Dell Studio 15 Top Spec, good value?

mike gunnz · 22 Oct 2009 at 19:41

Should be finally getting my bursary tomorrow so was planning to pop into town first thing in the morning to buy a 13" Macbook Pro for £770 after HE discount, however, I've just had a look on the Dell site and specced up the machine below for £787.64 which looks like incredible value:

Intel® Core™ i7-720QM 1.6GHz
4096MB 1333MHz DDR3
Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Backlit Keyboard
512MB ATI 4570
Hard Drive 320GB 7,200rpm
DVD+/-RW Slot Load
Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g)
Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module
6-cell 56 WHr Lithium Ion battery
2.0 Mega pixel Web Camera
LCD 15.6in Widescreen Full High Definition (1920 x 1080) WLED with TrueLife

Can't decide what to do

Anyone know what the battery life is like on these core i7 laptops?

Rroff · 22 Oct 2009 at 19:49

Battery life is prolly not brilliant... I'd guess around 2 hours of useful life...

But you'd be mad to pass that over for a mac... the only thing thats slightly lower than ideal spec is the GPU - which would be fine for everything except serious gaming - where it would kinda limp at 1920x... I'm suprised to see it going for under a grand.

mike gunnz · 22 Oct 2009 at 20:20

Rroff said:
Battery life is prolly not brilliant... I'd guess around 2 hours of useful life...

But you'd be mad to pass that over for a mac... the only thing thats slightly lower than ideal spec is the GPU - which would be fine for everything except serious gaming - where it would kinda limp at 1920x... I'm suprised to see it going for under a grand.

If battery life is that low then its of little use to me as my main requirement is long battery life. With a C2D P7450 2.13GHz cpu the same spec machine costs £668.77 which is probably the answer.

Do you know what Dell's delivery times are from ordering? I need a laptop in a hurry as essay deadlines are are looming.

Rroff · 22 Oct 2009 at 20:48

If you want long battery life then you really should be looking at netbooks - some of the atom based ones can clock up 8-10 hours... most "normal" laptops are more like 2-3 hours of useful life.

Dell probably isn't the best option either if your looking for something to turn up quick...

mike gunnz · 22 Oct 2009 at 20:57

Rroff said:
If you want long battery life then you really should be looking at netbooks - some of the atom based ones can clock up 8-10 hours... most "normal" laptops are more like 2-3 hours of useful life.

Dell probably isn't the best option either if your looking for something to turn up quick...

Yeah you're probably right about Dells delivery time. I can't afford to be without a machine for much longer. I'm drawn to the MBP as they quote 7+ hrs on the battery (and they look nice too).

There are several laptops out now sporting Intel's new CULV cpu which gives 8+ hours of battery life.

Netbooks are just too small for my tastes.

Rroff · 22 Oct 2009 at 21:04

Can't say I'd reccomend a mac (unless you already know you like them) once the novelty wore off most of the people I know who have bought one wished they had spent the money on a windows machine.

mike gunnz · 22 Oct 2009 at 21:19

Rroff said:
Can't say I'd reccomend a mac (unless you already know you like them) once the novelty wore off most of the people I know who have bought one wished they had spent the money on a windows machine.

Yeah if Win7 is all its cracked up to be then a windows laptop could still be the way forward. Problem is apart from the MBP only the Acer Timeline machines have the kind of battery life I'm looking for and they are woefully underpowered for everything except Office based tasks. Plus, my budget is up to £800 and I dont really like the idea of spending that kind of money on an Acer machine.

The Samsung Q320 looks quite capable but apparently the screen isn't the best. HP do some good spec stuff but I can't stand all that shiny plastic, which brings me back to the Mac...

Seems like most laptops have an achilles heel in some area.

Andybtsn · 22 Oct 2009 at 21:21

I got the Studio 15, great laptop

Rroff · 22 Oct 2009 at 21:42

From a quick google even with the extended capacity battery the Studio 15 doesn't quite make it to 4 hours battery life... shame coz it looks like a killer spec for the money. Guess you could keep a couple of them on you tho a bit inconvenient.

mike gunnz · 23 Oct 2009 at 12:54

Well I decided to go with the 13" Macbook Pro. I picked it up for £770 from my local Apple reseller this morning. First impressions are good but it will take a bit of time to get used to OSX. Its certainly a great looking machine, the keyboard is good, excellent screen and the multi touchpad is fantastic. BUT, it was expensive even with the HE discount in my opinion.

lsg1r · 24 Oct 2009 at 10:04

if you don't need performance and are more interested in batterylife dell do have the inspiron 15z (theres a 11, 13 and 14 too) which uses culv c2d @1.3Ghz and has upto 8 hours battery with the 6 cell battery. It costs about £600 which isn't too bad in my opinion.

mike gunnz · 24 Oct 2009 at 18:59

lsg1r said:
if you don't need performance and are more interested in batterylife dell do have the inspiron 15z (theres a 11, 13 and 14 too) which uses culv c2d @1.3Ghz and has upto 8 hours battery with the 6 cell battery. It costs about £600 which isn't too bad in my opinion.

Is the 14z even available in the UK? Not sure it is. Anyway that range is a little too underpowered for my liking and I got the 13" MBP yesterday (see my previous post).

lsg1r · 24 Oct 2009 at 20:13

I've found the 14z is available via a purple retailer under the guise of 1470, not sure its very good value or has very good battery life according to the info but it is there.

I'm after a macbook pro too but I'm not in desperate need of one now so am waiting on the next model which will hopefully have an i7 cpu