo retouching. It handlle pretty decently. Good high-res matte screen and tablet is a plus for this kind of thing. On lightroom, maybe tablet isn't very that much useful, but on photoshop, it's much better than mouse or external USB tablet.

 

and for a hardcore user, who wants something that last for 3-4 years?


or with this rapid technology would that be impossible, to get sucha ultraportable?

 

True hardcore bult their own machine and swap parts out on mmonthly basis.

 

I was talking in Laptop terms;D

 

There is barebone notebook style also, just not ultra portable, but they generally more crappy than buying CTO from reputable places.

 

Is the screen on the M11x suitable for everyday use - like web surfing, emails, MS Office work etc. or is it too small?

 

I just got my M11x today. I have to say I've been testing it out pretty good, the resolution is nice so the screen is very usable. I'm use to using 24" and 19" LCD on my desktops and my other laptop is 14.1" 1440x900. I would have liked a 13.3" screen since I think that is the sweet spot but I like the 11.6" screen overall for size and quality. The glossy screen looks nice but reflections can cause issues obviously. The viewing angle doesn't seem as bad as I read but still isn't great. The screen is not as good as my 14.1" ultra glossy Dell 640m LCD for quality or viewing angle but is more than acceptable.

 

I agree, I find that 12 or 13" are more present in every day use. A screen res of 1050 or 1080p maybe too small for some people(i have no problem with that), if that was the case the 14" w/ that screen res is another good choice also. But 11" is a tad too small for daily use, but acceptable.

 

Screen is a tad glossy, viewing angle is somewhat limited and brightness is a bit on the low side in unfavorable situations.
However all that aside, it's fine.

A good ICC profile irons out any 'rough edges' in the display settings.

If the M11x is your main system, I'd get a good external monitor cia 20-24" for intense extended work.

For web surfing, email, MS office/OpenOffice and etc, that's what netbooks and notebooks are for and the M11x handles it well every day and the day after that.

Gaming as you may guess is great.

I've been using a 10.1" netbook for over 10 years now.

Small is the new big.

 

I still think, Alienware should have put a 12'' or a 13'' into the M11X. I mean, they could do it without physically making it any bigger with a edge-to-edge display. The Bezel around the current 11,5'' reveals that.


Think about it when you play a MMORPG with 60-100 buttons. My cousin who plays WoW vigorously, has so so many small icons on the screen, with small text... 13'' would be minimum as few as viewing the entire UI, I imagine

 

For WoW, I completely agree. The screen on m11x easily gets crowded.

 

I guess most RTS games will be hard to play on such a small screen too?

 

sc2 wasn't bad, didn't really notice the screen being too small.

 

No idea. Last RTS I played was Command & Conquer 2. And it's likely going to stay that way. ^^

 

Would the CPU/GPU in the M11x would be sufficient to run games like WoW, SC2 etc on an external monitor - at maybe 1920x1080 res? Or would it be best to get a lower resolution?

 

I wish Dell had made the M11x screen with matte finish.
More than happy with the size itself, although they could have used up the bezel around the screen.

For casual notebook use, it took me some time to get used to the lower resolution given my work Dell laptop has a matte finish and 1920 resolution. But I guess you can't have it all.

 

Dudes/Dudettes.

You saw it first here.

This is a photo of an M11xR1 connected to two external 1920x1200 24" monitors via DisplayPort and HDMI.

The screen is extended to encompass the two physical monitors.

It's playing two DVDs, one in each screen.

In full screen (1920x1080, 720p) there is no noticeable jutter, or degrading of the picture.

Using PowerDVD and VLC Media Player the CPU ticks over at approx. 50%.
Running one DVD and one instance of PowerDVD the CPU ticks over at 15%.
I'm not sure what CPU looks like with VLC Media Player alone.

Then I just got bored with that and moved the two DVDs into the HDMI monitor and started cropping this photo in the other.
The DVDs just continued on with no degradation.

There is a small 'interrupt' as you pass the DVD player between the two monitors.

In the past I have played Crysis (medium-high) in one of the two monitors and there is no noticeable problems.

 

i understand where you coming from on the glossy screen. thats why i got the anti glare screen protector. works great.

but really.. would to want 1920x1080p res on such a small screen? its tough enough as it is with 720p. its just me though. im 25 and i count on my 20/20 vision for my lively hood( sight fishing) and i cant even imagine what it would be like at those res.

 

rofl. i thought 1920x1080 was too big on m17x's 17" screen

 

1080p would be 'nuts' on a cia 12" notebook screen.

720p/1080i (1366x768px) is fine.

Here's the thing, the screen ratio doesn't have to be 16:9.

1440×900(16:10) WXGA+ would be fine in my book.

I'm really 4:3 old school, but guessing that's not trendy any more. *sigh*.

 

720p is just fine on my M11X, though I have it ported out to my 32" HDTV via HDMI while I'm here @ Keesler AFB. This little system is great- It plays BluRays wonderfully, games well, and doesn't break my back when transporting it. Some of the number-crunching stuff that I do chokes the system, so that's why I have the M15X on order w/ the Quad Core i7.

Here's a pic of my USAF dorm room setup-

 

I would agree with you, except that most people don't.
Most people tend to think that 940x640 on a 3.5" screen is awesome. I think what people want is the M11xR2 w/ less bazel edge and 1080p screen would fit, but that would be like M12x or M13x.

 

I agree with you - on a notebook the size of the M11x, anything higher than what is currently offered would not be useful.
However, I would still like Dell to offer a Matte screen option.

As for high resolution displays, isn't 800x480 the current standard for cell phones with 3.5" screens.

 

Em, I'm not talking about 800x480. I'm talking about iPhone 4 that people go ga-ga about. Just putting them into perspective in term of pixel-per-inch. I mean if the same people said there is a problem w/ 12" screen getting more resolution than 1366x768 but said otherwise for the iphone 4, then obviously something wrong with that person. And his/her words shouldn't be truested in this regard.

 

M11X, revision 01:
http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/26oinc8fisvvb/4hoz4h/ussenterprise-aquarter.jpg

M11X, "refit"


little Trek humor there

 

Have you guys seen the 1600x900 screen on Sony Z? It's a 13.1 widescreen, but it looks really good at that res. Sony also has 1920x1080 version for the stupidly expensive models and that's a bit too much. So if Dell could have had that Sony screen in M11x, it would have been perfect (Sony Z is smaller in pretty much all dimensions).

 

If there is AW M13x w/ the same hardware as M11xR2 except for screen then, I expect it to cost like $1500. But then, Dell would be doing us a dis-service by not including better hardware like better GPU and maybe CPU also. CPU wise, I think UM version is ok for something this small, as people who expect a lots of mobility want lots of battery life. If all that's change is screen, then AW is kinda screwing itself.

 

Im not if this is true but it looks like the M11X R2 will be losing not only battery life but a USB port and VGA port. Anyone can confirm this because this is what im seeing on the manual.

 

VGA port is gone not sure on the USB?

 

There are still 3 usb ports.

 

The User Guide for the M11xR2 is available.

Documentation

One thing the guide notes that may be true(or not) is the addition of 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet LAN on system board.

Lot more details on the specifications than the M11xR1.

 

It probably is, the chipset in M11xR2 is QS57 which have gigabit builtin. I don't see the reason to disable that feature in the chipset then add a 10/100 ethernet chip and use that instead.

 

Could one of the current owners of the r2 please confirm gigabit is present to stop this madness?

 

I actually don't believe that it's Gigabit Ethernet. Why? If you spec out on the site (at least, the last I checked), the "Review" portion still has 10/100 Ethernet.

 

We know this. But the manual states otherwise. By stating 10/100/1000. In addition, the QS57 chipset that the r2 uses has gigabit built in, so why would dell change this on purpose?

We need an owner to confirm whether or not gigabit ethernet is present so the questions stop.

 

I'm guessing most people don't use/have gigabit switch in their house, just wifi.
PS: Margetting writes webpage, engineer writes manual. Just pick whoever you want to believe.

 

Or the 'engineer' has just done a heck of a lot of copying&pasting /edited of the R1 manual and hasn't changed this part.

 

Pretty sure they need more then one person to proofread these things.

 

What are you talking about the manual got change, it's the web that state the same.

 

I don't think you understand what I said.

I was implying that they've possibly just edited the relevant bits of the R1 manual to suit the R2, as opposed to rewriting the whole thing.

 

"Than."

That's The Power of TWO!

That said, I found a few silly mistakes in the original's manual as well.

 

The problem with that is, that games would run like crap at 1600x900 resolution! Increasing it that much would become a major performance hit, and besides - How much sharper pixel density would your eyes be able to absolve at a 11-13'' screen?

You could lower the in-game resolution to a non-native, but that would look ugly. The rule of thump is generally to try and play at native resolution.

That's why it's good that M11x's native resolution is what it is, as many games can play well at that resolution and still attain pretty good medium/highish settings!

Sony Vaio Z would be horrible for games! At 1900x1080, you have to use the DPI for sure and the magnifier because everything is so small(text, and so on). It's great, but it won't be the best gaming companion.

Another thing is that the Vaio Z has a 20% downclocked 330m graphics card. It's basically at the same strength as the 325m according to Notebookcheck. Sony should really advertise that!

Higher resolution, also means less battery life. On a good day, a Vaio Z seems to be at 3-4 hours. But then again, it has a full high end i7 CPU!