I can see me saying MacBook Pro(MPB) a few times due to just how much this laptop screams Dell trying to bring out something which trys to be in the same league. I own an older MBP and I've used the newer models at work.
I'll start off by saying, I've used MBP's with Windows on via bootcamp and VMWare. I didn't have driver issues, I was happy with drivers released for them by Apple and they always did the job required of them. The touch pad is a joy to use even in windows.
The Dell, 2.1GHz, 16Gb Ram, 512Gb SSD, 640m 2Gb. 15Inch HD Screen.
Case, Happy with the design and feels well built enough.
CPU, More than most but could be better, its still more than enough
RAM, Well its Memory it kinda helps.
Screen, At times it appears high quality, but when I compare it to other older laptops or even my 27ich display on my desktop (which is sadly dvi only and isnt supported by the laptop). Other times it looks almost patchy behind whatever is on the screen. Very hard to discribe, I've read some people talk online about a grid issue but I don't fully understand this. I almost want to say it looks like a painiting canvas behind the image. Not flat, not blank/solid as you would expect. Only example I can think of which could be more todo with drivers or Windows Areo only using the HD4000 iGPU. The AA on icons seems wrong, Chrome icon looks fine but Dropbox's is all pixelated around the edges. When compared to a 5 year old laptop it makes this new screen look pretty awful.
I'm also in two minds about when video content is playing, maybe I'm just used to something better but it doesnt seem to be as good as I'd expect for a laptop of this price compared to Lattitude E6400 which is quite old and a C2D MBP.
GPU, Noticed when plugged in it throttles back to 125MHz from 640 iirc within about 30seconds. I'm still doing more tests on this as until the other night I had not been able to game on it at all. Unplugged BF3 ran at low res, with low settings 60-100fps and about 45-60fps on 720 again with low but honestly dont think the textures made much of a difference to when it thottles. Anyway unplugged for around an hour. Full 2000ticket 48player map iirc.
Plugging the laptop in, instantly got it throttled back to 125MHz, I then underclocked the GPU by about -125 (max) and it seemed to throttle less. I was noticeing red 15fps, and then a decent amount of 30-40 compared to orignally it was almost better playing it on the HD4000 which doesnt overheat at all, and the laptop stays at a nice resonable temp.
Touchpad, It really is trying to be same as MBP, but i find with this one I constantly knock it when typeing I did adjust settings and it improved. Settings do not appear to be sticking on reboot, and still are far from perfect imo. I've ended up disableing tap to click, so i have to click the buttons at the bottom but mostly I used a mouse. I still have not found a shortcut to disable to trackpad rather than clicking the actual program and disabling it. Which can get out of sync, as the laptop has a automatic fetchure that if you move the trackpad about a bit while its disabled it turns it back on.
Keyboard I like!
Oh I like the black Windows and Intel i7 stickers too!
WiFi, Its ok with the update. I've yet to test it in a hotel or an airport. I've actually bought a nano WiFi dongle, not that I expect a tiny thing like that to be much of an improvement. I figured I can test theses and my old Linksys G 54 usb thingy when I'm away next. I still seem to get shocking speeds with things such at speed test, any kind of distance its down to 4 or 6mb internet speed test compared to my phone or laptop which are still getting close to 15 still. Any kind of longer downloads seems to get reasonable speeds. It honestly is pretty shocking they can screw something like this up, compared to SGS3, MBP and another dell laptop the WiFi on this new laptop just can't keep up. For general internet access, it is good enough aslong as I can still get connected to crappy Hotel WiFi's.
Also worth noteing, with my old Linksys USB dongle the laptop sat in my garden can see many more networks and the int-WiFi still can only see mine.
USB, USB/Wireless Mouse I bought with the laptop, started to lag when using USB3 Memory stick at the same time. I did not notice this problem with a WD Pocket USB3 drive, and my phone connected. Removing the memory stick appeared to fix the issue. Not really looked into it yet.
There is a recovery partition but no option to boot to it. I've read that under windows repair there is a restore option I've yet to check this out.
BD/DVDRW When creating the restore media, I was unable change disks quickly. It ejected the disk up to 4 times before accepting it. It seemed to want around 30seconds after ejecting a disk before another can be inserted.
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I'm annoyed that for a laptop that is close to pefect spec for what I need it for, the WiFi has theses issues as I wouldn't even mind the GPU problem if I atleast knew for sure I had decent range on the wireless card.
Saying that, I can run 4-5 VM's all with 2Gb ram each, one with 4. Most been dual core but one having access to all 8. Not noticeing any slowdown at all, even when transcoding. This little laptop is running 4 Servers and 1 to control the rest, outputting over host only network to each other and one shareing the content out. Stick this on a network and you can access any of the content via a webpage.
Ok so I just kept typeing, I fully exect this to of not read very well.
