Dell M1330 & M1530

mikester

mikester

mikester

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,006
Location
Edinburgh
So after my Macbook crapped out on me last week I am seriously entertaining the idea of buying another used laptop.

I managed to find two very well priced Dell XPS series laptops - the M1330 and the M1530. Both review very well and seem to offer what I need for a price I can afford.

Has anyone bought or had experience with either of these models? Any comments or insights would be much appreciated.
 
These came with the Nvidia 8xxx series gpus which do have known problems for failing, I would steer clear for that reason alone especially if no warranty is present.
 
beermonster said:
These came with the Nvidia 8xxx series gpus which do have known problems for failing, I would steer clear for that reason alone especially if no warranty is present.
Click to expand...

Ah, thanks for the insight. Had no idea about the chipset.

What about the Dell Inspiron 1525 or Studio 1537?
 
GeezerButler said:
1525 - charging problems, hinges fall apart
1537 - charging problems, hinges fall apart
1330 & 1530 are ok if you get the Intel video version
Click to expand...

Hmm, seems these deals may not be as good as I had thought.

What about the Dell Vostro 1500 or a Sony VAIO VRN-NR38M?
 
NR38M is past it's best now, problems are failing touch pad buttons, dc socket prone to failing, hinges snapping, optical drives failing.

What's your budget and what are the main uses you're looking for in a laptop?

I've had a 2nd hand acer 6935G for a few years now and never had no trouble and it#s still a pretty good spec, P8400, 9800 GT graphics 4 GB ddr3.
 
beermonster said:
NR38M is past it's best now, problems are failing touch pad buttons, dc socket prone to failing, hinges snapping, optical drives failing.

What's your budget and what are the main uses you're looking for in a laptop?

I've had a 2nd hand acer 6935G for a few years now and never had no trouble and it#s still a pretty good spec, P8400, 9800 GT graphics 4 GB ddr3.
Click to expand...

Sadly my budget is very limited. About £100-£150 maximum. I am happy to buy used, even without a warranty, just as long as it's reliable.

Needed to play a few old games, some movies and television, Skype, internet, word processing and the odd report.

I've been using eBay and the OCUK For Sale forums, but so far nothing substantial to report.
 
I had an m1530 (8600Gt version) for 3 years and the only issue was a failed PSU brick just before the end of those 3 years (£20 replacement). I've since passed it onto a relative who is still using it daily. I really miss the build quality and feel of the m1530 compared to my rather horrid plasticky MSi GX660r (which I'm going to dump sometime this year for something that's a little higher quality).
 
Had Dell technician out around 10 times in the last year to replace cooked 8400GS graphics chips on XPS 1330's. They were 2+ years old, and had 8 of them in total so it's a pretty high failure rate on this model.
 
I've had my 1530 for about three years, it's my work machine so run for circa eight hours a day five days a week. Apart from a duff blu-ray drive when I first got it it's been fine.
 
Had an M1330 with the 8400m GPU, dell must have never tested them properly because the cooling is insufficient for that GPU, if you try to game with them (something that pushes the GPU) then after a random amount of time (could be hours, could be less) the laptop will lock up and the screen go black, only thing you can do is hold the power button to turn it off then reboot. The was a massive thread on the dell forum about this at the time as hundreds of users encountered the problem, dell refused to admit the was a design flaw.

I replaced it with a Studio XPS 13 which had the G210m/9200m Hybrid SLi GPUs, much better laptop, never had a problem with it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom