Shall I Keep My Dell XPS 17 Or Buy Inspiron 17 R SE

I guess the question is do you need more grunt? If so then by all means upgrade.

I have had my 15R SE since launch and in general I have been very pleased with it. However some pros and cons:

+ Love the 1080p screen on a 15" model
+ Thermally very sound, always cool and quiet
+ Quick machine for the price
+ Large trackpad thats good to use
+ Sound is pretty damn good for a laptop

- Keyboard is way to clackety. Doesn't feel sturdy enough.
- Awful calibration of the screen. Has a very strong blue hue before I played with the settings
- Battery life is not the best compared to the competition. It's more than adequate for my purposes but even with light use 3hrs is going to be a bit of a push
- Cheap looking chasis

Hope that gets you started
 
MeAnBoY said:
I guess the question is do you need more grunt? If so then by all means upgrade.

I have had my 15R SE since launch and in general I have been very pleased with it. However some pros and cons:

+ Love the 1080p screen on a 15" model
+ Thermally very sound, always cool and quiet
+ Quick machine for the price
+ Large trackpad thats good to use
+ Sound is pretty damn good for a laptop

- Keyboard is way to clackety. Doesn't feel sturdy enough.
- Awful calibration of the screen. Has a very strong blue hue before I played with the settings
- Battery life is not the best compared to the competition. It's more than adequate for my purposes but even with light use 3hrs is going to be a bit of a push
- Cheap looking chasis

Hope that gets you started
Click to expand...

I guess you dont get backlit keyboard , still thinking about changing to Inspiron 17 R SE
 
I am pretty sure backlit keyboard is an option for the 17R SE.

What features of the 17R SE appeal to you when compared to the XPS 17?

I used a 17R 7720 SE recently but not enough to say that much about it. It seemed to be more compact and I liked it was black but most everything else was similar to my old XPS 17. The SE has 2GB 650M graphics compared to the 3GB 555M in my old XPS but I'm not sure the 650M is that much faster.
 
I've got both models coming in the next week or so from the Dell Outlet. I currently have an XPS15 but want something a bit bigger. I will be interested to see whether the better battery life, speakers, build quality and backlit keyboard on the XPS17 make up for the older CPU and graphics.
 
Only one HD drive bay in the 17R SE which is under the keyboard, limited options on dells website and the 650M I don't think is that much of an upgrade from a 555M, might want to check notebookreview.

Not really sure its worth the outlay, I'd keep the XPS17.

You can however spec a backlit keyboard its £30 extra.
 
Backlit keyboard wasn't an option for the UK model at launch. I'm not sure if it is now though.

Was very frustrating because the US model had it by default I seem to remember.
 
I've just bought an Inspiron 17R SE and the backlit keyboard was an optional extra, which I opted to include in my purchase :-)
 
To be honest i would stick with your XPS 17 , dont think you would see much Performance if you went for 17R SE

Depends what XPS 17 spec you have
 
TallGuy said:
To be honest i would stick with your XPS 17 , dont think you would see much Performance if you went for 17R SE

Depends what XPS 17 spec you have
Click to expand...

Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit
Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.10 GHz)
17.3" HD+ WLED True-Life (1080p) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
3GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M Graphics Card - 3D Capable
Backlit UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB ( X 2 500GB )
8192MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM ( 2x4096 )
Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1000
8x DVD+/-RW
6-cell 56Whr Lithium Ion battery
 
TheHitMan-1973 said:
What`s you spec Inspiron 17R SE
Click to expand...

I ordered it with the spec below ;

i73610
6 GB RAM
2GB Geforce 650M (120 Watt)
750 GB 7200 RPM HDD
HD (1080p) LED Screen
Backlit keyboard

I've already got it, but am not opening it until I've sold my existing Laptop and Desktop computers. I'm not sure whether or not it's come with an MSATA cache drive, though this is is not particularly important to me as I'll be going down the SSD route over the next few months.
 
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TheHitMan-1973 said:
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit
Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.10 GHz)
17.3" HD+ WLED True-Life (1080p) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
3GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M Graphics Card - 3D Capable
Backlit UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB ( X 2 500GB )
8192MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM ( 2x4096 )
Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1000
8x DVD+/-RW
6-cell 56Whr Lithium Ion battery
Click to expand...

To be honest , i would stick with what you have got , that is a high spec and if you got a Inspiron 17 R SE you would not see that much extra performance , save ya money thats my view anyway
 
I agree, keep what you’ve got.

I’ve got a Studio 17 kicking about with a fairly mid range 5650M GPU and it can still run many games at very respectable settings. I use it at work when I’m on standby and not a lot happening to play games lol your 550M will be fine for a while yet..

If you had that type of laptop (Studio 1749 5650M) and wanted to upgrade to the 17R SE then it would be worthwhile as you would see a benefit.

However going from a XPS 17 with a 550M and two HDD bays, it’s not really going to gain you much.

I personally think Dell made a huge mistake dropping the 17 XPS, they should have just put the 650M in the XPS 17 but they didn’t, the dropped the whole line. I think the 17R is a step backwards IMO.

If I didn’t have my Samsung 700G and I wanted a new laptop to replace the Studio 1749, I’d not replace it with a 17R SE as only one HD bay is very limiting..
 
iv-tecman said:
If I didn’t have my Samsung 700G and I wanted a new laptop to replace the Studio 1749, I’d not replace it with a 17R SE as only one HD bay is very limiting..
Click to expand...

According to the sources I've read, the 17R SE (7720) does in fact come with two HDD bays, plus an MSATA slot. However, some of the people on the notebook review forum have had to contact Dell due to the fact that a drive caddy was not included in the second drive bay.

Having the ability to accommodate two hard disks was something I checked when purchasing this laptop, as I intend to add an SSD to it at some point.
 
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HaX said:
According to the sources I've read, the 17R SE (7720) does in fact come with two HDD bays, plus an MSATA slot. However, some of the people on the notebook review forum have had to contact Dell due to the fact that a drive caddy was not included in the second drive bay.

Having the ability to accommodate two hard disks was something I checked when purchasing this laptop, as I intend to add an SSD to it at some point.
Click to expand...

Actually, I do stand well corrected. The 17R SE can indeed take two HDD and a MSATA as well..

Why did I think you could only have one HDD? I must have read about some other Dell laptop..

The 17R SE is a nice looking laptop, it fact one of the best looknig laptops I've seen, the 650M is a good GPU for many games, even the CPU is good. But still don't see it being much of an upgrade from a XPS 17 - 17R SE. Maybe a Studio 17 - 17R SE would be a good idea, as the increase from i5 - 3rd gen i7 and 5650M - 650M you would see a big difference in performance..

Slap a SSD and 30GB MSATA and that would be a fairly quick laptop..
 
My 17R SE from the outlet arrived on Friday. I'm not really very impressed with it, coming from an XPS15. The keyboard in particular feels very flimsy and doesn't look that nice, being all black with no backlighting.
 
I have a XPS and it is a sturdy beast, been looking at the SE though, waiting for a backlit one to pop-up. Also got my eye on one of the Overclockers ones.
 
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TallGuy said:
I love the XPS 17 , not sure why they stopped making it
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No I don't either... The XPS 17 was a good laptop, on par with the excellent Studio 1749 - I had one of those for over two years. Very sturdy and good performing laptop... I still use my 1749 at work when i'm bored, still plays many games at decent settings..

The 17R SE is a nice looking laptop, but it doesn't look as good as the XPS 17, as I said, Dell should have just put the 650M in the XPS 17..

Cost cutting I guess, reason they dropped the XPS 17 line.

I'd have purchased a XPS 17 with a 650M without thinking about it.. :D
 
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