Dell Precision 3540 Review

[@gwojcieszczuk]

I completely don't understand why vendors are trying to make these machines as thin as possible... like there's some sort of contest of holding laptop between buttocks.

[@delavago5379]

I’m wheezing☠️😂

[@iloveyouromie]

U put so mch efforts for such detailed review. Thank u ma'am

[@DD-d6d3]

I always learn a lot from your informative videos

[@DanielRodriguez-fg5ll]

I agree with the confusing identity of U CPU workstations; but in my mind what you buy is reliability, pro support, pro drivers and enterprise deployment features.

[@PORepair]

yes you buy pro ...., but its not all good like lit ooks. i have 7730 spend omg how much..., but what i get, i get pc, wich freezes every second day in the middle of some work or you come to work after night its freezed. pro suport :) joke. in past 2 years i have 3 motherboard replacements, 2 times graphic card. some other small thinks. And i still have same problem :D :D bios updates every 3-4 weeks, and still i cant trust this mashine. rather i use old e5540, wich never have any problem in 7 years, and never have any any freeze or other kind problem. think is then you buy new pc you want be confidence with it. for me personally stability is very important and then i am doing programming, reading software from devices, you just cant stop this think in the middle. if it freeze, you device go to trash. so 1 year left for warranty, and my case is still open. and no fix with this laptop. probably because of design. p.s. i like it.

[@robertktw]

i buy a reliable machine to begin with, so i dun hafta spend money on fantastic "warranty". i also baby my tools and i get the most out of my money with my purchases.

[@DealUnboxing]

Always great reviews. A+++++

[@dysfunctionalwombat]

I had no idea that made dell precision notebooks. I always have known precision’s for the desktop workstations like my T5500

[@FlyboyHelosim]

They've been making Precision mobile workstations for years.

[@lw2978]

I got a Dell Precision 3541 as a computer for home use, not workstation stuff. It’s basically the same as the 3540 in many ways but with the options of upgraded components and 1 key difference-the option of an aluminium chassis (base is hard black plastic with slim rubber bumper "feet" front and rear that run most of the length of the laptop). I think that the key to getting a good deal is taking your time to wait for the right computer to come onto the Dell Outlet site. Here in the U.k., I used a (Dell) voucher code to get 45% off the list price of around £2000 (£1175)-the I7 Cpu has been replaced by a I5 Cpu now, with upgrade being an I9, not a Xeon as previously available. My configuration includes Intel I7 9850H Cpu, Nvidia Quadro 620P 4gb Gpu (equivalent to a 960M, which is fine for the games that I play, plus photo editing), 32gb 2666 DDR4 ram, 512gb Ssd, 300+ nit FHD matt LG display 100% sRGB (very good screen compared to the AU IPS screen on my old MSI laptop), fingerprint reader, IR (Windows Hello) camera, 1 Thunderbolt slot and a huge 97Whr battery. Another upgrade on the 3540 is that there is a dual heatpipe system to cover the Gpu as well as the Cpu but still only 1 fan and vent on the right edge of the case. The speakers are very good quality (better sound than my last pc, an MSI GT62 gaming laptop with Dynaudio speakers/sound system-although the XPS15 beats it with better bass response...clarity about the same on both). The chassis is very solid, with no flex in the keyboard or display due to the aluminium used. My daughter has a Dell XPS 15 (7590) with the 4k touchscreen (so all aluminium plus carbon fibre deck and Gorilla glass covering the screen) and I would say that with the exception of the base of the unit and keyboard/trackpad, the 3541 runs the XPS15 pretty damned close build-wise. The backlighting is 3-stage, like the XPS15. I would say the fan is not too loud when in a room with others watching tv (my MSI was louder but I guess this had 2 fans to help cool the I7 and Nvidia 970 Gpu?)-it does come on when playing games or when serious multi-tasking (haven’t played anything younger than 2003-I’m an old-school RPG’er and X-com gamer!) I don’t do huge amounts of typing but I really like the soft buttons on the 3541. I haven’t used the trackpoint "nub" much but would say it’s about 75% as good as a 15 year old Thinkpad I used to own (if this is key to you, then you might want to trial it, Dell have a good return policy!) The trackpad is fine-I don't do loads of piching/scrolling and all the other stuff that I'm sure would be much easier/nicer on the XPS15. The 3 years “fix on-site” warranty was the icing on the cake for me-I'm not too concerned about the internals but covering keyboard/trackpad buttons is good-I had dodgy trackpad buttons on the MSI after only 18 months and the lettering was wearing off. I'm expecting the Dell to be better in this regard but I would say from feel that they might not be as durable as the XPS15. Time will tell I guess. A similar specification XPS15 (admittedly with a much better Gpu in the Gtx 1650 and arguably better screen-500 nits) would have cost around 20%-25% more, which would have been too much for me. Overall, I’m very pleased with the 3541 and would recommend it to anyone not looking to play the latest games but who wants a powerful "stealth" laptop for general use that has all day battery life (with the 97Whr battery).

[@kkp4297]

1366x768? hahaha damn. are they joking even offering that shit? 2011 called. they want their screens back.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

They offer it because companies like the one I work for will buy it fully tricked out, but keep the cheapest display. Then act confused when give it back and tell them it's shit.

[@connerhuston2613]

Ikr, man is this new??? LoL Because I didn't think they make that screen resolution anymore.

[@stage666]

The 3541 seems like a much better package with the same dimension. I am thinking about picking one up. Only concern is the 1 fan cooling and Quadro p620 seems lackluster

[@seanhe6909]

Where did you get your T-shirt?

[@jatinc6058]

Thanks for the review. Will this work for a programmer doing heavy duty Python work?

[@michaelbaldwin5953]

Nothing like my old Dell M4600 Workstation Laptop (circa 2012).That thing is built like a tank and only cost me £250 off Fleabay. Perhaps anyone looking for one of these might do better looking back into history and getting one of dells old Precision line laptops.

[@barriemoorcroft534]

Michael Baldwin I had the 2011 Dell precision 6500 17 inch, man loved that thing. 1920x1200 display perfect for all day use, more so than my 15 mbp retina 2015. I have now. I had in 2013 the 4700 and loved that too. I’m going on eBay now!

[@PearComputingDevices]

My 5491 and XPS 15 would slap that mobile workstation in terms of power and display. But port selection is impressive.

[@etpienaar]

can you recommend a £1000 thin and light with a 10th gen intel. I'm a programmer and am tired of carrying around my 7kg gaming laptop?

[@Kellythelegend]

Ooo I kind of want this in the market for something new

[@lwarley]

Hi, Lisa. Do you have a recent video on best Lenovo (I love the TrackPoint) for Photoshop? Topaz DeNoise AI has upped the GPU ante. My P50 (i7-6820HQ 2.70GHz 8 CPU's, 32mb memory, ssd, NVIDIA Quadro M1000M) takes at least 2 minutes (no typo) to run the plug-in. Topaz recommends a GPU of 4GB dedicated VRAM (GTX 970 or greater). btw, DeNoise AI is amazing, getting lots of Wow's from photographers. Thanks.

[@PranjitSaikiaGaming]

Greetings from India

[@AceHardy]

📝

[@theangrycanuck8331]

If you were to pick, the Dell Inspiron 15 3525 with AMD Ryzen 7 5700U or refurbished Dell Precision, specifically the one you review here, which would you choose? I'm looking for a business laptop for mostly fleet management and things like that. However price wise this is under 500 CAD while the newer Inspiron is 599.

[@joenicotera2991]

The Inspiron 3525 is 2023 and the 3540 is 2019. The way that Bill Gates rules the world he will phase both out when he wants the money. The way that Dell rules the world, they buy the motherboard and the operating system from a salesman. I bought the precison used with a Win11 upgrade. After Vista, I allways buy used, refubised computers becaust there is no point n buying new, il gates hasn''t finise writng thesoftware yet and it won't go any faster or run any better than the bartender at the golfclub in California. So, the 3540 is supposed to be a "Precision" model, which it's not. As usual for Dell, it's bbult arouund whatever circuitboard the Chineese felt like designing for free. Which means that it is the essentially the same design a the cheapest thing they can make with a few additional additonal areas on the circuit board that Dell didn't feel like figuring out how to use or write drivers for. If Intel feels ike writing drivers to get their chipset to get any of those blank spots to work, it will be for the next generation of same chipset, then Dell will get the drivers designed for free and wait for somebody to give away a free utility. Neither Dell nor intel will go backward and market the parts. (So long as your IT tech people think that somebody will put it all together and test it for free, Dell will continue the phaseout and make their money that way, by doing nothing...) Well, it's eight months since your comment, I guess you should look up what drivers are available for whatever you have already bought. Dell did give me a "V-PRO" driver update, so, I assume I should go ask Intel what I would want such a thing for. It probably works fine but doesn't actually do anything unless I bought a Xeon processor and chipset. That is what happens when the salesman is selling forighn technology to a drunk, every time.

[@samdarius3305]

Hey Lisa, please review Xiaomi notebook pro 10 Gen model.

[@Trusteft]

It's a trap!

[@mfrankel8321]

HI Lisa, great review ! You should do one soon on the Dell Precision 5550. That laptop is a step up, but really worth it.

[@chrisv2274]

Please, review the precision 5540

[@danielperez258]

Oof they call this a workstation? 💀 My reaction watching this review... 3:33

[@PearComputingDevices]

I never found the 3000 series, basically a Latitude 5000 series with some firmware tweaks even worth it. You can move up to a Precision 5000 too, but it's so thin and so your going to be seriously limited by throttling for serious work and that's why going to the Precision 7000 is just logical. Especially once you start cramming in the options. You don't move up from the Latitude series to do mostly latitude series level of work, so why would you bother buying one? Not that I am knocking the Latitude whatsoever. Heck I assure you my 5491 with a 6 core 45 watt cpu and rather low end Geforce mx130 would absolutely smash this thing in benchmarks and for hundreds less. But this is to my point. Sure my 5491 wasn't cheap. Not my any stretch. It's decked out. I am sure the 3000 series works out well for the bean counters, and that's who this model appeals to. But in the real world doing serious work requires serious hardware and for the price, that one doesn't have it. The old adage of savings a few backs will cost more down the road applies here in most cases.

[@antonv17]

Slay Kween

[@psycl0ptic]

Isn't this the same chassis as the latitude 5000 series, or the latitude 3000?

[@GreenStorm01]

I'm staggered how much space they wasted in this machine.

[@Wingnut353]

It's not wasted... its repairable. This is the laptop you buy for you traveling techs etc... they don't need anything fast just something that can load a webpage typically.

[@NonsensicalSpudz]

@@Wingnut353 that doesn't equate to the lack of usage of space in this,

[@Wingnut353]

@@NonsensicalSpudz What do you expect iPhone levels of integration.. get out of here.

[@NonsensicalSpudz]

@@Wingnut353 my gaming laptop makes use of the space, whats using the internal space go to do with apple

[@FlyboyHelosim]

@@Wingnut353 Something that can load a webpage? Dude this is a mobile workstation.

[@farsan_ani_churmure]

I bought the 3541 model, with an Intel i7-9750H CPU, and Nvidia Quadro P620 4GB DDR5 RAM GPU. I can easily do 3d Rendering on it.

[@Lollipop-mr6vn]

Is there any way to upgrade the cpu? I kinda want one but man... That is just too slow

[@Armadurapersonal]

Too bad the keyboard in the newer Dells is pretty bad. Back in 2011 or so it used to be on the same level as Thinkpads.

[@hexwrench4433]

Lisa have you read lackadaisy? You seem like the art girl who would love a comic about 1920's jinn running cats.

[@gumbo3063]

Hey Lisa, why is it I get the feeling you could be more enthused?

[@RustomH]

are you new here lol ?

[@gumbo3063]

@@RustomH No sir but I do have a sarcastic way about me and I love to kid her. Sometimes she's less into the product than others and you can tell. Sorry, Lisa. Don't mean to talk about you like you're not there

[@mobiletechreview]

@@gumbo3063 No problem, I knew you were kidding. Though this isn't the flashiest product, I was pretty jazzed to do the review, cause I don't get to cover 1366 x 768 displays often anymore ;).

[@gumbo3063]

@@mobiletechreview You the Bomb

[@j.lietka9406]

Hi do you still have that laptop? Hugs ❤️

[@gregorioornelas488]

Good video. Tks !

[@levantateyora9317]

my msi gs65 is as thin if not thinner and it has a rtx 2060

[@FlyboyHelosim]

I'll never understand why a laptop of this spec is said to only be capable of spreadsheets and 2D CAD work. Are you serious? People could do all of that stuff on computers 30 years ago and older.

[@yengsabio5315]

Hello everyone! I wish to know what's the highest-end laptop workstation of Dell. Thanks a lot!

[@KAMProductions]

Mobile Precision 7740

[@yengsabio5315]

@@KAMProductions Thank you for responding!

[@JokingJay]

The price isn't that much better, but you can get the 3541 version of the same laptop with markedly better specs for about $300 more (so $1900) than the tricked out 3540: - Core i7-9850H (6-core/12-thread, 2.6/4.6 GHz, and theoretically supports up to 128 GB RAM) - Same 15.6" 100% SRGB screen - 16 GB DDR4 RAM - NVIDIA Quadro P620 dGPU 4GB - 256 or 512 GB NVMe M.2 SSD I'd say it's worth the $300 and at least comes close to making sense (though certainly not great value by any stretch). They also have them on Dell Outlet for around $1K, and for that price it's actually pretty compelling: outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=us&cs=28&l=en&s=dfb&sign=PXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%2fPR7UdaQlKLeJPrlJTcDGNbyuIcW4ubzxTTJKUyslLyQrDFUCtc3FeSbCSP%2fQRIFyBkF%2f4NpBh7ErlBz8eQS2vjgqDwyhyXjms%2fMoE04v5LCwRJzOsKVlgroLz0u2B8FVyD2QX70gx6gqMV5etW%2bJbw%2bhD4Is9IW50ifs1fb9eOZjiL1T

[@knofi7052]

I am looking forward to AMD Ryzen 4000 notebooks!

[@bradhaines3142]

be interesting if they made under the keyboard the battery, just the entire other side of the board. flat and skinny. then they could have the room for everything else they want to put in, like a disk drive! and still have a nice huge battery

[@TechMonkTrading]

This vs Thinkbook ?

[@cb4240-q9t]

still no 7740 review?

[@Samvc211]

Could you play games on this?

[@mvevitsis]

Please review the galaxy book ion

[@SebisRandomTech]

Why the fuck do all of the new laptops only have a MICRO SD card slot?? At first I thought it was just Lenovo but Dell too?? 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@_mr.goleyy_1520]

Hey mama!! can u review dell vostro 14 5490?

[@NonsensicalSpudz]

workstation graphics only slightly better than iGPU, seems pointless to exist

[@earlenemason41]

I like

[@will5244]

Why do I suddenly feel like I’ve heard your voice before on CNET? 😂

[@imho4990]

2005 laptop/

[@hrdcpy]

Head scratcher

[@GaryJohnWalker1]

Amazing this exists as a current product. Not stylish enough to be branded Latitude (maybe there's a direct Lat version)? Who will it fool as a workstation? Maybe just whoever signs off purchase, remembers Precision means real work, but is out of touch with the current prodict lines. Wast of effort by Dell.

[@soosandras555]

Why can't reviewers take off stickers from notebooks that are clearly meant to be taken off? The one on the fingerprint scanner this time.

[@7Write4This9Heart7]

They have to give it back when they're done, so I'm guessing they're not allowed to do certain things. lol.

[@lilic975]

not gonna lie, this is straight trash and also overpriced smh

[@pixelPlex]

Many of the ThinkPad P series mobile workstations are much better than the Dell Precision 3540.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

Not exactly trash as it has a specific use case for a specific area of the market. It's no different than any other model of laptop by any other brand.

[@lw2978]

Also not gonna lie, this is your opinion (unless you've actually owned one?) and I've found the similar specification 3541 to be a great general-use laptop. As to value, most people considering this outside of commercial ventures (non-workstation stuff) would go down the refurbished route like I did, where you get a powerful system for around half the price of RRP. 3 years onsite repair warranty plus very good ergonomics/real-world experience makes for an excellent package. Dell have many aspects of the ownership of a system well worked out (warranty, automatic software updates, solid hardware)-I have used Dell laptops at work and home for over 20 years and I've only come across 1 dud, one of the earliest Inspiron 2-in-1 13" laptops that had a poor lid/hinge design. The rest have been supemely reliable workhorses.

[@NileAbouSafa]

I love you I love affiliate marketing system

[@foulou089]

Ehhh More like $1099 plus tax on Amazon.

[@theglowcloud2215]

Another shitbook from Dell. Having owned a Precision 3510, a 3520, a 7510 and a 7520, I can tell you they all had insane thermal issues and the 3510 and 7510 in particular had horrible hardware reliability. The 3510 needed 3 motherboard replacements, and Dell never figured out why. This was a laptop that sat on a desk all day, on a dock. Avoid the low end Precisions at all costs. In fact, just avoid Dell.

[@SaarN1337]

I'm still using my 7510 to this very day and I love it, it does thermal throttle when gaming which is a shame considering how bulky it is, but I find it super reliable.

[@manramiyoutube]

Can we play gta v in it M

[@jodiktu4793]

Oh I hate plastic chassis

[@marceloduran6924]

😠 , não entendi .

[@munawarshahafridi7921]

Poor thermal!!!!!!!!!!!

[@minhngoctran7271]

2gb vram for a workstation laptop in 2020, nice joke dell. Even my aging 7710 has 4gb vram

[@PranjitSaikiaGaming]

2nd