Mine has just turned up, sadly I’m at work so only been able to open the box and look at it, and not use it yet…
First thing I noticed… This is a very big laptop. The screen is amazingly large, yet the laptop doesn’t suffer for it, it’s still small enough to carry around and I’m now pleased I got a large rucksack laptop carry bag. The trackpad is also very big, biggest trackpad I’ve seen on a laptop to date.
The build quality on first glance appears to be good, I’m looking at the top touch panel and it looks to have a slight bend upwards, its nothing too troubling and its maybe just me looking too hard for build faults. Overall, the laptop feels very solid, quite heavy which could be due to larger cell battery but due to weight doesn’t feel cheap. Screen lid movement is smooth and it doesn’t slam shut and the keyboard keys feel great, and even include a numeric keypad, on a laptop? How cool is that – can’t wait to actually fire it up and give it a good test run in.
I’m VERY disappointed with the USB arrangement. One USB /SATA port on one side of the laptop, and two USB sockets quite far apart on the other side, next to the blu ray drive is not impressing me. Meaning, double USB powered devices could be a problem as a doubled ended USB cable might not fit, I think my USB SATA HDD Caddie will suffer from this. A laptop like this needs four USB minimum.
And, VGA is so old and should be DVI or even removed completely. Understand Dell might need to provide projector support, but why not provide an adaptor for this? Another cheap option from Dell. So, lack of USB and VGA in place of DVI is disappointing to me. But not a deal breaker, I knew about the inclusion of VGA port, didn’t realise it had so few USB sockets.
Impressed with the provision of HDMI, card reader and speakers look rather nice on each corner, with silver surround casing. Has some type of chain motif all around the case and very glossy black lid. Very artistic, but perhaps not to the taste of all.
So, first impressions before turning it on are good. Feels well built, solid, slightly heavier then expected, excellent sized screen sadly USB and VGA options let first impressions down.
More to come once I power it on.