Dell Precision M4500 Review: A Workstation with High Precision

Dell Precision M4500: At First Glance

The Dell Precision M4500 is a “workstation in a gaming laptop’s clothing.” With its look alone, I would have continued debating on it being a gaming laptop.

However, beyond the looks lies what makes it a workstation, as you will later see. Also, considering its specs, you can not mistake it for an ordinary business NoteBook computer.

Despite having such advanced features, the Dell Precision M4500 is highly affordable. Speaking of its affordability, this laptop had a starting price tag of $275.00 in April 2022 when I wrote this review.

Now, what do we like most, and what do we hate about this model? Read this to the end to find out.

Dell Precision M4500: Design, Dimension, and Weight

The Dell Precision M4500 looks overly big in size but has an attractive, high-end corporate look. The point of attraction lies in the build material for the laptop’s case.

Speaking of the case, the Precision M4500 wears a scratch-resistant magnesium alloy on the outside. Besides being more durable than plastic, the finish given to this metal case is also appreciable.

Overall, the metal case is strong enough and doesn’t flex anywhere. In fact, this may be the toughest laptop you’ll get out there.

As for color, the laptop is silver in color with a much darker bottom.

Noticeably, the stylings on the lid make it look like the wall of a log cabin. In that sense, there’s a white dell logo on the right end of the middle log.

Moving on, the two hinges supporting the lid are small but strong, just like cornerstones for the lid. Appreciably, these hinges hold the lid firmly so that it doesn’t wobble.

However, when you open the lid, the interior looks less attractive, having matte black plastic all around.

Nevertheless, the beauty of the interior starts with the laptop’s 15.6-inch display. To be more specific, Dell markets this laptop with three options for display resolution.

Precisely, these options are HD (1366 x 768), HD+ (1600 x 900), or FHD (1920 x 1080) resolutions. Nonthlessly, all the display options are LED displays with the same refresh rate of 60 Hz.

By refresh rate, I mean how many times the display can redraw graphics per second. Thus, a 60 Hz refresh rate means that this display can redraw graphics 60 times every second.

As a result of this refresh rate, the Dell Precision M4500’s display isn’t ideal for high-end gaming. Fortunately, we can use it for most graphics works.

On the other hand, the three display options have different max brightness levels.

The brightness level of a display refers to how many spotlights per square meter the screen can emit. The totality of this number (measured in nits) can determine whether the display will remain clear outdoors or not.

So, while the HD resolution display has a max brightness of 220 nits, the HD+ resolution option has 250 nits. In addition to being brighter than the first display option, this second display option also has an anti-glare coating.

Simply put, this coating absorbs light rather than reflects it, so you can see the contents of the display clearly in well-lit areas.

That said, the third display option has the highest brightness level among them all, at 300 nits.

Moving on, the bezels surrounding this display are pretty wide. In some configurations, you’ll find a 3 MP camera at the center of the top bezel.

Anyone who’s been taking pictures on webcams will know that 3 MP won’t offer impressive picture quality. Nevertheless, it is better than having none on your computer.

Shifting our focus from the lid down to the deck, we see a keyboard with closely packed keys. Unfortunately, there is no number pad that would have been useful on such a workstation.

Moreover, the keys are standardly tapered (truncated pyramid in shape), just like in desktop keyboards. They also make audible clattering sounds when you type on them.

As one would expect of such keyboards, there’s plenty of key travel as well as function keys which you’ll enjoy. By plenty of travel, I mean that the keys can press down very deep.

On another good note, there is a keyboard backlight, although this comes at an extra cost.

As with other business laptops from Dell, this model too, has a blue knob in between the G, H, and B keys. This knob is a TrackPoint for moving the mouse cursor.

The Trackpoint’s selection buttons are below the space key of the keyboard. Furthermore, right below them is the touchpad which has its own dedicated buttons as well.

So, when it comes to input devices, the Dell Precision M4500 has got more than enough.

Above the keyboard to the right, you’ll see the power button fully backlit in a pleasant cyan color.

Awfully, the gap between the laptop’s edges to the left and right ends of the keyboard is wide enough for a number pad. However, rather than extending the keyboard to the edges, these gaps were used to house two HD speakers.

Well, we can still appreciate this since the speakers deliver decent and audible sounds. That’s by the way, so we can now check around the edges for the ports.

On the left side, there is a Kensington slot, one USB 2.0 port, a USB/eSATA port, and a display port. Also, on the same side, you will see an ExpressCard/34 slot and a media card reader slot.

Turning to the right, you’ll see a PC Card slot and a module bay (for installing a DVD RW drive, floppy drive, a second battery, etc.). Also, there is a WLAN switch, Firewire port, audio jack, microphone jack, SmartCard slot, and two USB 2.0 ports.

Then, the rear side has an ethernet port, a VGA port, and a charging port.

For wireless connectivity, the Precision M4500 features Bluetooth 2.1. In addition to that, you’ll get either a single-band WiFi 802.11 g or a WiFi 802.11 a/g/n with dual-band or three-bands.

Finally, in this section, let’s look at the dimension and weight of this laptop.

Regarding that, the Dell Precision M4500 measures 374 x 253 x 29.1 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 2730 g. Note that the thickness varies from the 29.1 mm stated to 36.1 mm, depending on the configuration.

In comparison, the HP Elitebook 8540w measures 373.5 x 251.5 x 32.4 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 2890 g. Thus, this is smaller but heavier than the Dell Precision M4500.

Also, the Fujitsu Celsius H700 measures 372 x 255 x 36 mm and weighs 2750 g. Here, we can see that the Celsius H700 is taller than both laptops above while its weight is intermediate in position with the two.

With all we’ve considered in this section, I rate this laptop an eight out of ten.

Dell Precision M4500: Processor (CPU) Performance

The Dell Precision M4500’s CPU can be a dual-core Intel Core i5-520M or a quad-core Intel Core i7-940XM. The former has 3 MB cache memory while the latter has 8 MB cache.

More on that, the Core i5 CPU has a base frequency of 2.40 GHz and a maximum frequency of 2.93 GHz. However, the model I’m reviewing uses the Core i7-940XM CPU from Intel’s Sandy Bridge microarchitecture.

Impressively, this has its base and maximum frequencies at 2.13 GHz and 3.33 GHz, respectively.

To see exactly how well the processor can perform, let’s look at its Cinebench R10 Rendering test result from notebookcheck.net.

Cinebench R10 is a test that checks a CPU’s ability by using its cores to process some difficult tasks. The cores are separate sections of the CPU that can handle individual tasks.

Consequently, a resultant value is assigned to the CPU according to its performance on the test. The higher this value is, the better the performance of the CPU.

Moreover, this resultant value could be for a single-core test or for a multi-core test.

On a single-core test, only one processor core is used to execute these difficult tasks. Meanwhile, in the multi-core test, all the processor cores are used.

That said, the Precision M4500 got a whopping 4497 points in the single-core test and 12642 points in the multi-core test. In fact, this is the best score of its kind.

In comparison, the Elitebook 8540w got a single-core score of 3769 points and a multi-core score of 8181 points. On another test, the Fujitsu Celsius H700 scored 4258 on a single-core test and 8920 points on a multi-core test.

Thus, any of these two competitors could have been at the top of the chart until the Precision M4500 came along with this mighty CPU.

Considering the test results, you’ll agree with me that the Precision M4500’s CPU deserves a nine out of ten.

Dell Precision M4500: Memory (RAM) Performance

The Dell Precision M4500 has two RAM slots and comes with just a 2 GB RAM stick on one of the slots. Its RAM type is DDR3, and it can accept one with a frequency of 1066 MHz or 1333 MHz.

Furthermore, the maximum RAM size it supports is 8 GB. Thus, you can replace the default 2 GB with a single 8 GB RAM or fill the two slots with 4 GB each.

Certainly, such an upgrade will enhance the performance of the readily powerful CPU. The model I reviewed here has undergone such an upgrade and now has 8 GB RAM.

With this configuration, multiple tasks can be handled concurrently without any slowdown.

In fact, this laptop should be capable of opening up to 30 Chrome tabs simultaneously. In addition to the opened tabs, the laptop can still stream an HD video on YouTube without lagging.

As part of our effort to provide detailed information, we analyze a laptop’s PCMark test result. Specifically, the PCMark test is used to evaluate the overall performance of a computer in which the RAM plays a major role.

Also, this test is of different forms, including PCMark 8, 10, 15, and PCMark Vantage test. As expected, a higher score on any of these tests indicates better performance of the laptop.

Impressively, the Precision M4500 outperformed its competitors, scoring 9770 points on the PCMark Vantage test. In comparison, the Fujitsu Celsius H700 recorded 7073 points while the HP EliteBook 8540 got 6986 points.

Befittingly, I rate this laptop a nine out of ten in this section.

Dell Precision M4500: Storage Options and Performance

Dell markets the Precision M4500 with either a SATA HDD storage or PCIe SSD storage. In case you are not aware, your choice of storage type matters, and here is why it matters.

Why it matters is because SSD storages are faster in speed than HDDs. With SSD storage, your program begins to run as soon as you open it.

However, HDDs are usually slower but cost less than SSDs for the same storage size.

Little wonder, this laptop supports a max storage capacity of 500 GB for the HDD but just 256 GB for the SSD.

To further prove that it’s really a workstation, this laptop has an additional 8-in-1 card reader for storage expansion. So, there is hardly any type of media card you can not use with this laptop.

One more feature to talk about here is the DVD-RW drive with a Blu-Ray burner. With it, you can save your files on an external compact disk as a backup copy.

As for the main storage, the model I’m reviewing has 256 GB of Samsung’s PM800 SSD storage.

To see how it performs, I’ll highlight its CrystalDiskMark test result as carried out by notebookcheck.net.

Simply put, this test measures the file transfer rate of a storage drive. The file transfer rate is the size of digital files that can be moved from one storage location to another in a given time.

Thus, a higher transfer rate is an indication of better storage performance.

In the test, the Precision M4500 transferred files at a minimum rate of 80.8 MB/s and a maximum rate of 121.1 MB/s.

Because the Fujitsu Celsius H700 uses 320 GB HDD storage, its minimum and maximum file transfer rates were 38.1 MB/s and  75.2 MB/s, respectively. Nevertheless, we can attribute its low test result to the general shortcoming of HDD storage.

All in all, we see that the Precision M4500’s storage did better.

For having excellent file transfer speed and multiple storage options, I still rate it nine out of ten.

Dell Precision M4500: Graphics Card Performance

Besides the integrated GPU built into every laptop’s CPU, the Precision M4500 is always equipped with an additional graphics processor. This additional GPU has a dedicated interface and can be any of the following two types.

Firstly, the GPU can be NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M card; secondly, it can be an NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800M card.

Because of their dedicated interface, their graphics memory is enough to handle some 3D modeling and Computer-Aided Designs without overheating. Speaking of their graphics memory, both of them have 1 GB of video RAM.

Moreover, the first GPU option has a GDDR3 type of VRAM (video RAM) and a base clock speed of 550 MHz. On the other hand, the second option uses a GDDR5 VRAM and has a base clock speed of 561 MHz.

For a better insight, let’s look into this laptop’s 3DMark 05 Standard test result.

A 3DMark test is a simulated gaming test that evaluates how well a computer can render 3D graphics. Therefore, achieving a high score on this test indicates better GPU performance.

Once again, the Precision M4500 outperformed its closest competitor by scoring 15249 points on this test. Meanwhile, the Fujitsu Celsius H700 scored 13285 points on the test.

Because the performance gap is much high, I still give this laptop nine out of ten in this section.

Dell Precision M4500: Battery Life and Performance

The battery that comes with the Precision M4500 can be a 6-cell 60 Whr or a 9-cell 81 Whr Li-Ion battery. Well, Dell didn’t mention how long these batteries last, but we should expect a decent battery life due to the specs.

Now, let’s find out if this expectation is right or wrong. So, we’ll be using a battery rundown test result from notebookcheck.net as well.

Note that the test was done with the 90 Whr battery configuration of this laptop. It involves surfing the internet using a WiFi connection until the laptop shuts down.

In this test, the Precision M4500 lasted for 4 hours and 33 minutes before shutting down. Meanwhile, the Fujitsu Celsius H700’s 84 Whr battery lasted 3 hours and 9 minutes on the test.

Consequently, although the Precision M4500 lasted longer, you’ll still need to be around a power source for charging it.

Therefore, I will rate it an eight out of ten in this section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Obviously, the Dell Precision M4500 is an all-round-winner in the areas we’ve considered so far. This is not totally the case when it comes to its portability, but it’s better than a desktop workstation.

Impressively, the areas it has won over its competitors are the areas that any professional will be looking out for. Even more impressive are the low prices at which you can get this power-packed workstation.

Now, considering my question in the initial thoughts section, the only thing you may not like is this laptop’s 3 MP camera.

So, should you buy this laptop or not? Certainly, you should buy it if you’ll be stepping up your business computations any time soon.

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