Dell Precision M6800

About 15 months ago Dell had an incredible deal on the Precision M6600. Due to the nature of my work (AutoCAD and Inventor designing), this seemed like the right product at the right price. Why am I referring to the 6600 when I am reviewing the 6800?

Click on for the whole story.

After a year's worth of typical usage on the 6600, the video card started to fail. First I could no longer use the HDMI output to display my drawings on an external monitor, then the part of the card that powered my laptop's screen started to fail.

Dell originally tried to get me a replacement video card but none could be found so for that reason only, they sent me a brand new M6800 with specs approximating the 6600.

This brand new laptop had an odd squeak emanating from the optical drive from day one. My entire computer would freeze for a couple of seconds each time it squeaked which was every 10-15 minutes. Dell wanted to replace my hard drive as a result. Wait, what?

So anyway a tech was dispatched to replace the optical drive (the cause of the problem) and the hard drive. Upon opening my laptop, the tech discovered there was no BIOS battery.

List of replaced/added parts to that date:
Hard drive
Optical drive (twice because Dell sent the wrong one the first time)
BIOS battery

At that date, I had been without a laptop for 45 days since the first one went bad. This isn't good when your job is to draw things on a computer.

Fast forward a two months after the ticket was closed...my video card started getting funky. Like the previous laptop I lost the ability to connect to an external monitor then my laptop screen started going haywire. Turning off switchable graphics only partially helped the issue of my laptop screen but didn't fix my external monitor issue. I also noticed the battery wouldn't charge anymore. It was stuck on 94%. Then 93%. Then 92%. Huh?

Another series of calls to Dell later, I get the same technician back to my office with:
A new video card
New battery
New power brick
Some sort of internal wire

So to date in my laptop I have had replaced:
Hard Drive
Optical Drive (twice)
Bios battery
Video Card
Battery
Power brick
That internal wire that does "God knows what".

So - the 6600 got entirely replaced because they didn't have a video card and the 6800 does not because it needed a new EVERYTHING?

On a scale of 1-4 I would rate the product a minus 13 and tech support a plus 5.