Dell M1730 Vs Alienware M15X

I went for the M1730 and dont regret it at all, very very happy with it. Can try to answer any Qs if it helps you...
 
Thanks a lot for your replies guys. Much appreciated.

I went and had a look at laptops last night in PC City (Spanish version of PC World) and the size of a 17inch laptop compared to a 15.4inch is rather huge. At the moment I am moving around quite a bit and even tho I know for a fact that the M1730 is the best bang for money, I think I will have to go with the M15X.

Currently I am deciding on the following spec but there are a few things I cant decide on which I would love some feed back on:


  • 15.4" WideXGA+ 1440 x 900 LCD (720p) with Clearview Technology

*(They also do a 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p) for an extra [+£180] do you think its worth upgrading to that spec, and what is the performance like on these screens?)

  • Genuine Windows® Vista Home Premium

*(I wish they had the option for XP because I have heard nothing but bad press about Vista. They also have Genuine Windows® Vista Ultimate for an extra +£83. Do you think its worth it? What benefits do you get with the Ultimate edition.)

  • 512MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 8800M GTX

  • Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB)

*(For an extra £166 I could get T9500 2.6GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB) personally I just don't see that it is worth the upgrade. I mean both CPU's are Penryn and are pretty much identical. So what do you think?)

  • 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 2048MB

Is it worth getting this?: Intel Turbo Cache Memory 1GB – Accelerate Data Transfer Speed [+£15]

  • Single Drive Configuration - 200GB 7200 RPM SATA

  • 8x Dual Layer Writer (DVD±RW, CD-RW)

  • Intel® High-Definition Audio (24-bit, 192Khz) with surround sound

And thats about it.
 
Dead0rAlive said:
*(They also do a 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p) for an extra [+£180] do you think its worth upgrading to that spec, and what is the performance like on these screens?)
Click to expand...

You'll get a lot more screen space, but it'll make text etc absolutely tiny. Shame they don't do a 1680x1050 panel because that'd be a nice in-between. I'd personally probably opt for the 1440x900, which then means you can pile on the AA and AF at native resolution in games and still have a very smooth experience.

Dead0rAlive said:
*(I wish they had the option for XP because I have heard nothing but bad press about Vista. They also have Genuine Windows® Vista Ultimate for an extra +£83. Do you think its worth it? What benefits do you get with the Ultimate edition.)
Click to expand...

Nothing but bad press from where? If you just look around on the Windows forum here, you'll see plenty of positive talk about Vista. It's a very solid OS, very nice to use, and certainly far better-suited to a brand-new gaming machine than XP is (for DX10 alone). The Vista website will show you what extras Ultimate has, but I personally don't think they're worth the extra money.

As for the rest, the CPU upgrade seems like it would be pointless, as would the TurboCache thing, considering you've got 4GB of RAM there already.

Very nice machine you'll have there though, should be blisteringly quick.
 
TheVoice said:
You'll get a lot more screen space, but it'll make text etc absolutely tiny. Shame they don't do a 1680x1050 panel because that'd be a nice in-between. I'd personally probably opt for the 1440x900, which then means you can pile on the AA and AF at native resolution in games and still have a very smooth experience.



Nothing but bad press from where? If you just look around on the Windows forum here, you'll see plenty of positive talk about Vista. It's a very solid OS, very nice to use, and certainly far better-suited to a brand-new gaming machine than XP is (for DX10 alone). The Vista website will show you what extras Ultimate has, but I personally don't think they're worth the extra money.

As for the rest, the CPU upgrade seems like it would be pointless, as would the TurboCache thing, considering you've got 4GB of RAM there already.

Very nice machine you'll have there though, should be blisteringly quick.
Click to expand...

Nice!.. Thank you for your reply.
 
Is the XPS1730 with SLi 8800m + Physics card very noisy?

Does the keyboard get to hot to touch during long gaming sessions?

Does anyone have the 5510 mobile broadband card? Is it any good and could you get the card to work in the US?
 
Been thinking about that Intel TurboMemory card thing again, and actually sat and did a bit of reading on it. Seems like a good idea and that it could potentially net a bit of extra battery life and speed up Hibernation/start-up, but there's just not much practical data on it. Struggled to find more than a couple of reviews, and they were quite old so it's likely they've improved support since then.

For £15, I'd be tempted...but then again, I'm not sure. One review indicated a loss of performance in some cases, whereas other people have stated dramatic improvements in game loading times etc.

I suppose if you're spending that much money on the machine in the first place, £15 isn't very much!
 
magick said:
Is the XPS1730 with SLi 8800m + Physics card very noisy?

Does the keyboard get to hot to touch during long gaming sessions?

Does anyone have the 5510 mobile broadband card? Is it any good and could you get the card to work in the US?
Click to expand...

I had a 5 hour session of COD4 yesterday so hopefully can answer your heat/noise questions:
The fans are VERY quiet, at first they are inaudiable and when they do speed up during heavy 3D games, they're still amazingly quiet - a lot quieter than every other laptop I've owned (and they've been non-gaming laptops!). The keyboard remained cool the whole time, the GPUs/CPU are located further back than the keyboard, the only area warm to the touch was the hinge cover behind the keyboard infront of the screen, to the back left side. It still wasn't burning hot though.
It runs COD4 at 1920x1200 with everything on high settings (except I turn off depth of field which for preference rather than performance). I also run Crysis at 1680x1050 with a high/medium mix, and everything else I throw at it runs absolutely superb...

I have the 5510 WWAN card and it works brilliantly (using vodaphone). Not sure about the US though, never tried.
 
TheVoice said:
Been thinking about that Intel TurboMemory card thing again, and actually sat and did a bit of reading on it. Seems like a good idea and that it could potentially net a bit of extra battery life and speed up Hibernation/start-up, but there's just not much practical data on it. Struggled to find more than a couple of reviews, and they were quite old so it's likely they've improved support since then.

For £15, I'd be tempted...but then again, I'm not sure. One review indicated a loss of performance in some cases, whereas other people have stated dramatic improvements in game loading times etc.

I suppose if you're spending that much money on the machine in the first place, £15 isn't very much!
Click to expand...

Yeah I also had a quick read on it after you said that, and looking at all the responses from other peoples experience of it, I think I wont spend the £15 on getting it. Some people said that is decreased the performance of some games while others said it increased overall performance and load times. And then others said that it made their system unstable.

I know it's only 15 quid extra but I would prefer not to take the risk. Anyway going from my current laptop to this one I am sure that I will be just blown away by the speed.:D Currently running a Athlon xp-M 2000+, 512Mb Memory, and a 60gb hdd. 32megs of Intergrated graphics.
 
L33 said:
I had a 5 hour session of COD4 yesterday so hopefully can answer your heat/noise questions:
The fans are VERY quiet, at first they are inaudiable and when they do speed up during heavy 3D games, they're still amazingly quiet - a lot quieter than every other laptop I've owned (and they've been non-gaming laptops!). The keyboard remained cool the whole time, the GPUs/CPU are located further back than the keyboard, the only area warm to the touch was the hinge cover behind the keyboard infront of the screen, to the back left side. It still wasn't burning hot though.
It runs COD4 at 1920x1200 with everything on high settings (except I turn off depth of field which for preference rather than performance). I also run Crysis at 1680x1050 with a high/medium mix, and everything else I throw at it runs absolutely superb...

I have the 5510 WWAN card and it works brilliantly (using vodaphone). Not sure about the US though, never tried.
Click to expand...

Cool sounds good. I'm seriously tempted by one of these beasts. I bet it weighs a ton though? What sort of case do you have to transport about?
 
magick said:
Cool sounds good. I'm seriously tempted by one of these beasts. I bet it weighs a ton though? What sort of case do you have to transport about?
Click to expand...
Weight is obviously hard to judge / portray in words. According to dell, the system weighs 11 pounds which is certainly no ultra-portable but its not as heavy as it looks (which is the first thing my work colleagues said!). The AC adapter on the other hand is a lot bigger than normal Dell laptop PSUs and weighs 3 pounds.
As for cases, I'm using one of these (video here which I preferred over the 'official' XPS bag as its much more padded and the storage compartments are more useful. It fits like a glove and just gives you the feeling that it'd take a fair few knocks and bumps. There are other options though
 
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