Man of Honour
Since a few people inc myself have ordered ours here it's about time to build up some hype (which may or may not lead to sadness just in case it flops 
)!
Post your ordered config and also thoughts if it arrives before the rest of us!
Questions / Requests etc too!
The one that's coming my way is the mid band config @ £522:
- Black
- 13.3" LED screen
- Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor ULV SU7300 (1.3GHz, 800MHz, 3MB)
- 3GB DDR3 1066MHz (1x 1GB, 1x 2GB) (max support 6GB) (will remove 1GB, add 2GB)
- 320GB 7200rpm (low band config has 5400rpm 250GB) (will change to a 64 or 128GB SSD)
- Intel X4500MHD gfx (top band config has nVidia G105M 512MB which must be coupled with the 8cell battery)
- DVD/RW drive (considering the thickness of this I'm surprised they squeezed this in!)
- 5rs 9mins run on 4 cell battery with Express charge (8cell available for 11hrs run)
(Express Charge charges the battery back to 80% in 60 minutes)
- Wireless G (N available at £31 extra) (will add an Intel 5300 N card which I have bought already if/when it arrives)
- Win7 HP x64 (will change to fresh Win7 Pro x64)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Update: It's arrived!
Thoughts/Review/Preview etc.
It's here!
Box is surprisingly small - smaller than the HP Compaq 311c and this is a bigger notebook!
Straight out the box it's very light, it feels lighter than the HP did in fact even though the figures say otherwise - it's the lightweight plastics Dell use perhaps but it doesn't feel cheap or fragile either.
The touchpad is textured and not smooth like the palmrest is, it is a Synaptics touchpad and is lag free =] I cannot stress enough how nice this touchpad is to use. We have XPS laptops at work which we program with and it feels just as smooth and responsive as those.
The DVDRW drive is a HLDTST (LG) GU10-N and the HDD is a Western Digital Scorpio Black edition (link) - pretty neat having a top end Black edition in there instead of the usual eco drives!
The HDD is also partitioned quite nicely, 60GB for OS, 10GB for recovery and 230GB for user documents.
The keyboard is completely flat but is ridged and the keys appear to be standard size so no issues with small keys etc.
The left/right mouse buttons are not clicky buttons but are seating above rubber contacts so have good travel and good feel, just like other Inspiron and XPS models.
The overall thickness of the 13z is superb especially when considering that it has a DVDRW drive. It is thinner than the HP Mini 311c and does not get thicker at the back. It is very slim. Only downer is the bag I bought for £25 is 1" too small
so I will put that along with the 1GB DDR3 module in member's market in a moment and buy a new bag!
Moving on to the RAM, it comes with 2GB stick of an unheard of brand and 1GB Samsung. I installed my Kingston DDR3 2GB to total 4GB.
I'm currently installing a fresh copy of Win7 Pro x64 as I have no intention of leaving the Dell pre-installed version of Premium on there.
I really like the little touches, the power block is the newer flat style block so easily compact, it will be even more compact when I buy one of those folding UK plugs as I have a clover shaped lead which I have shortened. Also the power cord's plug that has a glowing ring is neat and the BIOS options to change the Wireless on/off button behaviour so you can have it disable/enable all wireless and networking or selective.
The screen is glossy, as glossy as my Hazro 24" and colours seem vibrant so far although that's going by the Windows Install screen blue shades
Pics:
(on bottom = Asus 15.4" X58L)
Update*
I've posted some thoughts towards the end of the thread but probably worth adding some pros/cons here after using it for a whole day and night.
Pros:
- Lightweight.
- Thin from front to back (unless using the 8cell extended battery).
- Super smooth Windows 7, the speed of a desktop in fact.
- Trackpad is amazing response wise and the size is very good. Scrolling is accurate too.
- Screen brightness is uniform, no bleeding noticed.
- Express Charge is a nice feature.
- Local HD content plays smoothly even if it's not GFX accelerated as I found on one movie (The Matrix @ 1080P).
- Flash 10.1 BETA works on all but one site (iPlayer) with CPU usage of around 30%.
Cons:
- According to Windows the battery from charge on day one was 2.45hours in high performance mode, I will test with the default balanced mode and with Extended Battery enabled in Dell Quickset utility.
- There is no [PAUSE/BREAK] key unless i have gone blind I only used this to access system properties page, now i have to right click my computer to get to it!
- The current Synaptics driver doesn't have middle click like some other Dell laptops have where you press both mouse buttons to get a middle click, would be nice to have!)
- There is no HDD activity LED that I could find, only the combined Power/Battery status LED.
- Vertical viewing angles are average, horizontal is fine though, no different to any other netbook from what I've seen.
- Gonna need to keep a microfibre cloth to hand to wipe smudges off the glossy screen and lid/palm rest
I'm tempted by the Dell Extended battery now actually, I know it will raise the height by another inch but that may be a good thing depending on where it's being used. Unless Dell do a 6cell that will fit this....
*Update 2*
Few weeks in of use etc. Still running smooth and fast. Have settled on a few custom colour enhancement tab changes in the Intel driver settings page by dropping the contrast have gotten a more eye friendly white luminance.
Have tried to open up the back to get to the HDD, seems fiddly, more than the NC10 in fact so will re-attempt this when I actually get an SSD which will likely be when the warranty is out and of course SSDs at 250GB are cheap.
Update 12.12.2009:
Wireless N installed with 3rd aerial, it's hard routing the aerial inside the case itself but I may try other routing methods.
)!Post your ordered config and also thoughts if it arrives before the rest of us!
Questions / Requests etc too!
The one that's coming my way is the mid band config @ £522:
- Black
- 13.3" LED screen
- Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor ULV SU7300 (1.3GHz, 800MHz, 3MB)
- 3GB DDR3 1066MHz (1x 1GB, 1x 2GB) (max support 6GB) (will remove 1GB, add 2GB)
- 320GB 7200rpm (low band config has 5400rpm 250GB) (will change to a 64 or 128GB SSD)
- Intel X4500MHD gfx (top band config has nVidia G105M 512MB which must be coupled with the 8cell battery)
- DVD/RW drive (considering the thickness of this I'm surprised they squeezed this in!)
- 5rs 9mins run on 4 cell battery with Express charge (8cell available for 11hrs run)
(Express Charge charges the battery back to 80% in 60 minutes)
- Wireless G (N available at £31 extra) (will add an Intel 5300 N card which I have bought already if/when it arrives)
- Win7 HP x64 (will change to fresh Win7 Pro x64)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Update: It's arrived!
Thoughts/Review/Preview etc.
It's here!
Box is surprisingly small - smaller than the HP Compaq 311c and this is a bigger notebook!
Straight out the box it's very light, it feels lighter than the HP did in fact even though the figures say otherwise - it's the lightweight plastics Dell use perhaps but it doesn't feel cheap or fragile either.
The touchpad is textured and not smooth like the palmrest is, it is a Synaptics touchpad and is lag free =] I cannot stress enough how nice this touchpad is to use. We have XPS laptops at work which we program with and it feels just as smooth and responsive as those.
The DVDRW drive is a HLDTST (LG) GU10-N and the HDD is a Western Digital Scorpio Black edition (link) - pretty neat having a top end Black edition in there instead of the usual eco drives!
The HDD is also partitioned quite nicely, 60GB for OS, 10GB for recovery and 230GB for user documents.
The keyboard is completely flat but is ridged and the keys appear to be standard size so no issues with small keys etc.
The left/right mouse buttons are not clicky buttons but are seating above rubber contacts so have good travel and good feel, just like other Inspiron and XPS models.
The overall thickness of the 13z is superb especially when considering that it has a DVDRW drive. It is thinner than the HP Mini 311c and does not get thicker at the back. It is very slim. Only downer is the bag I bought for £25 is 1" too small
so I will put that along with the 1GB DDR3 module in member's market in a moment and buy a new bag!Moving on to the RAM, it comes with 2GB stick of an unheard of brand and 1GB Samsung. I installed my Kingston DDR3 2GB to total 4GB.
I'm currently installing a fresh copy of Win7 Pro x64 as I have no intention of leaving the Dell pre-installed version of Premium on there.
I really like the little touches, the power block is the newer flat style block so easily compact, it will be even more compact when I buy one of those folding UK plugs as I have a clover shaped lead which I have shortened. Also the power cord's plug that has a glowing ring is neat and the BIOS options to change the Wireless on/off button behaviour so you can have it disable/enable all wireless and networking or selective.
The screen is glossy, as glossy as my Hazro 24" and colours seem vibrant so far although that's going by the Windows Install screen blue shades
Pics:
(on bottom = Asus 15.4" X58L)
Update*
I've posted some thoughts towards the end of the thread but probably worth adding some pros/cons here after using it for a whole day and night.
Pros:
- Lightweight.
- Thin from front to back (unless using the 8cell extended battery).
- Super smooth Windows 7, the speed of a desktop in fact.
- Trackpad is amazing response wise and the size is very good. Scrolling is accurate too.
- Screen brightness is uniform, no bleeding noticed.
- Express Charge is a nice feature.
- Local HD content plays smoothly even if it's not GFX accelerated as I found on one movie (The Matrix @ 1080P).
- Flash 10.1 BETA works on all but one site (iPlayer) with CPU usage of around 30%.
Cons:
- According to Windows the battery from charge on day one was 2.45hours in high performance mode, I will test with the default balanced mode and with Extended Battery enabled in Dell Quickset utility.
- There is no [PAUSE/BREAK] key unless i have gone blind
I only used this to access system properties page, now i have to right click my computer to get to it!- The current Synaptics driver doesn't have middle click like some other Dell laptops have where you press both mouse buttons to get a middle click, would be nice to have!)
- There is no HDD activity LED that I could find, only the combined Power/Battery status LED.
- Vertical viewing angles are average, horizontal is fine though, no different to any other netbook from what I've seen.
- Gonna need to keep a microfibre cloth to hand to wipe smudges off the glossy screen and lid/palm rest
I'm tempted by the Dell Extended battery now actually, I know it will raise the height by another inch but that may be a good thing depending on where it's being used. Unless Dell do a 6cell that will fit this....
*Update 2*
Few weeks in of use etc. Still running smooth and fast. Have settled on a few custom colour enhancement tab changes in the Intel driver settings page by dropping the contrast have gotten a more eye friendly white luminance.
Have tried to open up the back to get to the HDD, seems fiddly, more than the NC10 in fact so will re-attempt this when I actually get an SSD which will likely be when the warranty is out and of course SSDs at 250GB are cheap.
Update 12.12.2009:
Wireless N installed with 3rd aerial, it's hard routing the aerial inside the case itself but I may try other routing methods.
Last edited:
