[NEWS] Studio XPS 15 and XPS 17 !!

Hey guys I have a question about this laptop, I am considering purchasing this to do development work, ASP.net websites and other forms or programming and I also do some graphics on Illustrator and Adobe, not anything too fancy or any 3D rendering etc.

I was thinking of going with the i5 CPU for Optimus and an extended battery life.
For my uses can you tell me if its worth the upgrade to move from the i5 460M to the i5 560M or will it not really be any noticeable difference? Also I am interested in the 1080p screen because I have many windows open when working and I think the more screen real estate the better for me.

Any advice on what upgrades maybe I should look at and what I shouldn't bother with?

 

Well dell have contacted me only 1 day after requesting a replacement, with an offer for an XPS 15 which I am negotiating on now to get a FHD screen which I currenly have on my SXPS 16. Have to admit I'm very impressed with the service Dell has provided me with - I've nothing to complain about here - other than my beautiful, yet rubbish Studio XPS 16!

 

I'm negotiating a replacement as well. Called them up yesterday with concerns about heating issues after the tech opened up my computer to replace the display. Instead of reseating the god dang heatsink, they replaced the entire freaking motherboard. it happened the very next day, while I was at work.

While I have no problem with ridiculously fast followups, I do have a problem with faulty refurbished motherboards I did not ask for! The entire left side ports of my system do not work, and the laptop thinks that it has a device plugged into every audio jack, so it refuses to play sound through the speakers!

On the other hand, it's running cooler than it ever has LOL

 

Gloomy; Unlike many on these boards, my replacement is due to 3-4 motherbaord replacements (cant remember!), 2 screen replacements, USB problems, and now sound and keyboard problems. I haven't gone looking for issues such as throttling and my lappy runs hot, quite hot sometimes but these are not my complants! - those I would happily live with..

I agree with faulty part replacements, though I believe my problems are due to a problem with the actual parts in general (not fixable with replacement parts) even the technician who repaired my lappy every time said that new parts aren't going to fix the problems I'm experiencing (quite unique problems/bugs to do with bios). Anyway I'm happy they are doing what they should...

 

I've found that this system is extremely volatile. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. My very first SXPS 1645 ran extremely hot for no reason. I sent that one back and and it was replaced with this one, and it was like night and day. I would never notice it was on unless I heard the fan-- everything on this computer is cool to the touch, save for a slight area around the power button. For the life of me I can't find a reason for such a discrepancy. And then I had the display replaced and it started to backslide...?

It's actually pretty amazing.

 

Gloomy;

I think for the vast majority, this is a fantastic system they love, overall in the big scheme of things, there are alot of people out there that either put up with small problems, or aren't even aware of problems due to their lack of tech knowledge! Anyway I look forward to my new XPS 15 - and hope your replacement is as problem free as I hope mine is

 

Gloomy are you suggesting Dell warranty is cheap? I may not have understood your statement completely. If it is, lucky for you. In my country, the laptop is slightly more expensive than the US version, but the warranty is quite steep.

 

nope, you are not alone! I always look for good speakers in a laptop as I am always listening to music whilst working on it. I have a decent set of externals at home but they are to big to lug everywhere.

I was really impressed with the speakers on the studio 1749 and I only returned it because the screen was so poor and I couldnt get a 1080p.

I then bought Envy's and the speakers are ok, not a patch on the studio 17 or my previous sxps 1640 (which I sold due to throttling and heat issue).

If this 15 with 1080p screen doesnt throttle or get too hot and the speakers, screen and keyboard are good it could be my perfect laptop

 

I would upgrade the processor and the screen. You will never regret getting a faster processor or the extra screen real estate of the 1080p screen. If you are dealing with multiple open windows side by side, you would find the 720p screen very restrictive. Good luck with your purchase.

 

Do you like your Envy 14 compared to your earlier Dells ? Any particular reason for ordering a new Dell XPS 15?

 

The Envy 14 is amazing. Great battery, amazing screen, good gfx, great look and feel and backlit keyboard.
It is hands down better than any dell I have owned, I will list them and reasons in a sec.

The reason I bought an XPS 15 is the offer on Dell UK yesterday, it was £500 for an amazing spec whereas my Envy 14 was £900 for a lesser spec. I may not keep it if it has the usual Dell heat or throttling issues. But as it was so cheap I can easily sell it for a profit.

Dell I have owned:
Dell 9400 - a brilliant laptop, served me well for 2 yrs, only sold to update
Dell XPS 1530 - again a great laptop, served me well for 1 years, friend is still using it
Studio 1555 - Terrible! Throttling issues and poor construction. Scorching touchpad that forced me to use a mouse
Sxps 1640 - Terrible. Throttling issues, More external heat than I have felt on any laptop, I couldnt play FPS as it got so hot around the WASD keys and palm rest. Even idle the whole metal bottom got uncomfortable.
Studio 1749 - no throttling or heat but the 900p screen was so bad it had to go back
m11x R1 - lovely little laptop, screen only average and sold it to a friend as I needed a little more cpu power.
m11x R2 - optimus issues which are still ongoing (you still cant play online PB games such as BFBC2 MOH etc) and ran very hot.
m15x - fantastic machine but a little heavy and big. Sold it to get my Envy as I wanted more portability

 

Thanks kgh00007, should I go all the way up to an i7 or stick with the i5 range?

 

In conclusion, although a lot of people do not need i7 quad's power or heat, Dell has oddly decided to make i5s Super Expensive and i7 quads much cheaper. This is, again, nothing new, they've been doing these dirty tricks for ages with Studio and Studio XPS.

So, if you want the GT 435M 2GB right now, and you want an i7 quad, go for the relatively cheaper i7 version.

 

Dirty tricks? Yeah it's horrible when you have to pay so little for things. Dell is such a drag

 

Stay with the i5 for Optimus support if you want to get the most out of your battery, the current i7 quads don't support optimus as they dont have integrated Intel HD Graphics.

The i7-620M and i7-640M do support optimus as they have the integrated Intel HD Graphics, but they don't seem to be an option at the moment.

The i5-560M will provide plenty of power for you, that's what I would go for. Good luck!

 

Thanks for the advice.

 

Agreed.

blah - to satisfy the message length police

 

Yah, i've been looking for a laptop with good sound for a while, the lenovo ideapad was really good when i heard it in person, but i'm hoping the xps 15 will be even better!! plus of course, the sweet screen and backlit keyboard that the ideapad didn't have...

 

Why do you get a new laptop every six months? If your hardware needs are so demanding, you should just get a desktop PC with a big- video card.

 

Maybe he does because he can.

From reading stuff on this forum I notice a lot of people frequently change their laptops - returning them, selling them, keeping them, giving them away, and buying the "next best thing".

But for some of us, when something suffices, that is enough. I hate that when I buy a new laptop, it is even slower and has far more issues than my old one - but then I don't get as many choices as some of you do when I buy. Geographical restrictions are a pain in the .

 

lol because I am never satisfied and I enjoy trying new hardware.

The best thing about dell is, if I dont like it I can send it back. And in my quest for the perfect laptop I have sent back quite a few.

For me the Envy is neigh on perfect. Give it decent speakers and I would be over the moon

And I also have a decent water cooled desktop for demanding stuff (encoding/gaming). The problem being, I am often away from home or unable to sit in my study, so having a decent laptopop is a must

 

Big question here,

Does anybody know if the GT 445M offered in the XPS 17 is GDDR3 or GDDR5?

They just started selling the XPS 17 in Spain and I can get it for 950€ shipping included.

 

I'm pretty sure people on this thread have said DDR3, though I wouldn't 100% swear to it.

 

I spoke with the dutch tech support. and he said it was DDR3. Dunno if he ment GDDR3 or really ddr3.

But I expect the card to be a little bit slower then the 5830.

I did order the XPS 17 though. they gave 250 euro discount. costed 1000 euro with 3 year warenty

I bought this system:

I7 740QM
4 GB RAM (will upgrade it myself. 200 euro for an upgrade too 6 GB... no thnx)
500 GB HDD
445M 3GB
17.3 inch 1600x900.

Will probably get it in about 2 weeks.

 

According to the Nvidia website, it's either GDDR5 or plain regular DDR3. If it was GDDR5 they would tell you. You can always run GPU-Z after you get it in to check for sure, but it's probably regular DDR3.

GeForce GT 445M

 

If it´s DDR3 then I don´t know if it´s better than my current HD5650. Notebook check says it is a High-End card, but I guess they are talking about the GDDR5 one.

 

If it's GDDR5 they would say - so no it's not.

 

does anyone find it frustrating that the XPS 17 weighs MORE than my six year old 17" Dell laptop? Shouldn't things be getting thinner and lighter?

 

No, they shouldn't really. Nothing's changed with power requirements. Could be worse even, as they can be on the desktop.

 

Precisely. Why is everyone fussing over die size (45nm, 32nm), this is just nanometres you can hardly tell the difference.

Some middle range, powerful Core 2 Duo dual core processors were 25W TDP. Now the Core i5s are 35W TDP (not talking about the low wattage ULV ones of course)?! And Sandy Bridge will also be 35W or 45W TDP.

 

Yeah, my only issue is I have a DV9700 and it had the same type of keys. Problem is the keys end up worn down and shiney after a few months of heavy use. That, and typing on the chiclet keyboards is actually a lot easier.

But yes it did not stop me from ordering the notebook. It may stop me from keeping it though, will have to see.

 

You won't notice it, you'll get a bigger bang for your buck by going with 8 gigs of ram and having a dedicated external drive (for photoshop)

 

Thanks man, I forgot to mention I am a heavy multitasker, I usually have a couple of chrome tabs approx 25 open for research, visual studio 2010, adobe illustrator and photoshop open at the same time as Tend to use them all when developing webpages. Also I have background streaming music. I am currently working on an Athlon X2 Desktop 2.3 GHZ (4400+) / 4GBS RAM / 8600 GTS video Card, and it seems like its ready to finally give out and freezes during my multitasking sessions.

The i5 should breeze through this stuff right? Also out of curiosity, why an external hard drive for photo shop? I always thought the internal drives would be faster.

 

It's significantly better than a 5650. It can blow the doors off a 5850.

 

Ram ram ram, 8 gigs is what you want. You don't want to have to use the swap file any more than you have to.

Photoshop has the ability to use 1 hard drive for certain tasks while also using another hard drive for other tasks, thus speeding the whole process up... Pulling data off one drive into ram, doing the calculations/rendering, and writing to the second drive... You can get an enclosure with an eSata port relatively cheap and throw in a barebones hard drive and you'll have the speeds you need because you won't be limited by USB 2.0. For more money you can get an external drive with USB 3.0 ports to accomplish the same thing.

The Dell XPS 15 has both USB 3.0 and an eSata port. And just FYI, I do a lot of the same work you do on my HDX18t, it has 2 internal drive bays, both with 500 gig hd's, an eSata port for external drives that I use all the time, but the absolute necessity has been the 8 gigabytes of ram in this notebook.

Of course there is always SSD, but it's too expensive for what you get (still). But the prices are coming down. Another year or two and they should drop through the floor and we can all have 7 second boot times from pressing the power button to sitting at the Windows 7 desktop. hehe

 

Whoah! That´s quite a statement. I guess you mean the DDR3 5850 right?

 

Thanks again for the advice..I really appreciate it. I will probably invest in an SSD later on, but right now I will use a normal HDD and look at increasing the RAM

 

Hey everyone! What about the material around the screen? Is it glossy black plastic or what?

 

I was slightly mistaken; the XPS 17 benchmarks comparably to the Envy 17, according to the review posted a few pages back. The Nvidia card has a lot more shader cores, and future software or drivers may get even better utilization out of the card.

The memory speed only matters if its a bottleneck for the GPU. I don't know what that means, exactly. Maybe having more VRAM makes up for not having faster VRAM. It seems kind of a waste to release new hardware if, indeed, memory speed caps performance.

 

I read somewhere about the USB 3.0 being external and not native (yeah, thanks Intel), and because of that it'll be slower?

Also somebody complained no dedicated USB 2.0 on XPS 15 (while there is on XPS 17) which makes USB 2.0 through USB 3.0 slower?

Does XPS 17 have some sort of touch screen?

 

The review here: Dell XPS 14 (Core i5 460M Processor 2.53GHz, 4GB RAM) Review - Notebooks - CNET Asia from Cnet claims the speakers' sound is great, and suggests that Apple's laptops have great sound. The sound on a Macbook is barely audible, it is so soft that it's as loud as the sound of "a mouse's fart". If that's what the Cnet guy thinks, then XPS sound should not be good unfortunately.

 

It has a usb2/esata drive as well as the USB3.
Although the port can also be used for esata and power over esata, it is still a dedicated native USB2 port

 

Dell's recent laptops have all had decent sound. It varied from one to the other (with the Studio 17 being oddly better than SXPS 16) but in general it showed that Dell paid some attention to it. In my opinion, it's weird that they would have good sound when they didn't advertise it, and then use crappy speakers when they finally point it out...

I'm not holding my breath for the 14 incher, but the 15 and 17 should be great at least.

 

"it is still a dedicated native USB2 port" OK I see I was not aware of this.

But it's just that the CNET review, while too brief, still pointed out that the speakers were very good, and implied they were comparable to Apple's ones, which were superior to most, which surely isn't true for Apple Macbooks.

In general I have never found any laptop's sound to be adequate. But the Macbooks have got to be the worse of the lot. XPS being a multimedia laptop should hopefully come with good speakers.

 

when you mention macbook, do you also mean macbook pro? The macbook pro 15 has reasonable speakers, admittedly they dont get that loud but the sound quality is quite good with a hint of bass. Unlike the majority of tinny speakers on notebooks out there. The sxps 16 has decent speakers too as does the studio 1745/7/9.

I am holding out hope that the xps 15 and 17 speakers with alleged 12w sub will be even better

 

Not sure where the 12 watt figure came from for the sub, but here's the spec taken from the XPS17 manual.

"Audio controller Realtek ALC665
Speakers 2 x 1.5 Watt main speakers + 2.5 Watt subwoofer"

Documentation

The spec for the XPS 15 is exactly the same.

These figures sound realistic, 12 watts doesn't.

 

I meant macbook specifically because it is so soft, you wouldn't appreciate it even if you were alone in outer space and all was quiet. But macbook pro has not impressed me either - earphones...

Sound is quite important, but we can only speculate for now.

Apparently temperature management is good, which is great for a 2GB card paired with i7 quad. So Dell seems to have done something right. While some say the design is ugly, at least it appears to be functionally adequate.

Build is solid from appearance, and appears to be more solid than SXPS 16, which users claim was relatively good but had weaknesses.

 

I think that spec is wrong, it says the same in the xps 15 as well.

But on the dell website and news sites the 15 and 17 both have a 12w sub and 4w (for 15) 5w (for 17) speakers

 

Yeah, the macbooks are terrible, but the pro's are decent (well decent for laptops).

 

Anybody confirm that the new XPS 15/17 have support USB 3.0 devices or not?