((( My Studio XPS16 Review )))

So I got it and let me tell you, what a machine. couldn't be any happier. seriously fast and very nice and stable so far.





a few positive and negative points to those shopping for one.

A. RGB LED screen is unfreaking real, colors like I've never seen before from a computer. well worth the premium but there are 2 drawbacks.

1.whites are not really that pure in comparison to other screens (you get used to it, as the trade off is well worth it)

2.the resolution is a little high for 16". Catch myself squinting a little from a slight distance. (the 2 finger pinch zoom gesture completely fixes this slight nuisance)

B. The dreaded heat..and it's hilarious that where you feel it most during use is the touch pad, which i can see why it would cause the misleading severity of the issue, In all honestly its not thaaat big of a deal. The chipset is right underneath with no fan..WWOoopss And they were kinda stupid with the vent but I think its great that depending on how I have the lid set it shoots upwards instead of towards my legs. I ordered a zalman NC2000 and I think this will completely relieve the heat issue and keep things vented properly. The machine can be used normal and without a cooler, and even when it's emitting some heat it's no big deal. and quite normal for a bunch of these high end components to be together in a chassis like this. I really think its overrated for sure and it shouldn't be the deciding factor at all. Once you get it you will fall in love with it so much you wont give a crap.

C: REFORMAT the system the moment you get it. It's incredible how damn slow it was when i turned it on for the first time, I was blown away how laggy and sloppy it was reacting. well..let me tell ya, this thing FLIIIEEESss.
T9600 with the 4gb ram on vista 64 with the 4670 is just absurd. It's very snappy and responsive with all the new drivers.

D. Face recognition Software: This can be subjective, as some have more strict needs than others but the face recognition software was pointless for me...not only is it chewing cpu cycles in the background for no reason while it not even in use, it just flat out sucks at recognizing you in different lighting. Check it out if you like but i uninstalled it and my systems much happier without it. (I really think they should have done a fingerprint reader for security, its the only thing missing from this setup for me)

E. While Im in the topic of Fingerprints!!!! hehe, Paw prints on my lappy!!oh my this is so real I cant believe it, and I am a bit OCD..lol maybe more of a perfectionist than OCD but wow, definitely travel with a few shamies...lol

and to add to that on a positive note, Id say that once I finish cleaning her up from my paw prints, it's like a vision from compu heaven, she's so pretty!! so it's SUPER worth the hassle!

F.Size and weight with the 6cell is unbelievably comfortable to tote around with you. BTW I got this case which isn't supposed to be for it but it fits like a glove. little bit snug but its completely fine. I refuse to get some massive 17" bag..LOL


TARGUS MESSENGER BT


G. Continuing with the XPS: the construction is AMAZING. what a tank. Kudos to Dell for stepping it up big time.

H. Power supply is so nice and thin and the rubber strap it comes with is very convenient to tidy things up.

I. Backlit Keyboard is a 100% necessity now for me, i wont even look at another laptop without it ever again.

Basically this laptop is a labor of love, very thoughtful and the attention to detail is definitely there. Its a pleasure to use. Yes theres a few cons but once you have it and get your brain clobbered with how amazing it is, you will do whatever it takes to make those cons either go away or just wont bother you enough to even remember there there...


my setup:
T9600/4GB-DDR3/ATI-4670-1GB/500GB-7200rpmSATA/HDaudio2.0/RGBLED 16"LCD/BluRay4x-Burner/Intel 5300wifi/WinVista64bit Home Premium/Obsidian Black_w/Leather/ 2.0MP webcam/

 

I actually like the facial recognition thing. Works great for me, but the first 5 times sucked.

Useless CPU resources? What's that Sidebar doing?

 

Ive tried it 10 times and it still sucks and it makes your cpu wobble in and out of cycles while your not using it, thats ridiculous in itself. And I turn off the sidebar, I was just monitoring to get the machine to idle at 0 after I was removing garbage. I was double checking with the task manager and that monitoring tool doesnt do anything at all while the machine is idling

 

That's true, it is a bit of a CPU hog.

But, for me, it's more of a cool toy than more usable. But, with my 12-character password with funky symbols, it definitely makes login quicker.

Really? That's weird, I've actually heard the contrary: that CPU monitoring programs in the Sidebar actually consume a fair bit of CPU cycles. Maybe this one is better.

Yeah...72 processes with Dell, 52 with restore disc!

 

Yeah those companies are always stacking the software in there.

it was a disaster when I got it. shes purring with an indefinite 0% idle now. Woop WWoop

I do music and editing and I cant have those crazy cpu hogging background apps, I just try to eliminate it all as much as possible for uninterrupted real time editing and playback but I am pist about the security, i just wish the software was more reliable and streamlined...why does fast access even have to be present past the login. should be out of the equation and only come back up when the system is in sleep or suspend or rebooted.

and it seriously sucks in different lighting conditions...I have yet for it to recognize my face...LOL kinda creepy..lololol

 

Agreed.

Otherwise, a great review.
I didn't let mine turn on fully when I first got it.
After waiting for minutes upon minutes till the Dell Dock showed up, I restarted and to the reformat process I went.

 

hahaha

I feel ya 100% on that one...wish i would've done the same

and thanks..

maybe Ill edit that spot so it's more friendly towards that particular piece of software's believers.

 

The facial recognition software is cool, but when I wake up with bed head it never recognizes me.

Nothing pisses me off more than waking up with a hangover and my computer telling me I'm not me.

 

Heh, msconfig for the win? I get the feeling I'm one of the few who hasn't reformatted my Vista partition yet. That said, I took out the recovery partition and created 2 more .

I believe I have only tried using the web cam once (and that was merely to make sure it works). I wish they just included a finger print reader instead.

The pictures of the RGBLED monitor make me wish I had an SXPS 16 instead of an SXPS 13.

 

LMAAAAOOooo

 

The reason it keeps running *after* you login: currently it only works with Internet Explorer (Firefox support is set for Q4 '09), but whenever it "senses" a site where you login, it can use facial recognition to log you in. This can be disabled, I think, though, in the settings somewhere.

And, technically, it only gets better the more you use it. Now, in my dorm room where the lighting is constant, I log in almost instantaneously, I barely even see my icon picture. But when I brought it home, it took about 8-10 seconds: I type my password quicker (which is actually 15 characters, plus random symbols: I don't know why I thought 12 earlier).

And our usage is different, too. With yours in that station thingy, it probably doesn't get left out in the open very much, but with mine it can happen.

~Ibrahim~

 

ok this is hilarious..huge dilema... i7 version comes out tomorrow and i just received this laptop...LMAO

wth do i do now...anyone know the price difference between the T9600 this past month and this i7 720QM ?

they both climb up to 2.8ghz but the i7 is a quad...that has to do wonders for my multicore supporting software.

damn you dell.. lololol

 

Read the i7-820QM thread here.....$1299 for close-ish system: smaller hard drive and no RGBLED and no Blu-ray.

~Ibrahim~

 

to tell you how bad the facial recognition is, I managed to log in with a picture of myself. Since then I havee never even touched it, not that I did to start with, I don't really mind entering passowrds tbh

 

Well, did you use the picture in the beginning when the system was inevitably still learning your face?

If you did, then that doesn't exactly work. The system (as the "unbiased" manufacturer explains) says that pictures shouldn't work because it learns your face.

If you used a picture, then the system didn't have a good enough knowledge of your face. It's a learning process: giving up early is counter-intuitive, at least I think.

Some people don't mind, but I think it's a great feature.

~Ibrahim~

 

Just a request for clarification from a non-owner (at the moment ...): did you reformat it using an off-the-shelf Vista installation DVD or (as I suppose) using a custom Dell XPS Studio 16 restore disk?
Did Dell restore disk got rid of preinstalled Dell bloatware?

Thanks in advance.

 

The laptop ships with multiple DVDs & CDs. The "Restore" DVD, A.K.A Windows Installation, does not include drivers and/or software. The latter is included on a separate disc. Thus, if you'd like to insist on installing the shipped O.S., then yes you can do it bloat-ware free.

 

Many thanks, that's what I hoped for!

 

Thanks for the review. If mine ever comes, I'll be upgrading it to XP until the free Win7 appears.

Edit: Scheduled for delivery tomorrow PM at last !!!

 

@//oss......if you could see my RGB screen....you would see that white is really white......no issues at all. (if its matter of my A10 BIOS i dont know, but its highly possible)

this explain a lot

 

I have A10 bios as well

and my white is white, dont get me wrong but i have a dell 30" monitor right next to it and the white seems a little pasty in comparison.

its not a pure pure 100% white.

 

Sorry, but in a color blind world. Isn't a white white just in poor taste?

Sorry had to do it.

 

PWAHahaa

LMFAO

 

BTW I bought a Zalman ZM-NC2000 and whatever minor touchpad heating issue was there, is GONE..lol Laptop feels nice now...worth every penny for gaming on it.

 

Glad you went with the NC2000. I use one too (see my sig) and I tell you it makes heat a non-issue on any desk.

 

if you only have the 9 cell battery and you want to use the Zalman ZM-NC2000 will there be any issues with the battery in the back? or can you just put the laptop far enough back to avoid the 9 cell hitting the cooler

 

Thanks for your review. How exactly did you reformat it? Re-Install Vista or what did you do?

 

I have a question about the facial recognition thingy, if I print out a poster with somebody's picture on it, couldn't I use it to log in on his computer? honest question here, I'm really curious about it.

 

The software, if its used regularly, is supposed to 'learn' a face so well that it can tell the difference.

When I first started using the software it recognized my friends face as me. Over time, however, as he kept doing that, it stopped recognizing my face altogether. I think it 'learned' the difference between the two and used his face more (since I would type my pword in sometimes, he always used the facial recognition).

I don't know about a picture though. It would have to be held at the right distance, but I think it could work. Test it out?

 

I havent tried it, but I think it might work.

 

the system comes witha OS disk, you just boot off of it, reformat your drive(I also repartitioned at this point so I dont have a huge 500GB drive. Then I took the second disk and slowly but surely installed all the necessary things i deemed had to be in there. BTW since the buttons on the top dont work the moment you reformat, remember to right hand click on teh drive letter in the explorer or my computer icon to switch to the driver disk and install the ethernet or wifi and the quickbutton software and then try to get all the latest drivers off your support page on dells site so you just install the recent goods.

its SUPER worth it. I hesitated at the begining but once you get your head wrapped around it its no biggie.

GL

I 100% agree

I dont think it would be an issue, but ill tell ya I like the vacume that the cooler creates when the laptop is close to it, it really sets it up in a carpet of cold feeling air. when I have mine on it with the 6 cell its crisp and chill.

 

Thank you for the explanation!

Just one more noobish question: if I install Windows 7, the bloatware will be gone, right?

 

Windows 7 clean install means you only get Windows. Nothing else, not even Dell Drivers (which you'll have to update on your own).

 

Alright, thanks. Can this easily be done or is there any danger involved?

edit: I just noticed that the XPS 16 is eligible for a win7 upgrade, which apparently makes it a lot easier.

 

This laptop so rocks, i cant belive how nice it plays COD4: MW

I need to get a separate mouse and keyboard for gaming though, sucks for portability but at least be able to crank on it wherever I can.