DELL PRECISION M65

After the Dell Inspiron 1720, I had a craving for large screen laptops with 1920 x 1200 resolutions. The Dell Precision M65 was the replacement. Smaller in size with a mere 15.6” screen, but with the same display resolutions of 1920x1200. Hard Disk was 100GB 7200rpm SATA, which faster than ordinary 2.5” SATA Hard Disk. Someone is selling a 2 year old set for RM2.5k, with a balance of another year warranty with Dell Malaysia. In 2008, this might be a great deal. What am I thinking back there… so the deal is ON. Upon the first impression, the notebook was heavily scratched on the aluminum LCD cover. The LCD hinge is also had a little play upon a 90 degrees of opening. Performance wise on my first few minutes, it was awesomely fast.

The unit was supplied with a two 9 cell Li-Ion primary battery, and a 90W AC adapter. The battery retains its juice until a few months of usage. From there onwards, the Precision relies only on the AC adapter for its juice. This is the first Core 2 Duo machines that I had, Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T7200 (2.0GHz). A reliable processor paired with not-so-reliable NVIDIA(R) Quadro(R) FX 350M 512MB TurboCache OpenGL PCI-E Graphics. I only found this out only recently, after 2 years of usage. The base memory is 2GB DDR 2 800Mhz, and I have upgraded it till 4GB. The LCD display type is 15.4" Wide Aspect Ultrasharp(TM) UXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display. Apart from that, every other things is quite norm to be found on other notebook offerings back then, DVD Writer, Bluetooth, Wireless N card, and lots of headroom through the Dell Precision M65 Xpress Card slot and PCMCIA Card slot, 5 USB ports (yes, Five USB ports). Apart for the masculine design, the Precision M65 is a smooth machine.

The Precision M65 is a truly a workhorse. I have kept it running programs, bots and applications for long hours. I can’t recall a specific occasion, but I do remember, this machine has been on the run 24/7 for a few months. The Windows XP provided with the system does not appeal to me much, so I replaced it with both Windows Vista 32bit and Windows 7 32bit. It works like a charm. Unfortunately the security software (Embassy Fingerprint Suite) does not fit in well with Windows 7, so had to be taken out. Since the laptop is considerably heavy, and pretty fragile-looking, I had to make in statutory in my office. During the first year, the Precision M65 is awesome. It can handle any task thrown to it, Photoshop, spreadsheet, Dreamweaver and even a 24/7 downloading machine. The one thing that I’ve notice during the early days was the inability of the Precision to handle Diablo 2 LOD without lag. It was quite strange since Blizzards old-school game was released more than 10 years ago and it needs only puny graphic engines to run smoothly. So I guess, this might be just the setback of NVidia Quadro graphic… upon the assumption that this kind of graphic cannot run games. I realized that this notion is false only recently, 2 years after I’ve made the purchase. The NVidia Quadro was indeed a problematic graphic card. Even Dell acknowledged this, and they’ve offered an extended 1 year warranty on those notebook using the NVdia Quadro. What a luck?

Things that I like about the notebooks are the screen resolution. Since it has native resolution of up to 1920 x 1200 pixels, I had no problem working on huge size spreadsheets, multiple windows and so on. Furthermore, the UltraSharp UXGA display is a non-glare unit, so I had no viewing problems during excessive sun-rays coming through my windows after 2pm. Ample headroom through its 5 USB ports, makes the Dell Precision a low power server, handling my fax machine, multiple printers, external hard disk, all in one go. The Xpress card slot and PCMCIA slot is also available at my disposal, but eventually I am not using those (lol).

Currently the unit is prepared to be sent out for repair. It has been its 4^th repair session for this year. The notebook is booting, but without a display on its screen. Upon plugging in an external monitor, the display is there but with artifacts, and warnings of display failure. So off you go next week!