Dell XPS arrived today

Selekt0r · 12 Apr 2011 at 18:59

iMacMart said:
Doh, just formatted the primary partition for W7 Ultimate, left the recovery partition intact though...

Will call Dell and see if I can get some from them

If the recovery partition is still in place then you should be able to press the appropriate Function Key (F11 I think) when going through the BIOS, and use it to restore it to factory default. Then you can use the Dell Datasafe application to create/burn the recovery disks.

Juggy1985 · 12 Apr 2011 at 19:03

Leeroy123 said:
dell laptops are awful. poor quality hardware.

I had 5 or 6 laptops (dell, hp, compaq, acer, asus, toshiba) and Dell has been the best quality by far, it was also lightning quick for a £400 lappy!

dbeckett · 13 Apr 2011 at 16:10

The same i7 laptop as the OP for the same price was on outlet again today, too expensive for me tho

I bought this for £470 on Monday, but wasnt overly happy as I knew there was better value for money on outlet

Intel i5-480M Processor (2.66 GHz) Mobile CPU
Battery : Primary 9-cell 90W/HR LI-ION
Display : 15.6" HD WLED True-Life (1366x768) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
Hard Drive : 500GB 2.5inch Serial ATA II (7.200 Rpm) Hard Drive
Cert Refurbished

so today I bought a different laptop instead off dell outlet, £400

Processor : Intel i5-560M(2.66GHz) Mobile CPU
Battery : Primary 6-cell 56W/HR LI-ION
Optical Drive 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Hard Drive : 500GB 2.5inch Serial ATA II (7.200 Rpm) Hard Drive
Display : 15.6" HD WLED True-Life (1366x768) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera

Scratch and Dent

Cancelled my previous order, 560m vs 480m which is better, and £70 less, only negative is less battery power and its scratch and dent although it hopefully will be fine. Customer Services couldn't actually cancel my order but said Dell will pay for the delivery back to them from me for my first order, so decided itd be worth it

dante6491 · 13 Apr 2011 at 16:31

It seems strange how laptops all seem to have low res screens these days. My three year old Vostro 1500 has a 1680x1050 screen. I was looking for reasonably priced laptops last month to replace it but the only improvements over what I already have is a better GPU and being physically lighter. It is odd that 1440x900 isn't the minimum on laptops now.

andy_mk3 · 13 Apr 2011 at 17:26

I've had my Studio 17 nearly a year now, so far I'm very impressed and not had a single issue with it whatsoever. Spec is in sig

Also it runs 1600x900 which is fine for me, on a 17" screen it could be better, but it's fine for me.

It plays most games very well and is very quick to use. Hoping to fit an SSD and 8GB memory by the end of the year

I used to have an Acer laptop and the quality of this is far better in every way. I've used many HP and Toshiba laptops which feel rubbish in terms of build quality compared to this.

nasher32 · 14 Apr 2011 at 14:48

Is anyone with the dell xps having problems with the usb 3.0 ports?

I ordered mine from the outlet a couple of weeks ago and all has been great however I cant get either of the usb 3.0 ports to work with any external drives where as the usb 2 port uses it fine.

I have googled it and it looks to be a common issue with these xps laptops with people going mad on the dell forums. The only fix seems to be a motherboard replacement :mad:

Anyone on here having similar issues??

iMacMart · 14 Apr 2011 at 16:23

Rebuilt mine with W7 X64 Ultimate the other night and only the USB2 worked....

Haven't tried since will try when I get home

DannyW · 14 Apr 2011 at 20:25

I use my usb 3.0 ports everyday they work 100% and are very fast you need the Renesas Electronics drivers

Metalface Mark · 15 Apr 2011 at 08:56

Apparently theres 25% discount codes knocking about at the mo so you can get a new xps with 2gb 5 series graphics for about £500.

spudbynight · 15 Apr 2011 at 09:30

dante6491 said:
It seems strange how laptops all seem to have low res screens these days. My three year old Vostro 1500 has a 1680x1050 screen. I was looking for reasonably priced laptops last month to replace it but the only improvements over what I already have is a better GPU and being physically lighter. It is odd that 1440x900 isn't the minimum on laptops now.

Blame HD TV for this. 1366x768 is the resolution in most 720p TV which are sold. It makes it cheaper to use these panels in laptops for economies of scale. It is the same reason why most desktop monitors are now 1080p.

rypt · 16 Apr 2011 at 18:16

spudbynight said:
Blame HD TV for this. 1366x768 is the resolution in most 720p TV which are sold. It makes it cheaper to use these panels in laptops for economies of scale. It is the same reason why most desktop monitors are now 1080p.

Err ... 720p is 1280×720, just as 1080p is 1920×1080 and 1440p is 2560×1440 with the next step being 2160p at 3840×2160

Lefty · 17 Apr 2011 at 12:19

Anyone any idea at what time of the day they update the site? I have been looking at different times and on different days but haven't seem to noticed any correlation. I am looking to pull the trigger in the £600-800 range.

I am get so bored waiting I end up looking on EBAY! This can't happen.

iMacMart · 17 Apr 2011 at 13:09

Lefty said:
Anyone any idea at what time of the day they update the site? I have been looking at different times and on different days but haven't seem to noticed any correlation. I am looking to pull the trigger in the £600-800 range.

I am get so bored waiting I end up looking on EBAY! This can't happen.

15:00 - 15:15 is the time they go up

Picked up a nice i5-560m from there the other week, 9 cell, 500gb HDD...

Great laptop for £433

Lefty · 17 Apr 2011 at 13:14

Thanks for the heads up.

If I don't find the perfect machine at exactly 15:08 today, I will now hold you personally responsible!

marktime · 17 Apr 2011 at 13:17

Lefty said:
Thanks for the heads up.

If I don't find the perfect machine at exactly 15:08 today, I will now hold you personally responsible!

Wouldn't wait in hope tbh, I've never seen new stock appear at the weekends, weekdays only I'm afraid

Lefty · 17 Apr 2011 at 14:17

Cheers! F5 at the ready!

iMacMart · 17 Apr 2011 at 15:36

marktime said:
Wouldn't wait in hope tbh, I've never seen new stock appear at the weekends, weekdays only I'm afraid

Lol

Lefty said:
Cheers! F5 at the ready!

Week days it is!

Good luck, you get 15 mins to decide whether you want it or not then it gets out back out to the public domain... Not sure if you know, think it says on the website

dbeckett · 17 Apr 2011 at 17:11

3-3.45pm most weekdays is the times its been up most times ive checked. I downloaded an extension to reload the page every 10seconds that i started between those times, just have a glance at the webpage every now and again

Lefty · 19 Apr 2011 at 22:22

OK.

Got one.

XPS L501X
Hard Drive : 640GB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
Battery : Primary 6-cell 56W/HR LI-ION
Optical Drive 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Display : 15.6" Full HD B+RGLED True-Life (1920x1080) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Processor : Intel i5-560M(2.66GHz) Mobile CPU

£506 delivered. Missed out on the £20 quid off voucher as I didn't see it! Not bad.

There was a £700 one on there but the processor upgrade wasn't that drastic and I don't really need it. Other than that it had a blu ray drive which I am also not 'bovv'd' about. Not worth the £200 extra.

I tell you what though. You have to be quick, 40 of them went in about 5 minutes!

Now I just have to hope it's not pink.

dbeckett · 19 Apr 2011 at 22:28

Lefty said:
OK.

Got one.

XPS L501X
Hard Drive : 640GB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
Battery : Primary 6-cell 56W/HR LI-ION
Optical Drive 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Display : 15.6" Full HD B+RGLED True-Life (1920x1080) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Processor : Intel i5-560M(2.66GHz) Mobile CPU

£506 delivered. Missed out on the £20 quid off voucher as I didn't see it! Not bad.

There was a £700 one on there but the processor upgrade wasn't that drastic and I don't really need it. Other than that it had a blu ray drive which I am also not 'bovv'd' about. Not worth the £200 extra.

I tell you what though. You have to be quick, 40 of them went in about 5 minutes!

Now I just have to hope it's not pink.

Thats a good wee screen you got, think your the first one so far in the forum to get the 1920x1080 resolution from outlet, but being quick is essential, spend more than 1 minute looking and the good deals are all gone