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Precision m90 after a few days!.

From order placement to time of delivery was one week exactly. I bought thru the small business division since I had a 25% off coupon. Initially I wasn't sure if it would work on the m90, but low and behold it did. For $2381 I got 2.0, wuxga, 100gig 7200rpm hd, quadro fx2500m 512mb, nec dual layer burner and 512mb ram. I also received a free Dell fp1907 19 inch flat panel(yes it is the same one there has been controversy about due to them using different panels..I got the high end samsung one ). It was free due to a promo running in small business.

I have since added 2 gigs ram and a 3945 Intel wireless card.

Screen:
I like it a lot. It is the matte variety, but it still has some gloss to it. See pics comparing it to the fp1907. There is no ghosting during gaming and light leakage is minimal and is confined to the very bottom of the screen. It is barely noticeable.


M90


F91907



Build:
It is solid without any creaks and moans. Opening and closing the screen causes no flex or weirdness in the panel. The magnesium alloy casing feels and looks top notch. I love the silver, black and graphite color scheme! It also feels pretty lightweight for a laptop of its size. Keyboard and touchpad perform as expected.

Performance:
It is very impressive as expected. 3d mark 05: 8396 and 3d mark 06: 4673
These were run right our of the box with no overclocking and stock dell drivers(based on 84.29 I think).

Gaming benchmarks were run using fraps:

Here are a few benchmarks with fear sp demo:
1600 x 1200 everything on max, performance, cpu, graphics with 2x anistropic. I ran these during the firefights as much as possible.

Frames Time (ms) Min Max Avg
7066 120000 23 131 58.883


Frames Time (ms) Min Max Avg
7282 120000 36 116 60.683

I ran these all stock with dell drivers.
This review of the 1710 they avged 59fps with same setup on fear.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show....php?p=1344250.
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bf2 benchmarks using fraps:
1920 x 1200 all on high w/ 4x aa

3x 120 sec min/ max/ avg benchmarks on 64 person server with 50 or so people playing:

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
6771, 120000, 41, 68, 56.425


Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
7970, 120000, 41, 91, 66.417

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
6933, 120000, 41, 78, 57.775

Single Player mode:

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
8275, 120000, 48, 95, 68.958


Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
7699, 120000, 19, 98, 64.158


Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
6842, 120000, 32, 72, 57.017


It doesn’t get too hot even when under load. Another great thing about this laptop is that it is quiet..I mean very quiet. I will notice the hard drive seeking(100 gig 7200rpm hitatchi), but overall very impressive noise wise.
My unit shipped with the nec dual layer dvd burner and I will report back on performance, but I don’t see any reason to worry. I tested one dvd and it played fine..need to do some more testing.

The core duo is great for multitasking as advertised, but I need to rip some music and see how it does.

Wireless:
I bought mine without a wireless card and dropped a brand new intel 3945 pro wireless mini pci express card in. It has been nothing but a nightmare since I installed it. I tried all the drivers out there including the new ones. I let windows control it and then the intel interface and I made sure the power management settings were set to not power down. Nothing worked. It would connect for a while and then disconnect after a minute or so. I dropped the security from wpa2 back to wep and it improved slightly, but was still not normal. I even tried a new router as some were having luck after a router switch, but none of it has helped me.
There is a lot of info on the issues people are having with this card in core duo laptops so I am not the only one, but it sucks nonetheless. I have ordered a lenovo branded abg mini pci express card based on atheros chipset(5006 I think) so I will give it a shot.

D/Port Advanced Port Replicator
It works great and allows quick and easy connection to my fp1907. You will need to use the 130w power adapter that comes with your laptop instead of the 90w the replicator comes with. The more expensive d/ dock with pci slot comes with a 130w adaptor ao it may be a better deal depending on price.

Overall this laptop is very impressive, and if you want something that performs on par with the 1710, but can be pulled out in a business meeting then this is the one!! I will add more on battery life and sound in the coming days and hopefully have something worked out on the wireless issues.

THX for the review

but i have a question
how is the speakers?

Speakers sound fine, but I am using the creative 24 bit external to hook up the 5.1 and that sounds way better!

Woah, there's a dock with a PCI slot? Any info on this? Or pictures?

Is the dock for the M90 only, or could it be used with other Dell laptops?

Also I wonder how much difference there is interally between this and the Inspiron 9400/ XPS M1710...?

Yeah, it's the D/Dock Expansion Station, and it is totally rad. One thing to note is that the PCI slot is only big enough for low-profile (half length) PCI cards.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/P...ctlisting.aspx

I plan to use mine for a graphics card (for triple monitor goodness).

It's pricey so I reccomend looking on eBay (where they are a steal).

Unfortunately I don't have an answer for you on compatability outside of the M90.

- DH

The PCI card I want to use is described as a half-size PCI card, and it's about 6.5" in length. That would suffice, right?

So it's definitely the same dock as the one you link to? The text appears to be two generations out of date - the Latitude D810 being the latest machine it mentions!

Heh heh yeah, the text definitely seems to be out of date. But if you try configuring an M90, you will see that it shows up as an option.

Hate to ask a crazy question, but these video benchmarks seem to compare favorably to the 7800gtx. Now the high scores in this case seem to be with some degree of manual overclocking. I know the quadro is mean't for rendering other than gaming but at this level of video it seems that the specs for shaders and pipelines seem similar to the 'big' gaming cards. I'm looking at the M90 and also at the xps 1710, the delta in price is significant and as indicated, I'd like to be able to pull my laptop out in a meeting and not be met with raised eyebrows. That being said, once the days discussions of databases, virtual machines and other unhappiness is over, I want move on to my life which is my fps of choice at a fantastic rate with full details, photo editing (large raw files), and video editing. Finally, I want the best that I can afford so that I don't have to replace the thing quite so often especially from a video card point of view (no pun intended). Since I'm asking the question, I might as well throw in the fact that I wanted to get as much HD space as humanly possible within the physical structure of the machine, but I have settled for the dell due to the availability of cheaper units here in the for sale thread. I guess I'll throw out the question: which machine would serve me better in the long run? In the Dell product line? Outside the Dell product line?
Thanks for any advice.
Bill
________________________
HP ZD7K 17" 1680 X 1050 Modded GE Force Drivers
3.2 GHZ Pentium HT, 1 GB PC 3200 RAM, Nvidia GE Force Go 5700 128 MB
120 GB Seagate

Nice!

Nice review!!! Great lappy I really like the m90 ....

My scores were not overclocked and they are on par with the 7900gtx go card in the 1710.

There is a 120 gig hd available in the 5400rpm variety and 160 gig in 4200rpm(dell may not offer).
The m90 is the perfect blend of business and gaming power for me.


More review:
Wireless issues have been resolved. I had to order the 1490 card from dell as my 3945 still wouldn't work properly after a router change. The 1490 is working well!

Battery life looks to be pretty decent as well. Over three hours when first unplugged. We will see how that hold up over a few charges.

By the way Oblivion lets very good on this thing!

By the way you can Generally pick up the D Dock new on Fleabay for about $50

i think the reason why you are having a bad luck in wireless setup is because you ordered it w/o a wireless card. i remember when i tried putting a centrino intel wireless minipci card in my ibm and it just sucked in picking up signals. come to find out? there was no antenna wiring around my laptop tahts why it was having a hard time picking signals up or having 1bar. maybe tahts your problem as well. if you look at the card you will see there is 1-2 connection for your antenna. thats what you're lacking.

Seagate 160gb drive is pata only and is 5400 rpm.

The biggest sata drive out for laptops is 120gb.

That is not the problem. The m90 is pre wired and has three available antenna connections(one for n cards when available).