A couple M1330 questions?

1) Can it play Call Of Duty 4 on low at a decent resolution?
2) Can(I know this is stupid) it play GTA IV on lowest res and lowest graphics
3) I want a notebook that's stylish, slim yet fairly powerfull, I really love the M1330's design but is it worth sacrificing the peformance of a Studio 15 to get the M1330 over the Studio 15, what is the peformance difference?


Off-topic questions
How much do you think I'll get for a Inspiron 6400 that I've had for 1 year and a bit now with 1.73GHZ and ( ) a GMA 950.

Appreciated!

Regards,
|Andrew

 

The m1330 is currently suffering from defective overheating 8400m GS cards. I suggest you research more about this issue. I strongly suggest you avoid the 8400m GS with the m1330. The x3100 integrated card is okay but it wont be able to play the games you want.

1) Yes on low settings

2) I dont see it happening.

3) Id go with the studio. Depends on how it spec'd.

Id say your inspiron is worth around $400

 

no defective manufacturing process on the newer cards, according to Dell. This was a problem with computers manufactured before december 2007 iirc.

COD4... low or medium@native resolution
GTAIV... Would not take my chances on it...

And I definitly recommend getting the nvidia rather than the Intel integrated, as the latter is hopeless if you want to run ANY 3d-application.

I find the size of the m1330 to be about perfect. I don't think I could ever go up in size or weight with a laptop. The M1330 is highly portable and has a decent speed. My unit scores over 5700 PCMark05. The graphic card is good enough for COD4, BF2, NFS:U2 and that generation of games. Wouldn't want to try it with Crysis, GTAIV, Far Cry 2, at the graphic card isn't up for it.

 

The significant sentence here is "according to Dell". Nvidia also has issues with the new 9XXX chips, so saying the manufacturing problem is fixed for P.R reasons and finding out it takes 6 months plus to get a failure statistical update on how well a job they did are two different things. My feelings on this whole Dell and Nvidia fiasco is to see the glass as half empty and will require iron clad proof that they actually know what they are doing, but until then I'll play the cynic as based on my own failure experience with the M1330 with more than one component failing; I'll warn anyone from purchasing the M1330 with the Nvidia chip.

 

I myself has the M1330 and it was delivered with a faulty nvidia card an insufficient cooling. My GPU used to idle@ ~80 degrees C and reaching over 100 degrees C when gaming... The card died on me after about half a year, and I had to get the motherboard replaced, as many other have had to do. With the new motherboard and the updated cooling solutions, my GPU idled @ 40 degrees C and reaches up under 80 degrees when gaming. I call that fixing the problem. + I have an extra years warranty, just in case there would be some issue with the new motherboard and GPU, which I doubt I will. I can see that improvements have been done. The old harddrive-controller has been updated, the northbridge chip has been updated, the gpu has been updated. The computer no longer suffers from whining off teh cpu or batterycharging, and the temperatures have been halfed. I'd say Dell and Nvidia seems to have solved the problem. (Not that it was a Dell-only problem. All computers delivered before christmas 2007 with 8xxx cards from Nvidia possibly suffers from the manufacturing fault. Dell's fault was shipping the computer with inadequate cooling, which they seems to have solved as well with the A01 revision of the heatsink/fan component.)

 

to answer your questions
1) my friend's integrated card can run CoD4 on low.... what do you think about the 8400?....
2) you can load it and run, but it'll be semi-laggy and the low graphics memory means that the graphics may take time to load if you move around, meaning u might get 'wallhack' effects where u see a person in the building, but not the building's exterior.... wait for R* to release a better patch... its playable, but i didnt enjoy it as much as playing on my friend's alienware 8800card

3) cant tell you... havent kept up with laptops since buying my own in august....

4) if ur that afraid, I suggest you look at Lenovo U330... similar specs, weight... but Montevina processor, hybrid graphics, no nVidia crap... a little slower graphics power, but that'll be better than the nVidia 8400 possibly crapping on you after a year