Dell XPS arrived today

Brumboy · 19 Apr 2011 at 22:43

Good deals but I've seen a lot of Sandybridge laptops for £500 - £700 with very decent specs. The only downside is most have only the Intel HD 3000 graphics.

Processor Intel® Core™ i5-2410M Dual Core (2.3GHz, Intel Sandy Bridge Architecture, 3MB Cache, Intel Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz)
Screen 15.6" (Lenovo Glossy, LED Backlit, 1366 x 768 Resolution Screen)
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit
RAM 4GB (DDR3 1333MHZ)
Hard Drive 500GB
Optical Drive DVD Rewriter (Records DVDs 8x & CDs 24x & Dual Layer Super Multi)
Graphics Integrated (Intel® HD 3000 Graphics with up to 1274MB Shared Memory)
Wireless LAN Wireless (802.11b/g/n Wireless)
Network Card 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet
Integrated Webcam Integrated Webcam with Microphone
Card Reader 5-in-1 card reader (SD//MS/MS-Pro/MMC/xD-Picture card™)
USB Ports 4x USB 2.0 Ports
Bluetooth Version 2.1
Speakers Integrated Stereo Speakers
VGA Port 1 External VGA Port
Kensington Lock Kensington lock slot
Charge Time 2.5 Hours
HDMI 1x HDMI Port
Numeric Keypad Yes
Warranty 12 Months Warranty - Direct with Lenovo
Battery Life 5-6 Hours (Upto 5 Hour Battery Life)
Weight 2-3 Kg (This Model 2.5 Kg)

For £478

Processor: Intel Core i5-2410M with Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 (2.30 GHz)
Operating System: Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Display: 15.6 inch WXGA high-definition LED backlight, 16:9 widescreen (1366 x 768)
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6370M 1 Gb
Memory: 6 Gb DDR3 DRAM 1066 MHz (8 Gb max.)
Hard Drive: 750 Gb 5400 rpm SATA
Optical Drive: Blu-ray Combo
Sound: 2.0 speakers (2 x 1.5 W) with 3D surround sound enhancement
Integrated Communications: Ethernet NIC, Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN (1 x 2), Lenovo Wireless b/g/n
Connectivity: 4 x USB 2.0, 5-in-1 card reader (MMC/MS/MS pro/SD/XD), headphones, mic, VGA, HDMI, Bluetooth, Kensington lock
Camera: 0.3 MP integrated web camera
Weight: 2.55 Kg
Dimensions (WxDxH): 377 x 245 x 17.3-34.9 mm
Battery: 6 cell

For £579

Processor Intel® Core™ i5-2410M Dual Core (2.3GHz, Intel Sandy Bridge Architecture, 3MB Cache, Intel Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz)
Screen 15.6" (Acer CineCrystal, 1366x768 HD, High Brightness, LED Backlit)
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit
RAM 4GB
Hard Drive 500GB
Optical Drive DVD Rewriter (Records DVDs 8x & CDs 24x & Dual Layer Super Multi)
Graphics Dedicated (NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M with 1GB DDR Dedicated Memory)
Wireless LAN Wireless (802.11b/g/n Wireless)
Network Card 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet
Integrated Webcam Integrated Webcam
Card Reader 5-in-1 card reader (SD//MS/MS-Pro/MMC/xD-Picture card™)
USB Ports 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x USB 3.0 Port
Speakers Integrated Stereo Speakers
VGA Port 1 External VGA Port
Kensington Lock Kensington lock slot
Charge Time 2.5 Hours
HDMI 1x HDMI Port
Warranty 12 Months Acer Collect & Return
Battery Life 4-5 Hours (Upto 4.5 Hour Battery Life)
Weight 2-3 Kg (This Model 2.5 Kg)

For £599

Lefty · 19 Apr 2011 at 23:00

There are loads of great deals on there. Problem is you have to be quick and also you can get a bit carried away with it all! Then by the time you have decided on one you have lost the one you should have bought, panic and then give up until the next day.....ad infinitum.

marktime · 19 Apr 2011 at 23:51

Glad you got sorted, spec is almost exactly the same I got for £430 with the exception of the 1080p screen, pretty good for an extra £70. Believe me that cpu is more than capable, not worth shelling out the extra for i7 imo.

The difficult bit now is waiting, seemed to take an age for mine to get dispatched, then delays over the weekend, etc. Think it was around 12 days until it turned up. Sure you'll be happy though.

Lefty · 20 Apr 2011 at 17:52

It's been shipped today so hopefully tomorrow, although knowing my luck....Tuesday!

dbeckett · 21 Apr 2011 at 16:41

Got my two new dell xps this afternoon off dell outlet. I bought a 480m first, but then saw a 560m for £70 cheaper so bought that too and dell are paying for return postage for my first order.

Pretty happy with it so far, all i can see is a small dent on the lid but for £400 instead of £750, id happily take it. So far im impressed, however i did get a blue screen of death in my first 5 minutes, but i reckon its a one off.

Does anyone know if the bloatware will be reinstalled with windows, if i do a reinstall with the dell recovery disks i made? I want to get rid of dell stage and mcaffee as well as any other dells bloatware, but removing the programs in control panel might be simpler?

DannyW · 21 Apr 2011 at 21:51

A BSOD out the box? I'd return that straight away tbh

dbeckett · 22 Apr 2011 at 00:33

DannyW said:
A BSOD out the box? I'd return that straight away tbh

Aye, but to theres a lot happening when you first startup, a lot of programs registering etc that won't ever need to be done again(as well as mcafee, which is now gone

), so I'll leave it and wait and see if anything else happens, or a fresh install might fix it but for only 1 bsod im not worrying too much

jamief · 22 Apr 2011 at 09:16

dbeckett said:
Aye, but to theres a lot happening when you first startup, a lot of programs registering etc that won't ever need to be done again(as well as mcafee, which is now gone ), so I'll leave it and wait and see if anything else happens, or a fresh install might fix it but for only 1 bsod im not worrying too much

It shouldn't BSOD no matter how much is happening. I'd return it too as its indicative of an underlying hardware fault imo.

DannyW · 22 Apr 2011 at 13:51

jamief said:
It shouldn't BSOD no matter how much is happening. I'd return it too as its indicative of an underlying hardware fault imo.

This

Disco Boy · 22 Apr 2011 at 15:08

I'd accept it from the outlet as it's a bargain, but having a vertical resolution of just 768 pixels on a laptop which costs up to a grand and has a dedicated gpu is madness! Why do people spec these machines in the first place? My old DELL has 800 vertical pixels and I find it too small.

chrisarm · 22 Apr 2011 at 16:36

think I'll be havin a look at the dell outlet, some pretty good finds

Uhtred · 22 Apr 2011 at 22:10

just ordered an xps 15, well my mate did. £370 for a decent gpu and i3. Hopefully it's all in good condition.

dbeckett · 23 Apr 2011 at 00:05

jamief said:
It shouldn't BSOD no matter how much is happening. I'd return it too as its indicative of an underlying hardware fault imo.

Think I will, especially as theyd hopefully send me out a brand new dell which is technically an upgrade as no dent, chances are their customer services will be closed till tuesday, so ill give it for a test run until then, but still abit of hassle but should be worth it in the long run

EDIT-Queue 2nd bsod,

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 18, {fffffa80041c9080, fffffa8004139e40, 1, 1}

Unable to load image \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\CtClsFlt.sys, Win32 error 0n2
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for CtClsFlt.sys
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for CtClsFlt.sys
Probably caused by : CtClsFlt.sys ( CtClsFlt+27e1e )

Followup: MachineOwner

Got that error each time, the driver is for the webcam, and i think the webcam was being used both times, could be just a driver issue but ill still request a replacement to be safe

themadhaggis · 25 Apr 2011 at 12:37

Managed to bag myself one, I think its a decent bargain:

i5-480M
Primary 6-cell
Tray Load Blu-ray Disc BD-Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
15.6" Full HD B+RGLED True-Life (1920x1080) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
500GB 2.5inch Serial ATA II (7.200 Rpm) Hard Drive
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)

£489, plus not sure if it will pay out but got £27 cashback tracked as well.

Wasn't sure if I should hold out for an i7 and the better GPU, but think for the price its a pretty decent deal

themadhaggis · 26 Apr 2011 at 15:51

How long did peoples orders usually take to arrive? As my expected delivery date is 2 weeks

dbeckett · 26 Apr 2011 at 19:05

themadhaggis said:
How long did peoples orders usually take to arrive? As my expected delivery date is 2 weeks

Personally mine took 9 days, but it depends on the timing etc, at the minute due to the previous bank holidays and may day etc it may be delayed by a few extra days

iMacMart · 27 Apr 2011 at 22:08

mine took 1 week

themadhaggis · 5 May 2011 at 07:45

Well new machine arrived yesterday and its great, the screen is fantastic.... only thing im disappointed in is the keyboard, the left hand side (so wasd etc) has quite a bit of flex and even the sound when your typing is totally different. Is that normal on these machines?

Selekt0r · 5 May 2011 at 16:07

themadhaggis said:
Is that normal on these machines?

Nope. The keyboard on mine is very good and consistent.

I'd suggest getting on the phone to tech support and get them to send an engineer out to swap out the keyboard. Best to sort it out straight away instead of leaving it and having problems later (especially once it's gone out of warranty).

Dokinator · 5 May 2011 at 17:06

DefiantAsh said:
pictures now! sounds like a sweet deal