Got some questions, possible new owner, long post

Hey yall, I am pretty interested in the 11x laptop. I currently have a mac book pro early 2008 2.4 c2d, 4 gig ddr2, 8600m gt 256mb(i think its this not 512), 1440x900 screen that I had to purchase for school (don't ask, I wasn't pleased). Long story short it has been an absolutely horribly unreliable laptop and coupled with the fact that I really do prefer windows (boot camp is not perfect even after all these years!) I am almost at my breaking point. That laptop has already had over $1500 in repairs (our school has a 4 year applecare plan) and may be getting a new mobo this week (this morning it would not boot to bios). Of course the last time I had it in the depot was voiding parts of the warranty because of dents and what not. So yeah...

Anyways, I was originally looking at the XPS 1645 the last time my mac the bed about a month or two ago. But the heat throttling issues were concerning me. Recently the release of the new XPS 15 got me pretty excited. I did find it shocking no pc manufacturer made 'quality' laptops for a bit more than the el cheapo inspiron types for us heavy users. The new xps 15 looks pretty nice and with the i5-460, 1 gig optimus 420 card seems, 1080p screen is running around 1050 or so.

However, I kind of stumbled on the 11x in the refurbished guise and currently there is a 20% off coupon through sunday. It piqued my interest even though I was originally looking for a 15" lappy like my MBP or the xps15. I thought about it and though I watch tons of movies on my laptop...I also carry it with me everyday. And i cant remember the last time i used the cd drive besides OS installs.

So here are my questions:
1. Is the 11" screen really that much smaller? How does it affect movie watching and what not? I see the resolution is 1366x720...im actually posting on an old inspiron 1501 with 1280x800 on a 15.4" screen and its not really much worse than my 1440x900 15.6" MBP.

2. screen quality. Is it a good LED? I need something at least as good as my old macbook. the xps 15 1080p screen is supposed to be brilliant.

3. I am reading there are two main issues with the 11x. Hinge issues - it doesnt catastrophically affect functioning correct? I will be purchasing a complete care warranty if I get an 11x from the refurbished outlet.
Optimus issue - that seems to just be with multiplayer on certain games?

4. Currently all I am playing is Civ 5. On my macbookpro the game works ok at 1280xwhatever and med-high settings until about 50 turns when it has issues. At all very low settings the game is fast until later turns...then i have big problems. Every hour or so crash, huge artifacts on the screen, i have to play in 2d mode when lots of units on the screen etc. Pretty disappointed, thought the 8600mgt would be a little bit better.
How is the 335 compared to this? I should be fine at native res right? civ 5 isnt that intense I would think. The 420 in the xps 15 is equivalent to the 335 from what I have read.

5. I havent done any research regarding the i5 or c2d um processors. (I will probably look at a m11x r2) Are these um processors really much slower than a regular i5? What about the i5 um on the r2 compared to my current c2d? big difference I assume? Will this um i5 run civ 5 fine?

6. What is the average battery life you guys are seeing. no need for specifics but lets just say average web surfing, music, no gaming, and low backlight?

7. If I get a refurb with a 250gb hdd, I should be able to easily upgrade that myself correct? WHat are the implications if I have to have an onsite repair on something. Does that matter?

8. What do you guys do for reformats of the os since there is no cd drive?

Thanks for the help, I find out sunday if apple will be covering my repairs...and even then I'm so sick of that laptop I may just pull the trigger on an m11x.

 

Wow. That's some pretty awful luck with your MBP. I've had my m11x for 3 months and I am very happy with it. So, to answer your questions:

1. I don't think that the small size is much of an issue as far as movies go. It feels a little small to me browsing the internet on occasion, but that's about it (granted, I'm used to 1080p). The resolution is actually 1366x768.
2. I think that the screen is decent, but nothing special. Games, etc. look very good. Next to my external monitor (an Acer), it can't compete though.
3. The hinge issue in a nutshell: a very serious issue affecting a very small proportion of owners. Most likely, you will be fine. If you are under warranty, you will be fine.
Correct, Optimus is only still causing problems for multiplayer games that use Punkbuster and that is supposed to be fixed very soon.
4. I can't really answer you, since I don't play Civ 5, but SC2 and DOWII run fine for me. The 335 is more or less equivalent to the 420.
5. The ULVs are slower than their regular counterparts, but that doesn't mean they're slow. With overclocking and Throttlestop, they run quickly. I have an i7, so I can't give you a good answer about the i5, but the different processors have been debated in many threads.
6. No gaming, I seem to get an average 4:30 on a full charge, granted that could be higher if I didn't OC. i5 or c2d will naturally have longer times.
7. The hdd is very easy to replace if you know what you're doing. I think I had mine replaced in under 15 minutes. As far as I have been led to believe by other posts, a swapped hdd will have no implications on repairs provided it had no part in causing the problem.
8. The Alienrespawn backup thingy lets you make recovery media on a usb drive that can be used to reinstall windows if you don't want to buy an external usb drive.

Bottom line: if the m11x fits your wants and you don't mind not having the most powerful laptop out there, the m11x is a great choice.

 

Screen: Size and quality is fine. Not brilliant, but fine. You get used to the size. Gloss and viewing angle is a bit like an owl trying to judge distance with head movements, but once you've got it, you're right. Or you can just tilt the screen and angle the notebook.
On a good day I have my M11xR1 hooked up to two 24" IPS monitors via DisplayPort and HDMI.

Hinges: Yes, it's a design issue. My hinges are OK after 8 months. I also won a car in a supermarket give-away a week ago... how's your luck?

Optimus: Not a problem going forward.

GPU: The GT335M will out preform the 8600M GT. The 8600M GT SLI is another beast altogether.

CPU: i7 is your best bet but the C2D SU7300 is fine for most tasks. 54sec 32M wPrime for SU7300.
SU7300 gives you winXP emulation, SU4100 doesn't.

Battery: 4-6 hours depending on usage (C2D SU7300)

HDD: 250GB is fine. Upgrades are a walk in the park. Dell does have a partition on the original disk.

 

Thanks for the replies

seeing on paper 8600mgt is better than the 335m is surprising...i mean dell's higher end laptops 15" are coming with the 420 and thats supposed to be equal to the 335...i am not particularly pleased with the 8600mgt in the mbp. perhaps the increase in vid card memory makes a big difference?

Another question: the r1 seems just as good as the r2 with the i5 for my needs. however i am seeing that the r2 will have better long term support and honestly the cost difference is pretty reasonable on the outlet at least. I plan on keeping this laptop as my main unit for 3-4 years, whats a better option? (yes i know i wont be playing new games 2-3 years from now in med-high settings then lol)

and a car? thats awesome what did you get? i had a college roomie win a free 3 year lease for a volvo. he also won a heiniken mini fridge - which i thought was much cooler and much more useful back then haha

 

1. I came from an m15x, and I can honestly say at first it looks dinky compared to a 15" notebook screen, but you get used to it, after a couple days I didn't think about it at all, I'll be adding an external monitor pretty soon for a larger screen at home and I have portability on the go.

2. Screen quality is good for the size, I have never personally used a macbook other than sitting on the shelf at BB so I can't make a direct comparison for you. Now I've used screens that would blow away the m11x's screen but unless you're comparing it to a 1080/1200p screen like a TruLife or RGBLED it's still very good(especially considering the size).

3. On the hinge issue, yes it's a problem, it's a little like playing russian roulette sometimes you're gonna lose and get horrible hinges most people however have been just fine. I've personally had 2 m11x's now 1-R1 and now the R2 and never had a single problem with the hinges, my best word of advice to you to prevent them is to close the screen from the center or both hands on the outer edges and don't treat it roughly and you should be good. On the Optimus the only issue I've ever had is needing a workaround for FO:NV due to a looping launcher but it still works

4. You should be fine on just about any game out there right now, now it may take some modding/tweaking and you probably won't be running anything very intensive on Ultra/Max but it will run pretty much any game on the market at the very least on Medium with native res. Everything I have played so far will run at the same settings or maybe one notch below the m15x I had and it was a total beast(see the benchmarks and specs in my sig).

5. I can't say much about the i5 as mine is the i7-640um but I can tell you the i5 isn't far off of the i7 in these, my i7 runs VERY close to as quickly as my i5-540m in my m15x did in rendering and synthetic benchmarks like wprime. You should be fine for anything that is not ridiculously cpu intensive, and if gaming is your main goal most games are gpu not cpu heavy.

6. I have been getting about 4.5-6 hours with no gaming involved, it has awesome battery life, there are also ways you can increase that life even further if necessary.

7. On the hdd the best way I can put it is if you can replace ram you can do the hard drive, if you can't replace ram you should NEVER open the computer. As far as onsite repair goes, as long as you didn't do anything to damage it they don't care. Any parts you add after the purchase will not be covered under warranty though.

8. As far as reformats go you have a few options: 1-download a copy of your particular OS from digitalriver(they offer legal download links, shoot me a pm if you need a link to a LEGAL one) stick it on a flash drive set as bootable and active and install, 2-use an external disc drive to install using the included restore disc, 3-copy the hard drive using an image backup software, then use it to reinstall the image(factory instal) to the drive. There is a 4th method but I'm pretty sure it's not technically legal so I won't go there in the public forums.

 

Honestly if you want a chance at long term usability you're gonna need to go with the i7 model(if you really want 2-3 years out of it). When the R2 was first released there really wasn't any difference in performance between the SU7300 and i5(not enough to make it worth it at least), but now that the throttle stop TDP/TDC settings can be changed it makes the i5/i7 a completely different machine, my cpu shows that it runs about 50% faster in everything I could test with throttlestop enabled. If you want to go the i5 route go right ahead but it may not last as long when it comes to the cpu power being enough for a few years.

 

Doh!

Was looking at the 8600M GT SLI which has 1GB of memory and quite a beast.
The also ran 8600M GT 512MB is a lot lower spec'd and wouldn't stand up against the GT 335M

With Optimus and i-Core processor you will have a cleaner upgrade path.

With C2D and hybrid GPU drivers there is not the same smooth path going forward.

Mind you any GPU driver 'twigs' may not reflect any improvements for a given game/task in the short term and in the long term there may be the odd hybrid driver update from an enthusiast that keeps the M11xR1 relevant.

Suzuki Swift from NewWorld supermarket in NZ. Gave it to my mother as my Nissan 350Z has a bigger battery for keeping my M11x powered.

 

i think the i7 might be cost prohibitive for me right now but i will look into it. I mean I have the means to purchase it but would like to score a deal You guys don't want to know how much we had to pay for our MBP when we got them. Think $3500+. included a garbage 4 year applecare warranty and some loaner laptops.

With throttlestop and i5 it should improve the performance of that correct? Is that something that could affect the warranty - please excuse my ignorance I haven't done much 'oc-ing' since the p4 2.4c days.

When my mbp wasn't acting up I seemed to still be ok with the processor speed. All the applications I used it for seemed to open and function well...with the exception of civ 5. And firefox/flash since there are issues on both ends with power hungry firefox and apple and flash having never got along. I would guess the gpu will limit me more in the future than the processor. Most demanding apps i use is occasionally 1080p video. Vary rarely joining vid files. Never encoding stuff, pshop, rendering etc.

 

Look at this thread to get an idea of what to expect from Throttlestop. It's not the same as OCing. Essentially, it won't void your warranty, but support probably won't help you with any direct problems TS causes. OCing on the other hand is an advertised capability of the laptop, so that will not affect your warranty at all. Results just aren't guaranteed.