WTB Dell Studio 15, please review specs

This deal looks mint but I must be missing something, the specs for the £429 package seem to be much worse when I look it up on the Dell website.

Adding on the frills individually through their checkout system leaves you with a very expensive laptop indeed.

Do you need a voucher code or am I just being a total fool and looking in the wrong place?

Links please.......
 
Cheers for that!

No problem. Seems like a bargain price for the spec and the fact that its a Studio should mean pretty good build quality too. Maybe they are trying to shift them for the newer Core i3 and i5 possibly? Dunno, but for whatever the reason i can't complain at that price! :p
 
It's shipped!:D
but my road is covered in snow/ice atm...:(
However if its leaving from China as indicated it will stilll be a few days but way sooner than the 25th:)
I'll post some pics up when it arrives but I also gotta be revising:(
 
Nice! Hopefully mine will ship as quick as yours. Maybe these ones on offer are somewhat pre-built or something as 4 days is crazily quick!
 
Have any of you looked at the new 15" inspiron around £600 with the i5 processor and ddr3 ram?

I know it is a lot more money but it looks like it might be a slightly thinner and lighter notebook.
 
They look like they have adapted the design of the Studios (hinged design). A tad expensive tbh with the low end GPU. Think they need to update that or remove it completely and reduce the price since the i5 has an integrate GPU anyway (albeit just an Intel one).
 
dell used to have GPU options on their laptops, seems to be removed to simplify production
would be great if you knew what you wanted and could whack in a card that was more powerful but not necessarily a fully fledged gaming GPU like a 260m
 
'extra' as in additional to existing HD?
or replace the HD and put in a solid state...
thought only 17'' laptops from dell took two drives
 
Can anybody take a screenshots of their windows experience index score on these machines please?

Can you also confirm what the spec is (IE, just the base model at £430 otherwise, details on what modifications you selected during the checkout).

Thank you :).
 
This is what my receipt looks like for the base £429 offer (there is more, but its just info on the software and warranty etc):

Studio 1555 : Pentium Dual Core T4300(2.1GHz,800MHz,1MB)
Display : 15.6in Widescreen High Definition (1366X768) WLED with TrueLife
Palmrest : Silver Chainlink with Black Chainlink Cover only
Camera : Integrated 2.0 Mega Pixel Camera
LCD Back Cover : Black Chainlink
Ship Accessory : English Docs
Resource DVD : Studio 1555 Diagnostics and Drivers
Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel
Hard Drive 320GB SATA (5400rpm)
Optical Drive : 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software (Win 7 Only)
Power Supply : Inspiron 90W AC Adapter
Power Cord : UK 1M
Battery : Primary 6 cell 56W/HR LI-ION
Carry Case : Not Included
Graphics : 512 MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4570
Games : Wild Tangent Games Access Package
Wireless : Dell Wireless 1397 (802.11 b/g) Mini Card European
No Bluetooth Upgrade
Wireless Label - Pentium Dual Core
Keyboard : Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Operating System : English Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)

Ill get a picture up off the Windows Index score when it comes, or else im sure 3t3P could do it too since his is shipped.

@3t3P + Pants: Regards to the SSD thing, i meant that you could replace the hard drive supplied and fit an SSD drive. There isn't space for both.
 
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Score for the 17" version

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It may extend again. It did last week. Think they must be trying to clear them for the i5/i7 versions.

Mines still on "Work In Progress". Grrr :(
 
got mine yesterday:)
Had a play with it (batt came fully charged) then reinstalled windows 7 with a 100GB OS partition and 200GB left for storage purposes.

The chainlink finish is really nice IMO, considering its stock (didn't want to pay £30 for any of the colours) it looks really nice.

Build quality, its definately solid enough despite being plastic and its lighter than I thought it would be! dunno what muppets think this thing is 'heavy'

First off the screen is gorgeous to look at, in some ways better than my desktop PC, the white looks really pure and the brightness it can go up to is insane, I am running it at 1/4 in a dark room or just over 1/3 of max in a lit room. I tested it with The dark knight on DVD and wanted to watch the whole damn thing it looks really great for films/photos etc:)
Keyboard is functional enough and the backlighting is cool/useful

Battery life is proving excellent for both a laptop of this size and the non-neutered components it harbours 'under the hood' It really will do 3+ hrs of browsing

The laptop does however tend to get warm and the fan will come on even when just browsing or watching youtube. During gaming (mirrors edge) it really pumped out the air at the back.
I played on medium settings at native resolution and got a playable 22-23fps with x2AA, then I turned off anti aliasing and set textures and 'graphics' to high and got the same framerate, this is what I now play it on. Everynow and then the GPU seems to throttle and you get stuttering/chopiness but this seems to be at the start of the game when the fan hasn't fully responded to the increase in temps and thus the GPU overheats and throttles, once in the 'gaming session' it generally remains perfectly playable and looks awesome on this screen:)

The speakers aren't half bad, sure bass is lacking but once I deleted the stock 'IDT' drivers and allowed windows to install its own high definition audio driver the sound quality noticeably imporved, overall I am happy with the sound and could hear more subtleties to music I played on it than I expected

Desktop is fast enough and the trackpad actually has a nice feel to it, was worried about he 'slightly rough' texture comments i'd read in reviews but its very mild just a bit more than being completely smooth and so far is reponding very nicely.

Slot loading drive works fine, you have to push the disc in very far till it just about disappears (unlike car versions) but is otherwise functional if a little slow at initial disc reading/autorunning on desktop.

Wifi I had a problem at first and had to enter IPV4 addresses manually (from run:cmd then ipconfig /all) into the wireless card settings then I could connect to the internet and acheived 1150kb/s sustained download rate of itunes:)

In conclusion for the money I paid I am pleased with both form and function.
Yes it does get warm and I am considering buying a cooler for desktop use.

Would I buy it again compared to other notebooks i've seen?
Yes
 
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