Dell Studio 17 laptop

ninja2000 · 28 May 2010 at 10:58

It would depend on your usage, the i3 is still a competant CPU but it lacks the turbo boost feature.
What I would say is if you will be using the laptop for media use then get the i3. If you want to game and encode etc fork out for the i5 520/540 (I have the i5 540 and its a fantastic cpu)
Also in order to upgrade the CPU you will need to take the whole laptop apart which is not for the feinthearted. If you are comfortable stripping down laptops you could get the i3 and then upgrade later if you feel the need

Moeks · 28 May 2010 at 11:09

The other difference between the i3 and the i5 500 series+ is support for hardware based AES encryption (the i5 400 series has it disabled though). Might be worth consideration, depending on what you do with the machine. The big difference though, as already mentioned between the i3 and the i5 is turbo boost.

iv-tecman · 28 May 2010 at 12:26

I went for the i5-540M as I know how bloody hard it is to upgrade laptops, so I always push my budget as far as I dare when i buy one...

I'm hoping it'll last me for a good few years, I intend to do light gaming, multi-media and internet and mobile computing with it. I'm now in the 'in production' phase, and still looking at 8th June to get my laptop..

We shall see, I'm really glad I opted for the 1080p screen though. A lot of complaints about the 900p screen on google search, issues with blacks looking poor, poor viewing angles etc... Ninja2000 advised about this, so anyone looking to get this machine, pay the extra for the better screen.

I also went for the backlit keyboard, and skipped the bluetooth options. £30 for bluetooth when I can use a £3 USB dongle seems a tad steep to me. I also didn't upgrade the wireless adaptor, as I know I can upgrade this later myself.

I also want to know if I can place another 500GB HDD into this... Past Dell's have allowed for two HDD, but I'll have to find this out once I get my machine.

Little_Crow · 28 May 2010 at 12:39

iv-tecman said:
I also want to know if I can place another 500GB HDD into this... Past Dell's have allowed for two HDD, but I'll have to find this out once I get my machine.

Yes you can, but from what I've read it can be hard to get hold of the caddy for the 2nd drive. A famous auction site can usually provide.

Moeks · 28 May 2010 at 13:10

Good call on the screen, I hear the Dell 1080P RGB-LED screen is excellent, besides on a 17" laptop you will want the extra resolution I think, really. My 14" laptop uses a 1600x900 screen, which is just right for me, I think the same res on a 17" would be a bit ...low really.

Antar Bolaeisk · 28 May 2010 at 16:31

Cheers for the info guys.

andy_mk3 · 30 May 2010 at 22:05

Mine's in the depo ready to be delivered on Tuesday. Very excited, upgrading from an old Acer Aspire 5100.

iv-tecman · 1 Jun 2010 at 11:58

andy_mk3 said:
Mine's in the depo ready to be delivered on Tuesday. Very excited, upgrading from an old Acer Aspire 5100.

That’s cool…. Mine has now been shipped from China (no doubt assembled by the infamous Faxconn group) and is being shipped by welsh western, whoever they are…

Still holding my hopes for 8th June so fingers crossed…. Getting excited like you now. Was looking over my PS3 only the other day, and if this laptop can play media and blu ray using HDMI then my poor old PS3 will get next to no use at all soon. I’ve not played a PS3 game since October last year…. lol

ninja2000 · 1 Jun 2010 at 16:08

It normally takes about 4-5 working days with walsh western. So I am sure you will have it before the 8th

andy_mk3 · 1 Jun 2010 at 18:10

Mine was with Walsh Western too. It was in China on 26/05, got to the UK on the 28/05, and delivered today (01/06) which is very very good, as Monday was bank holiday.

They tried to deliver today, I'm going to the depot to pick it up at about 8pm, 65 mile round trip, but it should be worth it

iv-tecman · 2 Jun 2010 at 13:51

andy_mk3 said:
Mine was with Walsh Western too. It was in China on 26/05, got to the UK on the 28/05, and delivered today (01/06) which is very very good, as Monday was bank holiday.

They tried to deliver today, I'm going to the depot to pick it up at about 8pm, 65 mile round trip, but it should be worth it

did you pick your laptop up? Mine is being delivered tomorrow morning, from Hinckley, just down the road from me in fact..... Can't wait, really impressed they got it from China to Hinckley during a bank holiday and getting the laptop to me tomorrow.... That's nearly a week before they said they'd deliver.

Thats rather good actually.... Makes up for the troubles I had ordering the machine.

Tripp · 2 Jun 2010 at 15:05

Im thinking of ordering a dell studio17 myself, did anone who has rescentley bought one phone dell to blag a cheaper price than you got online? i heard you can get a few extras and a few quid off?!

If you did blag them then what did you say?

edgarina · 2 Jun 2010 at 15:35

to go back a few posts is the 5650 really a mid range card, sure if you have a few thousand to spend you can get better but its still a pretty good card and can plays lots of games like dirt2 but yes on slightly reduced settings, this is a laptop we are talking about here not a desk top so proper top notch games performance is damn expensive.

Antar Bolaeisk · 2 Jun 2010 at 16:15

Tripp said:
Im thinking of ordering a dell studio17 myself, did anone who has rescentley bought one phone dell to blag a cheaper price than you got online? i heard you can get a few extras and a few quid off?!

If you did blag them then what did you say?

I'm going to see if I can blag the Sterling price as the Euro price is much higher, I'll let you know if it works.

andy_mk3 · 2 Jun 2010 at 17:55

I got mine last night. So far very impressed my it!

I was thinking of doing a fresh install of W7, but to be fair there wasn't that much bloatware on it, just the Dell support, McAfee crap and M$ Works and a few bits like that I removed.

I went for the 1600x900 screen, and it's very bright and clear, even for the size of the screen it doesn't lack in resolution.I'm not sure why people aren't rating it much, as it's perfect really, viewing angles are great.

The speakers are very crisp and clear, the sub obviously isn't going to shake the house but it does make a difference. Also the touch buttons on the top are very nice, then you touch them they brighten up and fade back to dim again, a nice touch!

I've not had chance to install much yet, other than Firefox and MSN messenger. It's very quick though, puts my C2D desktop to shame!

Anyone thinking of getting one I would certainly recommend that you consider one, the build quality is excellent. The backlit keyboard is a must have, you can adjust the brightness off it and it's great in the dark, a nice even light with no bright spots.

Not really a bad thing to say about it so far. It's quiet sitting on my desk, I can't even hear it. When the fan steps up you can hear it but it's nothing too noisy.

I disabled most of the touchpad multi-touch functions as they were nothing but trouble! It's taking a while to get used to such a large touchpad but it has a nice feel to it.

ninja2000 · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:29

What make screen did you get?

If its the samsung its far from perfect. You should put it up against some decent laptop screens. The samsung panel I received was bright yes, but colours were washed out, blacks were grey and the viewing angles were poor.
The screen is one of the most important aspect for a laptop for me so this was a dealbreaker.
I sent my 1749 back and now own an alienware m15x not becuase I am a alienware fan but purely because it has a fantastic screen, decent keyboard and doesnt get hot at all on the upper side. I liked the 17 and if you could buy the 1080p screen when I ordered I would have ordered that and sure I would have kept the laptop

andy_mk3 · 2 Jun 2010 at 21:32

Couldn't tell you what make the panel is. No sign of anything you mentioned though.

iv-tecman · 3 Jun 2010 at 11:43

Mine has just turned up, sadly I’m at work so only been able to open the box and look at it, and not use it yet…

First thing I noticed… This is a very big laptop. The screen is amazingly large, yet the laptop doesn’t suffer for it, it’s still small enough to carry around and I’m now pleased I got a large rucksack laptop carry bag. The trackpad is also very big, biggest trackpad I’ve seen on a laptop to date.

The build quality on first glance appears to be good, I’m looking at the top touch panel and it looks to have a slight bend upwards, its nothing too troubling and its maybe just me looking too hard for build faults. Overall, the laptop feels very solid, quite heavy which could be due to larger cell battery but due to weight doesn’t feel cheap. Screen lid movement is smooth and it doesn’t slam shut and the keyboard keys feel great, and even include a numeric keypad, on a laptop? How cool is that – can’t wait to actually fire it up and give it a good test run in.

I’m VERY disappointed with the USB arrangement. One USB /SATA port on one side of the laptop, and two USB sockets quite far apart on the other side, next to the blu ray drive is not impressing me. Meaning, double USB powered devices could be a problem as a doubled ended USB cable might not fit, I think my USB SATA HDD Caddie will suffer from this. A laptop like this needs four USB minimum.

And, VGA is so old and should be DVI or even removed completely. Understand Dell might need to provide projector support, but why not provide an adaptor for this? Another cheap option from Dell. So, lack of USB and VGA in place of DVI is disappointing to me. But not a deal breaker, I knew about the inclusion of VGA port, didn’t realise it had so few USB sockets.

Impressed with the provision of HDMI, card reader and speakers look rather nice on each corner, with silver surround casing. Has some type of chain motif all around the case and very glossy black lid. Very artistic, but perhaps not to the taste of all.

So, first impressions before turning it on are good. Feels well built, solid, slightly heavier then expected, excellent sized screen sadly USB and VGA options let first impressions down.

More to come once I power it on.

andy_mk3 · 3 Jun 2010 at 14:38

I have to agree the USB port layout isn't great, and it could really do with having 4 of them!

iv-tecman · 3 Jun 2010 at 21:34

Now powered it up, and truthfully I'm re-installing the O/S as its got a 14GB partition that I have lost and I'll re-install to my own spec first...

Then I'll give it a really good going over, but so far.. Its rather quick. Just wondering why dell decided to stick the COA in the inside of the battery..!!Spent 5 mins looking for that, thought I'd been stiffed and not got the COA...!! lol

Anyhow, re-installing the O/S right now. But so far, its a great laptop. Screen is fantastic, and its real quiet...