Dx30's With NVIDIA Graphics: Did Anyone's Ship Yet?

Oh and, I have next day shipping, but the est. arrival date is 7/4?

Dell is confused.

 

The carrier ships on july 4th? its not considered a no work holiday or something?

 

Y'think?

...

 

I ordered mine on 6/13 and it arrived 3 days ago. It was configed with the nvidia 128 card and just standard shipping. Est ship date was suppose to be 7/22 so it worked out pretty well for me

 

...i'm still waiting for mine to ship...

wonder whats taking so long.

do any of you have the 256mb card?

I think that could be the difference.

 

finally!
mine shipped today. Estimated to come 7/5/2007-7/9/2007

 

Its about time! Finally mine shipped today 7/5. No tracking data yet, but if it ships from Tennessee should be about 2 days till it reaches Central Florida. Woo!

 

I ordered mine the day the new Santa Rosa's were given dedicated graphics, and it arrived in New York on the 26th. MY cousin just arrived home (Philippines, where I am now) yesterday, so I just got my unit today.

I ordered a D830, T7500 (2.2GHz) with 2GB RAM and the NVS140m. 1620GB HDD and WUXGA Screen. Vista Ultimate and lord knows what other doodads and accessories I got.

I've only had it in front of me and on for ten hours and I already have quite a few issues with it.

The screen is LOVELY, though.

 

Might you enlighten us on these "issues"?

 

I'll try to post a full review after the weekend, but here goes:

1. The most glaring issue is the graphics card driver. There were some comments in another thread that the flip 3D wasn't silky smooth on the NVS135 (on a D630, I believe). I'm getting almost the same thing here. There were very small glitches and millisecond-long delays and stutters in the flipping between windows. Almost inconsequential, really, if not for the high-end specs I paid for... and the fact that it's factory-fresh - I requested zero bloatware be installed.

2. Another issue, I think, with the graphics drivers. There are a few occasions where everything just freezes for a full half minute or so. At the time, all I was doig was surfing notebookereview.com and a few other sites. This glitch would also happen when the screensaver would come on, though the effect is not consistent.

3. Dreamscene demo. It's a cute Ultimate Extra, but with the drivers problem, I frequently get a frozen backdrop, garbled, and sometimes it altogether resets. Annoying. VERY annoying.

NOTE: I spoke to a Dell SB CSR about it and he pointed me to an "updated" driver for the video card. I've since downloaded and installed it, to no effect.

4. The LCD Stretch feature (Fn + F7) doesn't always work and it crashes the video driver AGAIN. It's hit or miss whether it crashes back to the desktop or if it reboots from the POST.

5. TPM. I couldn't understand why it was so finicky to set up. I activated the TPM chip in the BIOS, then I reboot and activated the security features in the BIOS. However, when I boot to my administrator account, I kept getting the error message that the TPM chip was not yet activated! The funny thing here is, while I was working within my limited user account, I opened the Embassy software to check on something... and there it was, TPM activated and all. When I finished setting it up on the limited user account, I switched to the administrator account and the TPM was ready to be set up as well. Strange, inexplicable glitch. And to think, when I explained the problem to the Dell tech, all he did was point me to an updated driver.

6. The screen is beautiful, although I would have wanted it a bit brighter (is 250-300 nits too much to ask?). I'm trying to find a Spyder or something to callibrate the screen so I can judge it fairly, but in the meantime color reproductions are pretty good. There is, however, quite a bit of light leakage at the bottom (about 1.5" thick) and on the top and sides (1/4" -1/2" thick) but unless your screen is black you won't really be able to tell.

7. One thing that has annoyed me the most about the Latitude series is the generally uneven levelling of the keyboards. I mean this in a broad sense, but whenever I look at the profiles or at the laptop from the level of the front bezel (the latch catch) I see tiny hills and valleys in the contour of the keyboard. Maybe it's just me, but I swear, it's like there's something swelling and bulging beneath the W-E-R/S-D-F cluster of keys. Thankfully, it's slightly less pronounced in my unit. But it's still there.

That's all that immediately comes to mind... it's quarter past seven and I haven't slept yet... playing with my new toy. As for heat issues, I can safely say the laptop disperses heat fairly well. I can leave it plugged in for hours on end, or leave it on my lap without severe discomfort from the heat. It doesn't run as cool as my previous laptop, but at least it's not as hot as I'd feared (what with the processor speed and the graphics card.)

Hopefully, these can all be worked out by the time I or someone else puts out a review (updated drivers, maybe?).

Oh, and: Oops, I meant to say I had a 120GB hard drive... and not 1,620GB.