As mobile workstations go, the Dell Precision M4600 delivers everything we expect. There are several configurations available with plenty of options for fine-tuning it to your performance needs. It's stacked with ports, inputs, and outputs so it can easily connect up to a number of external devices and just as easily stand on its own. And Dell offers the warranty, support, and security options professionals need to make sure their data is safe and they stay up and running.
Our review system was loaded with high-end components and it performed accordingly. No disappointments there, really. What we were less than thrilled with were either matters of personal preference or things that might have more to do with the quality of our particular laptop than the M4600 on the whole.
Also, while we expect mobile workstations to be expensive, the M4600 seems a bit pricier than similarly configured competing systems. Then again, the regular price is never what you end up paying; the starting price for the M4600 was $1,798 at the time of our review, but Dell was offering a configuration for just $1,119.
The M4600 is a thick, heavy laptop. Precision M6600 Battery Chances are if you're shopping for a mobile workstation, you already know this is pretty much a given for the category. The starting weight is 6.2 pounds plus about a pound for the large power brick; add-ins and extras can drive that up to more than a 9-pound travel weight. Made from an aluminum and magnesium alloy, its inconspicuous design should be suitable for just about any environment. It's basically just a big rectangle with rounded corners.
The chassis is MIL-STD-810G-tested for extreme temperatures, humidity, vibration, dust, altitude, and shock, and it certainly feels sturdy. Well, except for the left side of the screen bezel on our review sample, which was pulling away slightly from the cover.
The antimicrobial keyboard and number pad are comfortable with good key travel, though after we typed for a bit our spacebar started occasionally squeaking like a rusty hinge. It is backlit, so that's a bonus (a $49 extra bonus, but nice nonetheless). Above the keyboard on the left are volume and mute buttons and on the far right is the power button. The M4600 has both a multitouch touch pad with three buttons and a track stick with three buttons; we'd trade in the latter for a larger touch pad if we could.
Dell offers four 15.6-inch display options for the M4600. Two of them are 1,366x768-pixel resolution, one with four-point capacitive touch and stylus support. The other two are 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution, one of which is Dell's PremierColor IPS RGB Anti-Glare LED-backlit display. Dell Precision M4600 Battery Our review sample had the PremierColor screen, which comes at a $449 premium over the base display.
Dell promises 100 percent Adobe RGB color gamut, and indeed, color performance was impressive. Viewing angles were also excellent, 85 degrees horizontal and vertical. With Dell's device manager software you can select from NTSC, sRGB, or Adobe RGB color spaces.
That's not much if you need precise control over color space out of the box, but is enough to get you working. One thing we did notice is a pulsing or flickering when the backlight is reduced to about 75 percent brightness, and which gets more noticeable the dimmer you set the screen. We're chalking it up to quality control; the LCD is covered under the system warranty and Dell's Premium Panel Guarantee for zero bright pixels.