===> The Official Studio XPS 1640 Owner's Thread<===

Ah, and that was only for DPA I think...

 

How did you get that promo? I ordered mine 2 days ago and the only promos i had was no interest for 1 year and free 3-5 day shipping, a $150 gift card sounds much better than faster shipping? Are you in america?

 

the $150 Gift card promo was only valid with the use of a DPA card. and yes i live in the US

 

DPA card? Is that the financing thing?

 

YAY
I just ordered my dell laptop yesterday and its already in production
the guy i cought it off on the phone said he would put me top of the list andgave me 10% off.
i think he did it because i kept nagging him for more then 10% put he couldnt so he gave quick delivery.
now thats good service.

Phase 3 In Production Your order is in this phase.

 

cool, thanks puremind!

Hmm, unfortunately it looks like it's a no-go w/ the HDMI cable connection. All I get is 2 channel stereo. My receiver readout just says PLII, ][ Dolby, LPCM Digital

I was using the included PowerDVD and set the audio option to "HDMI" w/ "Dolby Digital/DTS Passthru". I also tried "PCM" and "HDMI"/"6 speaker" configs as well.

I tried patching my HDMI cable straight into the TV, and then XPS HDMI -> receiver (hdmi) -> TV

For testing I just used a bluray disc and used their pink noise audio set up tests

No luck. I was about to try upgrading my ATI control catalyst and video drivers (after setting a restore pt just in case), but it looks like my machine shipped with the latest 64 bit Vista drivers already.

Info is listed here:
http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRAPHICS-BOARD/ATI/ATI-Catalyst-Display-Driver-9-1-Vista64.shtml

Under the Windows XP known issues bit, it says:
"• Only 2 channel audio is heard when playing back multichannel (Dolby
5.1.DTS) audio through HDMI connector"

but there is no similar statement under known Windows Vista issues. Maybe it got left out? Or maybe it should work.. ?

Looks like I'll have to go with the mini-jack to RCA 5.1 for now to see if that works. What a mess of cables that will be!

 

Just ordered mine today. I went through best buy to save a little money and used some rewards zone perks for free shipping etc etc.

 

I ordered mine last Friday from Best Buy too. I noticed they keep changing the backordered date though.

This will be my first laptop so I'm looking forward to it.

 

Right now mine says it will ship between 2/25-3/10. Is that the same date you are getting as well?

 

Yes The date range has increased every day since Friday although it was holding steady at 2/24-3/9 for about 2 days. It stinks not being able to monitor the build progress and stuff but the price got me.

Now I wait......

 

I´ve received mine in Spain today, at 8 in the morning!!!

it´s great!!but a little hot...

 

I know...I received mine today and tested this. Same results!

I called the tech support and they are unable to tell me whether HDMI supports 5.1 surround. They wanted to forward me to the software hotline but they charge you...

I owned a Toshiba Qosmio for a few days and it worked, so I am sure it is not because of bad settings.

It may be due to lack of HDMI driver support from ATI. The Qosmio was using the Nvidia 9800GTX and it may be that the Nvidia HDMI implementation is just better.

But on ATI's web page DTS should officially be supported. I am pretty sure it is a driver issue.

 

The IDC COdec used in the XPS 16 is the 92HD73C1 and it is supposed to support 6 channels, which it does, so the culprit in my eyes is the HDMI implementation from ATI. Hopefully this is a driver issue only!

This is the link to the IDC HD Audio Codec Overview PDF:
http://www.idt.com/products/getdoc.cfm?docID=18462225

 

Alright guys. I have managed to make this work out. It is as suspected: Dell didn't bother developing a decent drivers for HDMI Audio.

You can however download the Realtek HDMI Audio driver (just google it). This will allow DTS / Dolby support.

It works perfectly as intended now.

The other grievance is the screen. The colors are very oversaturated but most importantly they are not accurate and grey levels are only right at the extremities while at medium stimulous blue dominates. I am basing those comments based on measurements conducted with professional grade equipment. I will try to post the charts when I have some time available.

My panel is the WLED 1080p version and the hardware ID is the Samsung SEC5448. Could you guys please check whether you have the same panel?
I will try to calibrate those issues away (greyscale should be a no brainer but inaccurate primaries will be very tricky) and will post a color profile for you to load on your laptops. It will then automatically solve those issues.

By the way maximum brightness was measured at 266cd/m² (versus 300 announced) and the contrast is a disappointing 600:1. This is due to the poor black levels! The LED do add color saturation but they also inpinge on the back level. Not having inky blacks is annoying. But again, I will try to find a better compromise (perhaps reducing brightness a notch).

 

Okay, this is weird. A few days ago I posted how I got BSODs after installing about 42 Windows updates (at the same time).

Now, I tried installing just half of the updates at a time: 21 updates first, then 11, then 5, then 3, and finally the last two. It's tedious I know, but in the end I got no BSOD after everything's installed.

 

Good to know puremind! I'll be receving mine very shortly and I'm glad you already found a solution for the hdmi.

As for the color calibration, I also have the rgb led so I'll be looking forward to your color profile. I'll try to get my hands on some professional equipment as well in order to see whether or not I get the same results as you do

 

puremind, I have the same panel. Please do post your color profile. I feel that the defaults on mine have a faulty hue . . .

sergeh, please do! And post your color profile as well once you had it calibrated. It would spare me the expense of having my screen calibrated.

Thanks!

---

Edit: Does anyone have this minor issue that I have: The screen brightness resets to the brightest setting when waking the laptop from sleep or after powering it up. One adjustment from Fn+up or down reverts it to the setting you set it to.

 

It is possible to iron out the grey levels. I have done that now. But max brightness still delivers the best contrast, so inchy blacks are not worth it.

Regarding color accuracy the biggest issue is the very inaccurate green! Red can be tempered somewhat but green can't be tamed using the ATI color hue and saturation options. Only read and blue are impacted. This is due to the fact that the LED backlighting does not produce white light as it should but produces greenish light instead. The graphic card doesn't have any impact on this, so I am afraid we are stuck with inacccruate greens.

I am happy the sound is working, but I am willing to consider other laptop alternatives with a better contrast, deeper blacks and more accurate colors.

I will probably order the competing Sony, HP and Acer laptops and test them...I don't need 270cd/m² brightness if the blacks are milky. Personally I prefer deep blacks and 190cd/m²! Actually for indoor viewing the recommended brightness is 180cd/m²

 

I was gonna order my lappy today, and was thinking of a 720p screen cause i cant afford the 1080...could someone who has a 720p please give me a heads up on how it compares to the other screens out there...thanks

 

Can other people please post which hardware ID they have for their panel?

Control Panel > Hardware > Device Manager > PnP Monitor > Detail tab > Select Hardware ID

In the past Dell has relied on several suppliers for their screen (LG, Samsung, Sharp). But with the RGB LED panels it may be that the only supplier is Samsung.

 

Just received an e-mail update from Dell regarding my Studio XPS 16 order:

I'm sure Michael Dell would be pleased to know he's losing sales of £1400 / $2000+ notebooks because of a £30 / $43 part

As much as I would like a new notebook I've never had a non-bluetooth machine in 7 years, and annoyingly, you can still go onto Dell's UK site and order the exact same component

 

Yep, mine was the SEC5448 too.

 

Great! I'll try that out. I came across a link to the same driver solution for the 1530 or something while searching the net for my solution. Didn't think it applied. So will this replace the IDT Audio Panel that the XPS currently uses?

Also late last night I thought maybe I'd try playing with the HDMI windows sound settings panel, I'd plug my laptop directly into my receiver via HDMI, but I would get no sound at all.

Yes, same panel, and I've noticed the super-saturation as well, especially when place next to my calibrated work monitors.

I would look forward to your calibrated profile as well!

yup, same issue. baffled me for a while

 

OOOHHH!!! The 9 Cell Battery is orderable now. Does anyone know a good coupon code I could use? Thanks.

 

Well they did lose a sale from me. Mine was delayed a month due to backorder of some "part".. i suspect it was the bt module, ssd, or intel 5300.

Anyways, im still in the market for a 16 incher and will probably place another order sometime in the spring.. less Sony has a 1080p LED option on their FW.

 

*maybe* I can see the SSD or 5300 causing a delay, but the 370 is included in man of their current models - are all these machines not shipping?

A FW with 1080p RGB LED would be nice

 

How many people are opting for the Samsung 256 SSD?

 

I have ordered the SXPS 1640 in Holland. Don't have an ESD yet.
Very curious about the heat...

 

I haven't pulled the trigger on the laptop yet but probably will shortly.

What I hear is that the new LED LCD displays can cause calibration troubles with various colorimeters (EyeOne D2, Spyder3, etc.).
Also specific wide gamut specs of the display need to be available to the software like the Spyder3 to offset it's readings, which is not LED optimized or suited for wide gamut, or so I hear.

As for the apparent over saturation, are we sure it's not just due to the wider gamut, it obviously should appear different. Although I wouldn't be surprised to see some color accuracy issues with the early LED tech just like early CCFL LCD displays had.

It's out of my depth, but I just want to throw out what I heard, before too many assumptions are made with current colorimeters that may not be tuned for LED LCD.
What I heard could be off too.

P.S. Puremind - Thx for the heads up on the driver.

 

I'm going to pass on it. I may upgrade myself to a faster SSD down the road, especially in anticipating a Windows 7 upgrade, but the Samsung is too slow for my liking. No doubt some will differ.

If newer options don't show up I will likely go with the 500GB 7200RPM.

 

Man i hope this isn't going to happen to everyone.

 

Sorry to say but apart from the 9 cell battery, your spec is exactly the same as mine that can't be completed.

 

dell UK are really getting somewhere with customer services.
i ordered my laptop yesterday, and its already in the delivery stage

 

Wow, that's amazing, i ordered mine on sunday and it started building monday so it'll be done on friday, i will get it next wednesday-friday

 

hi guys, i have my xps 16, today.

I have a question, what program should i use to see the tv??

there is no software!

thanks

 

Here's a completely off topic URL about Intel:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10160673-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Kind of interesting.

 

Vista Media Center

 

Did you install Realtek HDMI Audio Device Driver R2.03 or Realtek ATI HDMI Audio driver 2.00?

 

Yes, I have the same panel on my XPS16.
The saturation is extreme, I agree. If you can come up with a profile that works for you, I would be very interested in trying it here too.

 

I searched but I can't find any information on the RGB LED screen. Any owners have comments about the screen?

 

i got it i got it and i love it i love it lots no bsod's no boot issues sounds great only thing to test now is blu ray but i don't have a disk

 

no remote or headphones

 

lucky you, can't wait to get mine! Hopefully I'll be getting it this friday! *crosses fingers*

 

I am using a spectroradiometer (EyeOne Pro) and it doesn't have issues with the readings.

Color Space
Green is grossly oversaturated. On the most recent LED HDTVs from Sony, Samsung and Sharp the oversaturation is much much less and can actually be reduced to nonobstrusive / negligible levels through the software. Red and blue are also oversaturated though they remain within an acceptable range or the color standard coordinates.





Greyscale
There is a blue and green excedent across the full luminance spectrum which increases at low stimulous. This is typically due to lower quality RGB LED backlighting. The backlighting produces a green/blue light instead of a white light, which becomes prominant at low LCD luminance. This means balancing the grey scale will require adding some red and black levels will suffer.





Contrast
Black Level: 0,48cd/m²
White Point (maximal luminance): 270cd/m²
Contrast: 560:1

Unfortunately, this is merely average, as most competing non LED panels have contrasts of 600:1 or higher.


Luminance
The luminance curve shows irregularities in the way brightness increases versus the way it should. Brightness increases too slowly from 0% to 60% stimulous and then too fast from 60% to 100% stimulous:





Gamma
The gamma curve confirms the luminance progression issues:

 

As mentioned earlier calibrating color saturation is tricky on a laptop as the graphic card does not offer a lot of possibilities.

All you can do is change color saturation and hue in the ATI Catalyst Control, but this has limitations: due to the type of LEDs used in this panel and the resulting greenish hue of the backlighting there is an amount of green color saturation that can't be removed by the graphic card effectively. The ATI Control Catalyst settings only manages to impact red effectively (this also explains why the greyscale shows green and blue dominating at low LCD stimulus while the graphic card progessively compensates for the lacking reds at higher, near-white stimulus, see previous post)


Standard Color Space
This is the color space with the standard saturation and hue setting

Color Saturation = 100 and Color Hue = 0 (Standard)





Increasing Color Saturation
This merely removes blue from both the green and red primaries.

Color Saturation = 120




Color Saturation = 200 (Max)




Decreasing Color Saturation
This merely adds blue to both the green and red primaries

Color Saturation = 60




Color Saturation = 20





Increasing Color Hue
This merely adds blue to the red color.

Color Hue = 30 (Max)




Decreasing Color Hue
This merely adds blue to the green color.

Color Hue = -30 (Min)

 

A quick bit of info for anyone concerned about the numerous heat issues that have been reported in this thread and who might be considering the purchase of a notebook cooler.

I just purchased a Zalman ZM-NC2000 Notebook Cooler ($60 from Newegg) and must say it makes a huge difference to the perceptible temperature of the notebook (I say perceptible, because I have not measured actual temperatures). The palm rest area doesn't get any more than just a little warm and the bottom of the XPS 16 (normally hot enough to fry an egg) stays nice and cool (as you would expect). I agree that it should not be necessary to have to add a notebook cooler when the notebook should be capable of providing its own sufficient cooling, but if this were always the case then there would not be notebook coolers available to purchase!

Anyway, the fan noise from the cooler is barely noticeable, and is certainly no louder than the XPS 16 CPU fan when the cooler is set to its highest fan speed. I was actually very surprised as to how quiet it is. It's available in black or silver (actually made of aluminum). I was going to buy the black but then decided on the silver (looks a bit more arty/stylish) and happens to be the same color and similar finish as the aluminum accents on the XPS 16. It's the perfect size and compliments the XPS 16 very well. To be honest, I think the black would also work very well - it just comes down to taste. Yes, it obviously adds more bulk, but if you’re using your XPS 16 at home (at a desk or on your lap) it seems to work very well. I'm not sure if you would find a better solution that combines performance and looks.

Just wanted to share my thoughts and experience, since I think it's a great match if you are thinking of going the cooler route.

 

You can add the the Zalman 1000 to your cart when you order from Dell, but can you add the Zalman 2000? I don't see it anywhere.

 

It appears that Dell currently only stocks the ZM-NC1000 in black, which is too small for the XPS 16. The ZM-NC2000 is widely available across the internet.

 

I read good things about the ZM-NC2000 with cost the only real negative. I didn't know there was a black version, but as you said the silver/aluminum matches the aluminum accents of the 1640. So, that would probably be my choice for a cooler...when I get the 1640. Still on the fence.

 

Nope The Zalman 2000 isn't availi' at Dell right now... I just checked a few months ago, and it wasn't on Dells site then, ether.

Here it is in black: at amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-NC2...4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234329381&sr=1-4

and, in silver: Both are $65.99 /free shipping

http://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-NC2..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=072TERBPC4X8GV3VK87R

Cin