Dell (Nasdaq: DELL)unveiled its newest Precision notebook computer, the M6400 Workstation, aimed at professionals in the engineering, media, entertainment and biosciences industries.
The system is now available through resellers in the channel, as well as directly through Dell starting at $2,599.
The 17-inch mobile workstation supports up to 16 gigabytes, houses Intel’s Core 2 Duo Quad-Core QX9300 Extreme Edition quad-core processors, has four memory card slots and has RAID capability, supporting up to a terabyte of storage on two drives, both capable of taking full-sized mobile hard drives.
The workstation’s storage options include up to 500 gigabyte hard drive and up to 128 gigabyte solid state rive.
The M6400 weighs less than its predecessor, the Precision M6300, at 8.5 pounds, and its features double the amount of memory and processors cores and triple the storage available on similar competitor’s models.
The design for the M6400 came from a series of meetings with independent software vendors and determining what professionals will require with upcoming, cutting-edge software, said Mike Basore, senior manager for the product group at Dell.
“By targeting all of the verticals, we are maximizing the return for our customer base,” he said.
Mano Gialusis, senior marketing manager of Dell Precision products and M6400’s product manager said the M6400 is able to double as a desktop replacement.
“For a desktop replacement, it must have very high-end processors, storage, multiple hard drives, large data sets and graphics power to render images properly,” Gialusis said.
“What we have come up with is right on the money, we’ve made no compromises.”
The new burst of horsepower is aimed at professionals in engineering, automotive industries, airlines, architecture firms and oil and gas, who were previously tied to their desk.
The 16 gigabytes of memory is the same quantity of memory as the Dell 3400 desktop.
The Precision 6400 is also directed at a new, untapped market for Dell — creative individuals who work in digital content creation, media and entertainment, Gialusis said.
“We have made a distinct move into the market of creative individuals who may not have looked at Precision in the past and who will start to take notice.”
Special features for this market include two graphics programs by Nvidia Quadro, the FX 2700M entry side program or the larger 3700M with 1 gigabyte of memory.
The display is an RGB LED screen, using 100 per cent of Adobe colours, making the colours appear more vivid and appealing to anyone working with photography, graphics or animation.
The laptop’s cursor also has a jog shadow feature function, allowing quick fast forwarding and rewinding by scrolling to the left or right.
“The new functions will allow people to unlock creativity in a way that they haven’t in the past,” said Basore. “It will allow for more glitz and glam.”