Last year, we did a roundup of some of the fastest laptops available at the time. The three laptops came from different sources, but all used Clevo chassis as the base for the build. Clevo is known for making high-end gaming laptop designs, but the build quality and materials can often leave us wanting. Glossy LCDs have some adherents, but the glossy—often mirror-like—surfaces used on the chassis are hard to get past. They're also very bulky designs, and it's hard to fathom spending thousands of dollars on a laptop chassis only to end up with a standard injection-molded plastic box. There has to be a better alternative, right? Of course there is, and as an example of a high quality design we have the Dell Precision M6500.

Right from the start, there's a lot to separate the M6500 from the previously mentioned Clevo designs. For one, users get the choice of glossy or anti-glare LCDs, and what's more they can also elect to pay for an RGBLED model that will provide a high color gamut. It's not just the LCD that's better: Dell delivers a chassis that has aluminum covers on most of the outside surfaces—available in standard silver or an eye-catching orange anodized aluminum. The M6500 is still a large notebook, true, but compared to many of the other desktop replacements we've looked at over the years, the industrial design is robust and reasonably attracted; it doesn't need to scream for attention, unlike other offerings.

Let's get this out of the way: the Precision M6500 doesn't come cheap. It packs a quad-core Core i7 Mobile CPU (i7-720QM to i7-920XM), four DDR3 SO-DIMM slots, two HDDs/SDDs, workstation graphics, a slot-load DVD/Blu-ray drive, and a standard 3-year warranty. Dell also includes the typical WiFi and Ethernet, along with optional Bluetooth and mobile broadband. An optional fingerprint scanner is available—standard "swipe" or FIPS certified for $70 more—as well as an optional contactless smart card reader. The latter is not something home users need, but it's a feature some enterprise customers want. And "Enterprise" is definitely the name of the game here, with a price to match. The basic configuration starts at $2750 $1800 (now that Core i5 CPUs are supported), and our test system maxes out everything but the storage options for a final price tag of over $5000!

Shocked by the sticker price? Besides the R&D efforts and high quality industrial design, part of the price also comes from the ISV certifications. The M6500 is certified to run over 100 professional applications from 30 different ISVs. Sample applications include AutoDesk Inventor, SolidWorks, PPC Pro Engineer, and WindChill to name just a few. To give you an idea of pricing, the typical cost for a basic installation of many of these applications will run at least as much as our test laptop (i.e. $5000), and some of the packages can apparently run up to $100K per installation. Obviously, if you're buying a software package that can cost that much, having certified hardware is a must and the cost of the hardware is secondary to the cost of the software. As for performance in the various software packages, the only way you could get a faster laptop would be to use a desktop processor—not the ideal solution in most cases.

Before we get to the rest of the review, it's useful to discuss quickly why "mobile workstations" are useful. If you're after maximum performance you can get a desktop workstation with far more power than any notebook. With a clock speed of 2.0GHz on the i7-920XM as the maximum we'll see from mobile CPUs, i7 Xeon CPUs like the 3.33GHz W5590 are over 50% faster; pair a couple of W5590s and you're looking at over three times the performance in heavily threaded scenarios. Then there's the matter or maximum RAM support, GPU support, etc. Obviously, there's no way to get performance equal to a desktop workstation that can use 500W+ of power out of a <200W notebook chassis. The problem is that such workstations are difficult to move, so consultants and employees that have to work away from the home office need an alternative. They can save time by avoiding the need to travel back and forth between the office/datacenter, not to mention avoiding travel costs. Remote (i.e. VPN) solutions can provide more computational power still, but the latency of such solutions is a different problem. Thus, the target market for notebooks like the Precision M6500 is professionals that regularly need to be able to take their work on the road.

Technically, the M6500 can also play games, but that's not the target market… unless you happen to be a game developer working on the road, I suppose. While we wouldn't recommend the M6500 for mobile gamers, we would love to see some aspects of the styling and build quality make their way into such offerings. Dell's own XPS and Alienware notebooks could learn a thing or two about construction and features from the M6500, and we'd love to see Clevo give their whitebook customers a high quality chassis—and an anti-glare LCD would be icing on the cake. As we'll see in a moment, the M6500 is not without flaws; ultimately, it's going to come down to priorities and personal taste. If you happen to like glossy LCDs and bling, you probably won't like the M6500.

Dell M6500: Specced to the Hilt

The M6500 marries high performance components with an understated aesthetic. It's definitely not going to challenge any thin and light notebooks for the pure mobility crown, but it's great to get a notebook that doesn't try to proclaim it's awesomeness with a bunch of superficial bling. We're also ecstatic that we don't have to worry about fingerprints marring the exterior for a change. Let's start with a quick rundown of the configuration options.

Dell Precision M6500 Configuration Options
Processor	Intel Core i7-920XM Intel Core i7-820QM Intel Core i7-720QM Intel Core i7-720QM Intel Core i7-620M Intel Core i5-540M Intel Core i5-520M
Chipset	Intel PM55 (quad-core) Intel H55 (dual-core)
Memory	Up to 4x DDR3-1066/1333/1600 SO-DIMMs (Max 4x4GB DDR3-1066/1333 or 4x2GB DDR3-1600)
Graphics	NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M 1GB NVIDIA Quadro FX 2800M 1GB ATI FirePro M7740 1GB
Display	17.0" RGBLED Matte or Glossy WUXGA (1920x1200) 17.0" LED WUXGA (1920x1200) 17.0" LED WXGA+ (1440x900)
Hard Drive(s)	Up to 3x: 256/128/64GB SSD 500/320/250GB 7200RPM HDD RAID 0/1/5 Supported
Optical Drive	Slot-load Blu-ray Recorder Slot-load 8x DVDRW
Networking	Gigabit Ethernet 802.11n or 802.11b/g WiFi Bluetooth (Optional) Mobile Broadband (Optional)
Audio	HD Audio (2 stereo speakers with two audio jacks)
Battery	9-Cell, 11.1V, 8400mAh, 90Wh extended life battery
Front Side	Latch button
Left Side	PC Card Flash Memory Reader Slot-load Optical Drive 2 x USB 2.0 Headphone/Microphone FireWare 1394 Kensington Lock
Right Side	ExpressCard/54 Wireless On/Off Switch Ethernet DisplayPort VGA 1 x USB 2.0 1 x eSATA/USB 2.0
Back Side	2 x Cooling Exhaust Power Adapter Bottom: Docking Port
Operating System	Windows 7 Professional 32/64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate 32/64-bit Windows Vista Business 32/64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS v.5.3 EM64T
Dimensions	15.4" x 11.0" x 1.35" (WxDxH)
Weight	8.5 lbs (with 8-cell battery)
Extras	USB 3.0 (for quad-core chassis) 2MP Webcam 101-Key keyboard w/10-Key Multi-touch touchpad Pointing Stick Controller Aluminum Cover Smart Card Reader Contactless Smart Card Reader (Optional) Fingerprint Reader (Optional) FIPS Fingerprint Reader (Optional) TPM 1.2 (where available) Wave Embassy Trust Suite
Warranty	3-year warranty 4-year/5-year extended warranties available Accidental Damage Protection available 2/3-year extended battery warranty available
Pricing	Starting at $1799 (with $310 instant rebate) Price as configured: $4698 (with $310 instant rebate)

The specifications of the Precision M6500 are a Who's Who list of high-end components. Take the best mobile parts (at least as far as raw performance is concerned) and they're nearly all available as a configuration option. You can configure up to a Core i7-920XM, three SSDs/HDDs, a Quadro FX 3800M graphics, and up to a whopping 16GB (4x4GB) of DDR3-1333. The memory department in particular deserves special mention, as the M6500 has four SO-DIMM slots compared to the typical two (sometimes three) we see in most other notebooks. Right now Dell "only" supports 4GB SO-DIMMs, which isn't a huge problem considering 8GB SO-DIMMs are very difficult to come by (and expensive); still, given the target market we're a little surprised Dell hasn't validated any 8GB SO-DIMMs.

The unit we received for review is now slightly "outdated", as Dell is now shipping M6500 systems with Core i5 CPUs and optional USB 3.0 support. Note that at present, USB 3.0 is only available if you select a quad-core i7 configuration. Dell also ships the M6500 in an "Energy Star" compliant package, which consists of a slim 210W/240W power brick (presumably higher efficiency, though Dell doesn't make this clear) and requires an NVIDIA Quadro GPU. Our test unit came in the Energy Star configuration, though without both power bricks we can't confirm whether the "Energy Star" power profiles actually make a significant difference.

The only area where maximum performance isn't an option in Dell's configurator is the storage department. Dell has SSDs and encrypted SSDs available, but what you won't find are the top performing Intel SSDs—or Indilinx, SandForce, or C300. Considering the enterprise market, that's not especially surprising (Anand has managed to brick both an early SandForce as well as a C300); Dell goes the safe route like most OEMs and uses Samsung SSDs. Like many other SSDs, Samsung suffered from degraded performance once a drive was in a "used" state, but with the latest firmware and TRIM support that's no longer as much of a concern. For most usage scenarios, the Samsung SSDs perform well and are available in sizes up to 256GB. The only flaw in Samsung SSDs is random write performance; while they're an order of magnitude faster than conventional HDDs, the best SSDs are another order of magnitude jump. However, in normal usage (measured by PCMark Vantage), the best SSDs are only about 10% faster than the Samsung, which is around twice as fast as a 10000RPM Raptor. On the other hand, supporting three drives (if you're willing to give up the internal optical drive) is a nice bonus

The other item that we really need to applaud is Dell's RGBLED backlit WUXGA LCD with an anti-glare coating. This is a great looking laptop LCD—almost the best we've tested to date. It's bright, it has a great color gamut, and the contrast ratio is good as well. It also has the best viewing angles we've seen from any TN panel, though we can still wish for an IPS panel—a rarity at best for laptops. The base model has a 1440x900 glossy WXGA+ panel with CCFL backlighting; $160 will bump you up to glossy 1920x1200 WUXGA with CCFL backlighting, while $300 gets the tested anti-glare 1920x1200 RGBLED panel. We figure if you're going to spend a lot of time with a notebook like this, and you're already spending a few grand, the $300 extra is money well spent. The only caveat is that the LCD has a definite blue tinge using the sRGB and AdobeRGB profiles, which results in calibrated Delta E results that are much worse than other laptops. You'll want to run the NTSC profile in the Dell ControlPoint utility to use the LCD in "native" mode; read the LCD results page for additional details.

Most of the remaining specs are typical, with various WiFi, Bluetooth, and mobile broadband options. The keyboard is quite good in nearly all respects, and it's backlit as an added bonus. The one thing we missed on the keyboard was a dedicated context menu button (normally located to the right of the spacebar). Perhaps I'm one of the few people that use such keys, but I definitely noticed it was missing. The number keypad on the other hand is great, with a layout that mimics what that of desktop keyboards. Unfortunately, there's only a DisplayPort and VGA port for external video, and there are also just four USB ports—one more than consumer laptops, but there's a ton of open space on the sides of the chassis that could have been used. At least Dell provides a powered FireWire port and ExpressCard/34 slot, and they even provide a PC Card slot for customers that need support for older devices. There are also several security options available: TPM 1.2, FIPS Fingerprint reader, Smart Card reader, contactless Smart Card, and Wave Embassy Trust Suite. And if you're not sure what half of those items are, the M6500 might be overkill. :-)

Dell provides a 3-year warranty standard on the M6500, with optional 4- and 5-year warranties for an additional charge. 3/4-year accidental damage and 2/3-year battery warranties are also available. Considering the cost of the M6500, we're glad Dell doesn't skimp out on the warranty. In fact, standard 3-year warranties are common on most business laptops (along with anti-glare LCDs), so keep that in mind if you're every looking for replacement with those features.

Design: 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.

Testing Overview

We've been updating some of our benchmarks to newer applications and games, and we've added a few workstation tests for the M6500. We've included results for previous laptops where applicable, but on some of the new tests we only have M6500 scores. You can find the test configurations for the other high-end notebooks in our High-End (Clevo) Roundup and the ASUS G51J reviews. Here are the details of our M6500 test configuration.

Dell Precision M6500 Test System
Processor	Intel Core i7-920XM (4x2.0GHz+ HTT, 45nm, 4x256KB L2, 8MB L3, 2.5GT/s QPI, 55W)
Memory	4x1GB DDR3-1333 9-9-9-24
Graphics	NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M 1GB NVIDIA Drivers: 188.43
Display	17.0" RGBLED Matte WUXGA (1920x1200)
Hard Drive(s)	320GB 7200RPM HDD
Optical Drive	8x DVDR SuperMulti
Battery	9-Cell, 11.1V, 8400mAh, 90Wh extended life battery
Operating System	Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Windows Vista Business 64-bit (for SPECviewperf)
Pricing	Starting at $1799 (with $310 instant rebate) Price as configured: $4698 (with $310 instant rebate)

Our tests will use standardized application benchmark suites like PCMark along with individual application results. Our in-house application tests place more weight on CPU performance, as we look at video encoding and 3D rendering performance. As you'll see, the M6500 with i7-920XM is extremely fast compared to any other "true notebook" (i.e. no desktop CPUs). Really, the question you need to ask yourself is whether you need a mobile workstation. If you do, few notebooks can match—let alone surpass—the M6500. NVIDIA doesn't make a faster mobile Quadro than the FX 3800M (yet), and short of desktop CPUs you can't beat the performance of the Core i5/i7 processors.

For gaming—not that it's really a major focus of the M6500—we're moving to some newer titles and switching to a standardized resolution of 1600x900. Like it or not, 16:9 aspect ratios are the new rage, mostly because LCD panel makers can get more panels out of a glass sheet that way. We'll include 1920x1200 results for the M6500, since it thankfully bucks the 16:9 trend (though we wouldn't be surprised to see the next generation Precision notebooks go the 16:9 route if current trends continue). We will also show 1680x1050 results on older titles where we have a back catalog of results. All of our standard gaming tests are done without antialiasing, as we generally don't have enough GPU power in mobile solutions to effectively run at HD+, 1080p, or WUXGA resolutions with AA.

Battery life testing will follow the usual suite, with laptops set to "ideal" settings for improving battery life. With the launch of Windows 7 we decided to showcase the best that laptops are able to offer in terms of mobility. If you run using a "Balanced" profile instead of "Power Saver", you can typically expect 5-15% less battery life, depending on the laptop. We will also include our LCD quality tests.

Dell M6500 General Performance

Application performance is what we expect from the Core i7-920XM in the M6500. The Clevo W870CU uses the same CPU and scores similarly, which illustrates again the point that the hardware is only part of the equation with computers (and notebooks in particular). The design is at least as important, and the W870CU feels flimsy and cheap compared to the M6500. PCMark makes the M6500 look very slow, but the SSD in the W870CU (or lack thereof in the M6500) is the culprit; substitute an SSD into the M6500 and you'll see scores equal to the W870CU.

Heavily threaded tasks like video editing and 3D rendering will fly on the M6500, particularly if you have the high-end CPU and GPU options. As stated, you can't get a more powerful mobile CPU or GPU at present. It appears the M6500 lags slightly behind the Clevo W870CU in several of the application tests, but part of that likely comes from differences in memory (4x1GB vs. 2x2GB), plus we expect Dell plays it safe with M6500 optimizations—stability is far more important than being a few percent faster.

As a mobile workstation, heavily threaded applications are the tasks that we expect most owners will be interested in running—along with CAD/CAM and other similar applications. For those users, turn the page for SPECviewperf 10 and SPECapc LightWave results for the M6500 and W870CU. The M6500 should do particularly well in the workstation oriented SPECviewperf test.

Dell M6500 Workstation Performance

As expected, SPECviewperf shows real benefits from the hardware features enabled in NVIDIA Quadro GPUs; here the difference between the two otherwise similar systems is night and day. Watching the M6500 run through the SPECviewperf tests compared to the W870CU (and really, we're comparing the GTX 280M to the FX 3800M) is like watching a game running on a moderate IGP compared to the same game running on a top-end GPU (think HD 4200 compared to the HD 5870). Real-time interaction with the type of applications tested in SPECviewperf is possible with an FX 3800M, but it's very choppy with the GTX 280M. The Quadro FX 3800M turns in performance that's anywhere from 4x to 14x as fast as the GTX 280M.

One of the features enabled in the Quadro drivers/firmware is improved antialiasing (particularly line antialiasing), which gives us results like the above table where the GTX 280M lists "no result for multisample performance. That's because SPECviewperf deemed the performance as "too low" or "unacceptable". Looking at the M6500/FX 3800M result, we see that most of the tested applications can run with antialiasing at 2x or 4x with little impact on performance, with 3ds Max able to run at 16xAA with acceptable performance. Note that SPECviewperf considers a result "too slow" if it's not within 10% of the baseline (0xAA) score. Let's look at the detailed multisample results table.

Besides better antialiasing performance, the Quadro chips also support up to 32xAA (compared to 16xAA on GeForce cards). As you can see in the above table, while the GTX 280M is able to run at roughly the same rate with or without antialiasing in many of the tests, the final speed is still much slower than even the worst Quadro result. At worst, the 32xAA on Quadro 3800M still turns in performance that's 2.7x faster than a GeForce (e.g. ensight-03); at best it's an order of magnitude faster at equivalent settings.

Wrapping up with multithreaded performance, we see that the W870CU fails to ran many of the quad-core tests, which is why those sections of the table are blank. This is most likely a driver/firmware/OS incompatibility, and it goes to show that having a certified system can make a difference. Like the other results, the M6500 is still 6 to 13 times faster than the W870CU. Let's wrap things up with SPEC's LightWave benchmark.

In contrast to SPECviewperf 10, and similar to the x264 encoding and Cinebench results on the previous page, the LightWave tests depend almost entirely on the CPU in your system, so the scores of the M6500 and W870CU are close. The M6500 scores higher in the "Interactive" benchmark of LightWave while the W870CU scores higher in the Render and Multitask LightWave tests. Differences in drivers and the type/configuration of RAM may account for the slight discrepancies, but largely we're looking at CPU tests that show the two notebooks as being equal.

Dell M6500 Gaming/Graphics Performance

Overall, the Quadro FX 3800M should be slightly faster than the GTX 280M; it has clocks of 675/1688/2000 (Core/Shader/RAM) compared to 585/1463/1900 for the GTX 280M. In fact, even the updated GTX 285M is still slower than the FX 3800M, as its clocks are 576/1500/2040—the small increase in memory bandwidth isn't enough to outweigh the higher core/shader clocks on the 3800M. That's of course only in theory; NVIDIA states that Quadro cards are optimized for professional applications where GeForce is optimized for gaming. Just as GeForce is able to run professional apps (but not at workstation GPU performance levels), Quadro can run games. The question is whether it can match the GTX 280M or not. Of course, we don't expect anyone to plunk down the money for an FX 3800M purely for gaming, since you can get 285M SLI for about the same price as a single 3800M, but the Quadro card shouldn't have any trouble running most games at high detail settings. We'll start with our graphics performance comparison using the ubiquitous 3DMark applications.

As expected from the hardware, the M6500 comes out ahead of the GTX 280M equipped laptops in all of the 3DMark versions. It's interesting to note that the margin of victory is much higher in 03/5 at 13/11% (respectively), and it drops to 7% in 06, and a tie (0.3%) in Vantage. Some of this may come from the RAM, firmware, and/or driver differences, but let's move on to the actual gaming results.

As mentioned earlier, we are including a selection of older titles and a few new games for this review. We'll be retiring Crysis and Mass Effect, replacing both with their sequels, but we wanted to leave them in for a comparison point. We'll also be shifting to 1600x900 as the base resolution going forward. Below are the gaming results, with M6500 results in green and WUXGA native resolution on the M6500 in red; there's also an overclocked Q6600 desktop with HD4870X2 in black as a point of reference.

Here's where things get a little whacky, and clearly the drivers in the M6500 aren't fully optimized for gaming. Certain titles show the M6500 where we would expect relative to the competition: it has 15% more core/shader power and 5% more bandwidth, so we would expect somewhere between 5% and 15% more performance. Crysis, Empire: Total War, Far Cry 2, and Mass Effect 2 all fall into the expected range. Dirt 2 shows a 17% performance increase, which is a bit higher than expected but close enough. On the other end of the spectrum are Batman (only 1% faster), Crysis: Warhead (5% slower), and the original Mass Effect. The STALKER: Call of Pripyat result has the M6500 slaughtering the competition at 1600x900. Look a bit closer and you'll see that performance utterly tanks at 1920x1200—and though not shown, performance was equally poor at 1680x1050 and 1080p. The original Mass Effect also shows some oddities, with 1600x900 performance coming in 41% faster than the 1680x1050 result. Batman is likewise 42% faster at 1600x900 vs. 1680x1050, and Crysis: Warhead is 90% faster at 1600x900 than it is at 1920x1200.

Obviously, NVIDIA isn't just kidding around when they say that the GeForce line is for gaming while the Quadro cards focus on professional apps. Gaming in general won't be a problem, but it's not the target market for the M6500. We expect updated NVIDIA drivers could smooth out most of the rough spots shown here (Dell is currently shipping the M6500 with 188.43 NVIDIA drivers, compared to the latest GeForce 200M 195.62 drivers), but unlike consumer GPUs, NVIDIA's Verde driver program doesn't support Dell's Precision notebooks. More to the point, NVIDIA is likely far more concerned with Quadro hardware working properly with profession CAD/CAM/DCC applications. Again, we totally understand why that's the case: the 100+ ISV packages that the M6500 is certified to run are more important than getting higher frame rates in games. If you want a mobile workstation that can also work "after hours" as a gaming notebook, the M6500 will work in most cases, but be aware that you may encounter driver issues at times. Outside of those looking for a two-in-one workstation/gaming notebook, gamers would be far better off getting a gaming notebook with GTX 285M SLI for less than the M6500 with FX 3800M.

Dell M6500 Battery Life

Obviously, battery life on a mobile workstation isn't going to be a strong point, and the M6500 does about as well as we expected. It lasts a bit more than two hours for idle workloads (i.e. just typing in Word), about an hour and a half for heavy Internet surfing, and slightly more than an hour for HD H.264 playback (from the HDD—if you get the Blu-ray upgrade, expect even lower battery life due to the need to power a spinning disc). Relative battery life isn't as high as the W870CU, despite similar specs in most areas. We would venture a guess that even at similar brightness levels, the WUXGA RGB LED backlit LCD in the M6500 uses more power than the HD+ WLED panel in the W870CU; the Quadro GPU and other extras of the M6500 likely also draw more power than the W870CU with GTX 280M.

In other areas, we were pleased to find that the notebook never got extremely hot, though it's not exactly cool either. Under a heavy "workstation" load (i.e. SPECviewperf), temperatures on the palm rest are around 25-30C, with the bottom left and right sides of the chassis running ~5C higher (30-35C)… and that's in a 21C testing environment (70F). The bottom middle portion of the notebook gets quite a bit hotter, hitting 40-45C, and the middle of the keyboard also runs hotter at around 35C. The exhaust ports on the rear of the M6500 under full load were about 42~45C. You'll want to keep the M6500 in an area where the bottom fan intakes are all able to get plenty of air, and long-term you'll want to watch out for dust buildup… but we'd say the same for any high-end notebook. Overall, considering the performance on tap, the M6500 runs relatively cool.

Going along with temperatures, the fan speed ramps up and system noise is definitely noticeable when the system is under a heavy load. It's not the loudest notebook we've tested, but at 42dB(A) it's not at all that quiet either. When it's not running a CPU/GPU load, noise levels are much better, coming in close to the 30dB floor of our SPL meter. Noise levels in general are a lot better than some of the other high-end notebooks we've used over the years, and it's clear Dell put some effort into this area. Short of using a larger (taller) chassis to fit bigger HSFs, there's really not much to do other than live with moderate noise output.

Dell M6500 LCD Analysis: Beautiful but with Quirks

The LCD is the real wild card in this review. First, we need to make a note that there are several LCD options, and we're only looking at the anti-glare WUXGA panel with RGB LED backlighting. First impressions are extremely favorable: it's bright, with a good contrast ratio, and colors look vivid. Viewing angles are also among the best we've ever seen with a TN panel: you'll still get problems from above and below, but the usable angle is a bit wider than most laptops. The colors definitely look amazing, and there's no doubting Dell's claims of 100% Adobe RGB color gamut. (Note that you'll need to use an Adobe RGB color space to utilize the wider gamut; otherwise, the colors can look oversaturated.)

So the good news is that the LCD looks great, easily besting just about any laptop LCD I've used. The problem is that calibrating the LCD to display proper colors was… just… doesn't… work. I don't know what the problem is, but the LCD after calibration is still clearly off. Dell provides the ability to set the panel to NTSC, sRGB, or Adobe RGB color gamuts, but regardless of setting the calibrated results are off the charts. I tried ColorEyes Display Pro, Monaco Optix XR Pro, and LaCie Blue Eye Pro, all to no avail. I tried both a DTP-94 (it caused a BSOD in Vista and Win7) and an EyeOne Display 2 colorimeter. Nothing seemed to work right. At best, average Delta E is 6.5, even after calibration, with individual colors peaking at over 14.0.

There's definitely a cool (i.e. blue) tint at the default sRGB/aRGB settings, and regardless of setting I couldn't get the LCD to calibrate in a fashion that I would deem acceptable. I've had this problem only once before… on a Dell XPS M1730. In general, using the NVIDIA color control panel and turning down the blue about 20% gives a good result to my eye, but it's not possible to test that setting (any color profiling software overrides the NVIDIA control panel).

Update! You can see the above results for our original calibration attempts in gray. After posting the review, a helpful reader named Stephen gave us a pointer that allowed us to finally get a good result. (As an M6500 user/owner, Stephen noticed the same issues with the default settings.) He suggested we try a 1.8 gamma instead of the normal 2.2 gamma, and the change makes all the difference (see the added red line). If you don't know the difference between 2.2 and 1.8, here's a good explanation. The short summary is that Macs defaulted to a 1.8 gamma quite a while back while most other displays have stuck with 2.2. But that begs the question of why a Dell notebook running Windows appears to target a 1.8 gamma! Perhaps Dell wants people to make a Hackintosh out of the M6500? :-)

Regardless of the reason, using the NTSC profile (which appears to have no "tuning" of the LCD colors by Dell), and with the LCD brightness set to 40%/140nits, the color calibration results are polar opposites. We dropped from an average dE of 6.5 with peaks of 14+ to the best calibrated result we've seen from a laptop! How's that for a case of multiple personalities? The new result has an average dE of just 1.14, with only three of the tested 24 colors coming in above 2.0 and all of the colors coming in under 4.0. Wow! Thanks for the pointer, Stephen, but the real question is why Dell didn't address this in the first place?

We know from experience that Dell can provide exceptionally accurate colors if they choose—witness the uncalibrated results of the Dell U2711 for example. The problem is that more likely than not, the people involved with creating the color settings in the U2711 had nothing to do with the M6500 (or the M6400 before it). A BIOS/firmware update ought to be able to correct the problem, but we'd be surprised if Dell actually went that route. We've passed along our findings to Dell, so we'll have to see if a fix is forthcoming. Getting a good result at 1.8 gamma is nice, but when the standard for Windows is 2.2 it would be better to stick with the same settings that everyone else uses. In color managed applications, the final result will be great, but in non-managed applications you'll still get some wonky colors. That's too bad, considering everything else with the LCD is absolutely superb. It seems a waste to have a laptop with sRGB and Adobe RGB presets that appear to have no correlation with providing accurate colors. At the very least, the Adobe RGB profile (accessible from the Dell ControlPoint software) should be updated to give a result closer to the Adobe RGB setting in the U2711.

If you have appropriate calibration tools and software, I now feel comfortable saying that this is a great laptop for imagining/video professionals that depend on accurate colors, though desktop LCDs like the U2711 and 3008WFP are still better. Of course, that's only if you get the same LCD as our test M6500; we can't comment on the other panel options, and it's possible there will be a panel lottery resulting in differences between the "same" laptop configuration.

Dell Precision M6500: Works as Advertised

Reviewing the M6500 has been a bit of a shakeup for our normal notebook and laptop tests. As a workstation class product, we had to look at additional tests to try and determine value. Ultimately, the recommendation is pretty straightforward: you buy a mobile workstation with certification to run the particular software package that you need for a reason. You can try the Dell Precision Workstation Advisor, though I suspect it will likely just confirm that the M6500 is capable of running your particular application. So that's the quick summary: if you want a mobile workstation, the Dell Precision M6500 delivers on all fronts.

So the M6500 is from the "big is beautiful" school of thought. It's sturdy and built to last, with an attractive industrial design aesthetic. If you want something that looks fancy, or you want a lighter notebook, the M6500 isn't for you. It weighs nearly nine pounds (more with the power brick, which would definitely be required), and it can suck up quite a bit of juice under load. Opinions on what makes a laptop look "good" obviously differ, but there's something to be said for a less in-your-face notebook. Personally, I'd take an M6500 chassis over the Alienware M17x chassis, even if the younger crowd may think the M6500 looks "boring". Boring it may be, but at least it doesn't come with a glossy LCD and a plastic casing! We can only hope that Dell will release an update so that the LCD will calibrate better with the alternative profiles, as right now you'll need to use the NTSC preset (i.e. LCD native) with a 1.8 gamma setting to get an acceptable result. Elsewhere, the design works very well, with the cooling configuration performing well and managing to keep both temperatures and noise levels in check. This isn't a CULV laptop by any means, but the industrial design definitely helps moderate heat and noise.

If you're in the market for a mobile workstation, then of course the M6500 is definitely worth a look, particularly if you're after higher performance. Looking around, there's nothing faster from HP right now (the EliteBook 8730w uses a T9600 and Quadro FX 3700M). The only competing option we can find right now is Lenovo's just-announced ThinkPad W701 series, with specs similar to the M6500 and a built-in Wacom digitizer or a slide-out secondary LCD. The ThinkPad W701 is scheduled to begin shipping this month, and it includes a built-in X-Rite color calibration utility that runs when you close the lid; hopefully that will handle all the calibration properly so you won't need to worry about manually tweaking settings. But the M6500 is already shipping and the new quad-core models include USB 3.0 if you're not a stickler for color accuracy. It's also nice to see the dual-core i5 M6500 version, as not everyone needs the power of an eight-threaded i7 beast. If you want a high-end workstation GPU but you don't demand as much from your CPU, an i5-520M/540M version will cost far less than the system we tested and should still run circles around older Core 2 Duo systems (and will likely give Core 2 Quad a run for the money).

Would I personally buy the Precision M6500? Of course not, but it's not designed for me. I simply don't use software that would make it necessary. For those of you who have more complex software needs, look at the above slide; if you run any of those software packages the M6500 is a worthy candidate. Just as trying to game on a notebook with integrated graphics doesn't work well—when it works at all—trying to run workstation applications without a workstation GPU produces generally unacceptable results. If you run professional graphics software packages for a living, getting an appropriate GPU in your system will pay back in time saved very quickly. The Dell Precision M6500 simply takes your average workstation level of performance from a desktop ~18 months back and stuffs it into a notebook. It's not without flaws, but overall the M6500 presents a very nice package for mobile professionals that need all the performance they can get.