Dell refreshes Precision range to deliver improved business performance

Dell has unveiled two high-performance Precision laptops and a rack workstation designed to address the needs of business power users.

The Dell Precision M4600 and M6600 are touted as the world's most powerful 15.6in and 17.3in laptops and come with a number of enhancements.

Both are powered by Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors and offer support for up to 32GB of DDR3 RAM running at 1n333MHz or 16GB of 1,600MHz memory.

Connectivity comes in the form of five USB ports, two of which support USB 3.0, as well as DisplayPort, VGA and HDMI outputs.

Dell has redesigned the casing, and the aluminium and magnesium alloy chassis is MIL-STD 810G tested for extreme temperatures, vibration, dust, altitude and shock. There is also the choice of AMD FirePro and Nvidia Quadro graphics cards.

Customers can opt for a four-finger multi-touch display to draw, write, edit and zoom on-screen, a feature that will be suited to engineering applications, Dell noted.

The R5500 rack workstation, meanwhile, is designed for professionals who need high-end performance for intensive applications and remote capabilities, the manufacturer said.

The workstation ships with Intel Xeon processors which have a memory capacity of up to 192GB and dual-wide GPU slots that scale up to 450 watts.

The R5500 can support five industry standard PCIe x16 slots and a full range of dual high-end graphics and GPU components from Nvidia. Dell stated that the R5500 can be located in a customer's datacentre to provide remote one-to-one access to a workstation anywhere.

Customers can connect to the R5500 via optional PC-over-IP hardware-based compression technology from Teradici, using the Dell Precision FX100 Zero Client.

This technology transfers only the rendered graphics pixel data over the network, ensuring a fast and responsive remote experience, Dell claimed.

Alternately, customers can remotely connect via a standard notebook or desktop using VMware View.

All Dell Precision workstations come with security options including Dell Data Protection, encryption, Dell DataSafe Online Backup, fingerprint reader and Dell's System Track and Recovery service.

Dell Precision customers can also opt for a ProSupport package for 24/7 access to technicians for Dell and non-Dell hardware and software issues.

Custom Factory Integration, meanwhile, offers simple and fast deployment and robust manageability options to help keep operations running smoothly and IT costs down, said Dell.

The Dell Precision R5500 starts at £1,732.57 and is available in Europe from 3 May. The starting price for the Dell Precision M4600 is £1,031.99 and £1,541.27 for the M6600. These mobile workstations will be available globally from 10 May.