WTB Dell Studio 15, please review specs

[DavidQ]

It was £845 without the passport HDD mate.

 

[dimo]

Check this out:

Intel® Core™ i7-720QM 1.6 - 2.8Ghz
4gb of Ram
1gb ati hd 5470
1080p HD screen
backlit keyboard
320gb hdd

Total price £760 after 5% discount and £20 shipping, laptop price thus £740.

Yay or nay?

 

[dimo]

yay it was. bought it, need it, cba to wait. its cheap though, no?

 

[matthew_o50]

Received my Studio 15 today. Did a fresh install of windows 7 and it's running much faster. A few questions though.

Does all the studio's have the touch panel at the top just above the keyboard? I've seen this on various sites but nothing happens with mine!

Windows is showing an unknown device and I can't find out what it might be, anyone got any ideas?

Thanks

Matt

 

[3t3P]

Lol I did the same thing and was pressing on the glossy plastic trying to find touch sensitive buttons before I realised they were the function keys. The touch sensitives never worked very well and were buggy so Dell removed them.

If you did a fresh install and there is a yellow symbol in hardware manager, on me and I think someone else earlier in the thread it was missing intel chipset drivers. Have a look on the dell support/downloads page there should be a driver that doesn't sound too far off that. Good luck

 

[Markachy]

Sorry to rise this up from the depths, but is kinda relevent.

Anyone else with the Studio 1555 have really really good battery life? I just got the standard 6-cell battery, not the sticky-out one, and I honestly get 3 and a half hours from it constantly surfing the net with multiple tabs, brightness on 3 bars, streaming live TV, sometimes with WMP on.

I am gobsmacked its so good. Expected 2 hours max doing that. I got the Core 2 Duo put in mine rather than the Pentium that most people on here got (this is pre-i3/5 models).

So I'm wondering how you guys get on with battery life? Interested to see if processor makes a big difference

 

[matthew_o50]

I seem to get just under 4 hours out of my studio 15 and that's with a mixture of usage e.g. music, internet browsing using the wifi and just word processing. Mine is the i3 processor by the way.

 

[RJC]

That's good, I had the Sony F series which I sent back last week only lasted about 1.5hr and that used the i3m cpu.
Again only web surfing at the time.

 

[Markachy]

Thats cool, so I'm right to be impressed by it! I was very surprised at how long the battery lasted, almost makes me wish I got the 9-cell battery which would probably give 5-hours-ish, damn good for a fully featured laptop.

All I need now is a Banksy wrappz cover and I have a laptop half the price of a macbook, almost as fast and better looking!

 

[Wossi]

Quick question for those that have the backlit keyboard, I'll be ordering a Dell soon and wondered if the backlit keyboard makes much of a difference for the price involved?

 

[Robert]

Looking at getting:

Catalog Number: 202 N00X6702
Module Description Show Details
Base Intel® Core™ i5 Processor 540M(2.53GHz,3MB cache)
Microsoft Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Memory 4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
Keyboard Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Video Card 1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4670 graphics card
Hard Drive 128GB Solid State SATA Drive
Optical Devices DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD) with Roxio Easy CD and DVD Burn software
Wireless Networking Dell Wireless 1520 (802.11n) Half Mini Card
Cables 1 Meter Power Cord (3 Wire) - UK
Shipping Documents English - Documentation Studio XPS 16
Gedis Bundle Reference N04X6702
Standard Warranty 1 year of coverage included with your PC
Enhanced Service Packs 2 years Collect & Return + Accidental Damage
Bluetooth Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module
Order Information Studio XPS 1647 Order - UK
Primary Battery 9-cell 85Whr Lithium Ion battery
Carrying Cases No Carry Case
Dell System Media Kit Studio XPS 1647 Resource DVD (Diagnostic & Drivers)
Camera Integrated Camera with Facial Recognition Software
Accidental Damage Support Accidental Damage already selected in your Service Plan
Online Backup No DataSafe Online Backup 2GB (Direct)
Theft Protection Solution Computrace LoJack for Laptops, 1yr license - included with your PC
TV Tuner and Remote Control No Integrated TV tuner
LCD Red Leather back cover : 15.6" (inch) Truelife 1080p Full HD WLED Edge to Edge Display
DataSafe Datasafe Local 2.0 Basic
Microsoft Application Software Microsoft® Works 9.0 / English - (Does not include Microsoft® Word)
Protect your new PC McAfee® Security Centre - 15 Month Protection - English
Power Supply 90W AC Adaptor

This comes to 1100 - was going to go for the buy now pay next april option.

Any pointers? Don't want anything larger as I want something with an element of portability.

 

[3t3P]

Wossi I say go for the backlit keyboard, it looks good and can actually be useful, obv when its dark! hard to imagine mine without

Nice spec Robert and a 4670 1GB sounds nice, how much is that gonna set you back? Oh just saw £1100 lol
Should last forever with 9 cell and have better ergonomics AND cooling when sat at a desk
Mind you I discharge my batt to around 40% then take it out when I know its gonna be sat plugged in for a while, just gives the batt a nice rest away from hot stuff

 

[Robert]

Well it's ordered.

Estimated delivery is 5th May though

Presuming it's a combination of custom build and volcano problems.

I couldn't select a BD drive...wonder why?

 

[Wossi]

Wossi I say go for the backlit keyboard, it looks good and can actually be useful, obv when its dark! hard to imagine mine without

Nice spec Robert and a 4670 1GB sounds nice, how much is that gonna set you back? Oh just saw £1100 lol
Should last forever with 9 cell and have better ergonomics AND cooling when sat at a desk
Mind you I discharge my batt to around 40% then take it out when I know its gonna be sat plugged in for a while, just gives the batt a nice rest away from hot stuff

Backlit keyboard it is then.

One more question though, the spec I am looking at mentions a graphics card but it says ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 545v, I've never heard of it before and have no idea what it's like.

 

[dimo]

i got a pretty good spec version of the studio 15. Mine wil lgo for around 3.5hrs if I try and make it last. 3hours it'll easily manage. It's plugged in most of the time anyway so it doesn't matter.

Wossi - I have the 5470 1GB card. I don't game so I can't shed any light in that department, but otherwise for your day to day tasks its very good. Handles HD very well as expected. Do make sure you go for the 1080p screen, I htink it makes this laptop worth every penny.

 

[dimo]

Wossi I say go for the backlit keyboard, it looks good and can actually be useful, obv when its dark! hard to imagine mine without

Nice spec Robert and a 4670 1GB sounds nice, how much is that gonna set you back? Oh just saw £1100 lol
Should last forever with 9 cell and have better ergonomics AND cooling when sat at a desk
Mind you I discharge my batt to around 40% then take it out when I know its gonna be sat plugged in for a while, just gives the batt a nice rest away from hot stuff

Just picked up on what you said here. I leave my laptop plugged in pretty much all the time. I've only used it out of the charger once since I got it (about a month ago). Would you recommend removing the battery? Does it make that much of a difference?

Thanks

 

[3t3P]

batteries don't like being warm or stored at 100% charge rates.
I figure if I can increase its longevity a bit for free, easily, then it's worth it.
However most users don't do this and will enjoy about three yrs use at best before degredation shows up, your call really....

 

[Wossi]

Bit the bullet and ordered a 15" Studio this morning with the backlit keyboard, went for the core i3 with the 3GB of ram as the extra money for the ram isn't really worth it. No idea when it will turn up though, hoping for next week when I'm not at work

 

[dimo]

What was the final price?

 

[Wossi]

£558 include delivery. It dropped about £30 from the other day when I was first looking at it.