Dell M6500: A Precision Strike on Bling
by Jarred Walton on March 9, 2010 3:00 AM ESTDesign: Understated and Attractive
Some women have natural beauty and don't need to put a lot of effort into their hair, makeup, and clothing. They can put on an understated outfit and still turn heads. Others need some good lighting and photoshopping skills to reach the level of magazine covers. We'd place the M6500 firmly into the former category, and when we unpacked it our first thought was, "Wow… why can't more desktop replacements look this nice?" There are no real extra lights or chrome to liven things up, just clean lines and an excellent industrial design aesthetic. The flashiest part of the M6500 is the backlit keyboard, but it's a truly useful feature rather than just unnecessary flare. If you walk into a meeting carrying the M6500, it will likely go unnoticed, but anyone that gives it a closer look is sure to be impressed with the design and construction.
Part of what we like about the M6500 is the flat design; there's no sloping keyboard or chassis here. Many notebooks with a high-end CPU and GPU will have a thicker back to accommodate larger cooling configurations. Dell has put some real effort into keeping the chassis as slim as possible. Make no mistake, it's still a 17" chassis, but compared to many other such notebooks the M6500 looks and feels a bit smaller. It also fits into my "standard" 17" notebook bag quite easily, which isn't always the case. The slim slot-load drive also helps with the chassis design.
While we really like a lot of the features in the M6500 construction, there are a few areas where it falls a bit short. The biggest complaint we have is with the number and type of ports. It's little surprise that Dell includes DisplayPort for video output, and it worked quite well connected to a Dell U2711 LCD. The problem is that there are no other video output options other than an aging VGA port! You want HDMI or dual-link DVI? Sorry. (Note that the docking station can support additional DVI ports, but we still would have preferred a DVI output instead of the VGA port; DVI-to-HDMI and DVI-to-VGA dongles would seal the deal.) As mentioned on the previous page, there is a lot of unused space on the sides of the chassis where Dell could have added additional ports. Sure, routing traces for another video port costs money, but we'd much rather have a DVI port with a DVI-to-VGA adapter, and a couple extra USB ports would have been nice. Not everyone needs a ton of USB ports, particularly on a laptop, but then not everyone needs some of the other extras (contactless Smart Card, FireWire, DisplayPort, PC Card, etc.).
Back to the better aspects of the design, the chassis and metal exterior are a great example of what Dell has done to help the M6500 stand out from the competition. For one, it gives the notebook a durable feel without adding to the weight. What's more, the chassis is extremely easy to disassemble compared to most notebooks. Remove the battery and two screws and you can access two of the SO-DIMMs and both hard drives. Accessing the other two SO-DIMMs requires a bit more effort, as you have to pop off the hinge cover and remove the keyboard first (four screws), but that's a small price to pay to get four DIMM slots. Even with the extra steps to remove the keyboard the disassembly process is far easier than most notebooks.
The chassis does come with a huge palm rest area and a full size keyboard. It's good to see Dell make full use of the available chassis space, though the palm rest is so large that it almost looks barren compared to smaller laptops. Or maybe it's the lack of stickers? Thankfully, Dell doesn't slap a bunch of stickers on the palm rest listing features and branding; the only sticker on our test unit was for "Windows Vista"—and Dell actually shipped both Vista and Win7 hard drives for testing. (Vista was required for SPECviewperf testing; otherwise we stuck with Win7.)
In the end, what appeals to your sense of aesthetic will largely determine what you think of the M6500. It's either simple and elegant… or boring and dull. Dell does offer a "covet" version that ditches the sliver/grey exterior for an orange anodized aluminum finish if you want a bit more flash. The Covet version also comes standard with WUXGA RGBLED, only with a glossy "edge to edge" sheet of plastic in front of the LCD panel. If you want more bling than that, you'll need to look elsewhere, but "bling" and "mobile workstation" make strange bedfellows.
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Nick-932 - Saturday, August 21, 2010 - link
Have you seen one in real life next to an Apple...Because all apples look like wimpsy flimsy notebooks comparing to an M6500.Additionally, they do not even have any spec similar as the M6500, even 8 months after their initial release.
jabber - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
...but that 'thing' above the keyboard...????Didnt read the review actually as it's too expensive for me. So if what ever that thing is is explained as crucial then I apologise.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
I read the review and still don't know. I was expecting an explanation of what the thing that looks like it was attached with a blob of caulk is on a laptop they think looks good.JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
I guess you guys are referring to the FIPS fingerprint scanner? It's not "attached by a blob of caulk"... though I suppose the images don't quite convey what it actually looks like. Here's a better shot, if you didn't look at the gallery:http://images.anandtech.com/galleries/605/dell-pre...">http://images.anandtech.com/galleries/605/dell-pre...
It's an optional extra for security; rather than swiping your finger, you place it on that scanner. It's supposed to be more accurate than the swipe scanners.
jabber - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
So why does it look bolted on?Lenovo manage to make a decent looking fingerprint scanner.
This thing is a mess. In fact the more I look at this laptop the more crap it looks.
Looks like a rough prototype.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
Perhaps it looks better in person. The scanner is flush with the rest of the chassis, and about the only complaint I'd have with it is that the scanner has a gray border. Trust me, the chassis as a whole feels rock solid. I don't think it's the most awesome looking laptop ever created, but the LCD does look great and it's nice to see a large notebook I wouldn't be embarrassed about using in a business setting.Since you dislike the look of this notebook so much, what do you think makes for an attractive notebook? And please don't say MacBook Pro... they're fine, but you simply can't fit quad-core i7 with a Quadro FX 3800M into anything that thin. I'm actually quite impressed that the M6500 is "only" 1.3" thick!
jabber - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
lol, no I wouldnt say a MacBook pro.However, I do find it baffling why manufacturers struggle to come up with something asthetically pleasing.
I do believe less is more, though it would be hard to design a laptop on that principle that wouldnt infringe on the mac design. They have reduced a design to it's near minimum.
I like the general look of my Inspiron 13Z though the 8 cell battery pack spoils the lines. It does mean however I can go 8 hours+ without power. The glossy plastics are also a big no-no.
If Dell just improved the build quality of say their Studio line with better/tougher plastics then that would go a long way.
DukeN - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
Would truly have appreciated a Lenovo W5XX comparison here, or even a T500. TIA.hko45 - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
Another reason to get this is the E-Port Plus docking (for all mobile Precision and most Latitudes -- I haven't seen anything comparable from anyone else). It allows the connection of two DVI or DisplayPort displays. That's what I use for my M6400 when I run PhotoShop & Lightroom. This should take care of any color issues. I would only use it as my first edit pass for my photos when on the road anyway. I'm definitely going to get an M6500 as soon as funds permit.geekforhire - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link
I received my Precision M6500 about a week ago, and in general I'm very happy.
Mine has the i7 Q720 processor, 64GB SSD, CD/DVD burner, 1440x900 RGBLED display, Intel 5300AGN Wifi card, 4GB memory, and Windows 7 Pro.
My previous notebook computer was 15.4" Dell Inspiron 8600, which I also designed, and served me well for 5.5 years. It failed about 6 months ago with a motherboard problem that would be expensive to replace - about as much as a netbook. At the time, I didn't want to spend alot of money on a replacement computer, so I got a netbook: Asus S101. It's a nice little (little!!!) machine, came with a Window XP Home on a 16GB SSD (note: they are now shipping with a 32GB SSD, which is actually livable, where the 16GB is definitely /not/ and later upgraded to 64GB). It does alot of things very well, but I eventually came to the conclusion that this was not enough computer for me. And if it failed I'd have to ship the computer away to the manufacturer for service - which would put me out of service for about 2+ weeks. So I bit the bullet, and got another real computer.
Loves:
Performance is excellent. This is safely the fastest notebook I've ever had the pleasure to work with - ever.
The display is excellent, displaying everything including movies with great sharpness, color quality, and contrast.
The keyboard has good touch, and the back-lighting is a nice touch that really should be included with every notebook.
Someone gave good though to the internal airflow, which allows the machine to be quiet and be effective even when resting on my lap with a comforter.
The SSD is giving snappy performance, but it's actual available physical C: size is 58.7GB, and there is the risk that the performance will decline over time (trim capability is unknown yet).
Fastest wifi performance I've ever measured: downloaded iTunes yesterday and the Network tab on the Task Manager showed an average 10.5% utilization with frequent peaks of 11.75% of a 54mbps wifi connection (I have a 7mbps DSL line to the internet with a high performance wifi router, but the Apple servers deserve some credit too).
The sound fidelity coming from the speakers is extremely good, especially for a notebook. Playing the movie "The Transporter" (music by Stanley Clarke), there were several very interesting sound positioning effect that many other speakers just won't present quite as well.
The built in webcam and array microphone work well. I'm having lots of great conversations with my daughter via Skype, who's on a 2 month trip in Ireland. Visual detail is good, and room echo of what I'm sending is low to non-existent.
I'm a believer in the Dell 4 year high end extended service warranty, and include it in all of the notebook computers that I design, because notebooks are subject to physical insults that desktop computers are not, and Dell will overnight ship replacement parts. Want to rent a great notebook computer for the price of a new great computer, here are 2 realistic human threats that tend to produce total loss: Dropping, and Liquid Spills.
Overall build quality is good. But it kind of better be with a machine this heavy, or else simple motions like lifting it from the front corner is going to cause the chassis to quickly split.
There are oodles of practical connectors and adapters built in, and I really like the slot-load CD/DVD drive.
Peeves:
The battery life seems to last about 2 hours, not the 3-4 hours I was designing for (I attribute this to the lowest end display card, which is much stronger and much higher power consuming than I wanted). I've played with the various power options and I've been able to improve the duration from the 1.5H that I seemed to first be getting when I received the machine, but I think 2.5H is going to be the wall.
The touch pad is left of where it should be. It's centered under the keyboard, rather than in the physical center of the computer, causing an awkward right hand "lunge" across to 1.5" left of where I naturally expect it to be. But I can recalibrate.
This machine and power brick are large and heavy, and are well served by backpack transport rather than something with just a single handle.
The low level light performance of the webcam in a dimly lit restaurant is fair, producing brownish grainy images. (reminder that the human eye has such an amazingly good sharpness even with wide variations of available light, that even modern DSLR technology comes no where near what the human eye can do so easily that we take that capability for granted.)
The machine was shipped about 3 weeks later than the original estimate. Note that this longer-than-expected actual ship date has happened with all other 17" Precision notebook computers that I've designed in the past.
Not sure yet about the 64 bit OS. There have been 1-2 weird freezing issues which I suspect the 32 bit OS may not experience; there is a compatibility issue with printing from a 64 bit machine to a printer attached to a 32 bit machine, but the effective work around is to print directly to the network attached printer. But having 4GB of available memory with a 64 bit OS is nicer than having 3GB of actually available memory on the same machine with a 32 bit OS. So the jury is still out on whether to reinstall with the 32 bit OS, or stick with the 64 bit OS.
In a nutshell, I can see myself growing old with this woman.