Buy Dell XPS M1530 or wait for Studio???

The Studio isn't supposed to have powerful graphics. You get those in the XPS line.

 

I think the Studio should be able to compete against the Pavilions though.
But if you're correct about that 9600 GPU for HP, then that could hurt Dell.
Where'd you hear that?

And when are the new HP dv's coming out?

 

Ok guys, I was all set to buy a M1530, but i just configured a 15 inch Studio and it comes out to be a bit cheaper, but with more features I would rather have.

I just wanted your guys expertise/opinions on some of these features.

First, it appears that the LED screen options are different for the m1530 and the Studio. The Studio's is called WLED...is that better/worse then the LED option on the M1530?

Second, I optioned my Studio with Blue-Ray drive, am I going to get full hi-def if I order a screen with 1440x900 resolution? Or do I need to get the 1920x1200 screen to actually take advantage of watching Blue Ray in high def?

Third, how much weaker is the GPU in the Studio then the 128MB GPU in the M1530? Will it still allow me to play decent games (nothing like crisis, or COD4, more like Doom 3, etc.).
Also, will I see a significant decrease in performance of other applications, such as downloading, streaming, music, etc. and multitasking (i.e. lots of windows open), with the Studio GPU, vs. the 128MB one in the M1530?

Thanks very much for the help!

 

I don't think anyone received their Studios yet, so the LED comparison is up for grabs.

I don't recommend a Blu-Ray drive on any laptop at the moment, unless you've found $525 sitting around with an expiration date. It's "new" technology, you're shedding extra bucks to buy that "new". "New" is also bad in the sense that the whole Blu-ray audience/support/whatever is rather limited. And yes, you do need 1920x1200 if you want to view full 1080P high-def.

If you're talking about the 8400M GS in the M1530 vs the HD 3450, the edge goes to the 3450 for both memory and clock speeds.

 

Thanks for the reply.

So the GPU in the Studio is actually better then the 8400 GS in the M1530? Wow, thats great news for me.

And I think I'll take your advice on the Blu-Ray....its only a $200 upgrade, but I'd also need 1920x1200 resolution screen, and I'd much rather have the LED at this point (which doesn't have that resolution).

 

Yeah, it's generally better to go with top-end of a cheaper model rather low-end of the better. There's no point buying the "name" at the expense of actual productivity. That XPS logo isn't going to play games for you.

 

I'm curious about what that "w" is too. It could even just mean "white", but I'm not sure anyone outside Dell knows.

To see the full 1920x1200 image you'd of course need a 1920x1200 screen (in other word, to take FULL advantage), but obviously it's still going to be very high resolution at 1440x900, and have much, much more detail than DVD.

I disagree with the poster who said it's bad to buy Blu Ray now. Personally I'm not buying a system without it. It's here, new releases are coming out on it, HD-DVD is officially dead, etc. It's a $200 upgrade on many of Dell's systems. Sure, in a few years it'll be standard, but that doesn't make buying it now a bad deal!

IMO that's not a good question. The Geforce 8600GT is an absolute MINIMUM a new system that's going to be used for games. It's low end by today's standards (and please, no one give me the "oh but it's good for a notebook speech-notebooks have to run the same games desktops do).

The REAL comparison should be between getting an 8600GT versus the 3450-and the former is easily twice as powerful. If this is going to be used for games at all, don't even consider the 15" Studio. Look at something with at least an 8600GT or it's equivalent (the 17" model, the 1720, the 1530, etc.)

I guess I already addressed this, but I completely disagree with this. It's not $525, it's anywhere from $200-$400 depending on the system, or it's <$200 to add an external reader.

Well sure, but it's only limited in the way DVD was limited in 1997. It's still coming on strong and a safe bet. Only real catch to Blu Ray's introduction is that you really need an HDTV to take much advantage of it, but then people are also kind of stuck transitioning to HDTV for other reasons anyway (and it's adoption's been even faster than DVD apparently).

No, it's really not. Like I said, it's a moot point. I've never even bothered comparing them, other than they're in the general ball park. That's appropriate for Windows desktop stuff, but not much else. Heck, even Blu Ray acceleration probably won't be as good as on a higher end GPU (not 100% sure about that, but with at least the previous low end models they didn't have as much decoding hardware either).

No, you DON'T need the 1920x1200 screen. It's just going to scale it down a bit-it'll still look great, and much better than DVD. The screen you're looking at is still higher than 720p, which is what most people are going to be viewing Blu Ray on.

Personally I actually WANT a lower resolution as I can't stand small fonts-and I definitely want an LED backlit display!

The 17" Studio comes close to my minimum requirements (LED backlight, decent GPU, Blu Ray), but I'd reaaaaally prefer an Nvidia GPU...even if it was just an 8600GT again. I might still bite anyway if the price ever dips low enough. I'd actually prefer the larger system size versus the 1530 (although it fits the bill for me too).

 

Im happy my prediction was right, Studio gets good options, but GPU sucks.

Anyhoo, the 8600GT is an AWESOME card, You wont see it in an Inspiron. If they stuck a 8400GS or an 8600GT in it, I can say Studio is definitely the XPS replacement.

Personally, the M1530 is better than the Studio in all aspects except for the illuminated keyboard, which I hope someone will attempt to install in their M1530 and see if its a perfect match. Then the M1530 will be undefeatable.

Though I must say, if there was no 25% off coupon at the time I bought my M1530... I think I may have succommed to the Studio just because the price of the M1530 is just way too high, even with the current deals they have of 500 bucks off.

 

Well I'm not happy about it I'd be more interested in the line if they had better GPUs...even what last year's models have/had.

The 8600GT has never been awesome. It was "kind of okay" even when it launched a few years back.

Whaaat? The Inspirons had the 8600GT a full year ago. The 1520's mid-year replacement was actually worse but the 1720 still has it right now.

Yeah, if the 1530 was a bit cheaper I'd probably go for it. I wasn't interested until it got the optional LED backlight, but right now it more or less meets my needs (although I'd like a better GPU, and preferably a larger screen...)
The Studio 17's would be almost what I want, except I'd rather trade that Radeon for an 8600GT or whatever.

 

Yeah like I said in the other thread, if there is no 25% off coupon, Id seriously just wait for the next montevina refresh since it'll prolly just be 100-200 dollars more expensive compared to the prices of the XPS M1530 right now.

The 8600GT for inspiron was much earlier and even still it was a weaker version. Dell knows it would be stupid to include such a good graphics card into a budget laptop as an option. 1720 has it since its a 17 incher, though I'm sure they know most people would prefer the 15.4 inch since it is the more popular average size for a laptop.

Dell is very smart in giving consumers two options:

-Aesthetically Pleasing, but sucks arse for any gaming
-Ugly and bulky, but has a better gaming

Then theres XPS with the best combination of both with 7200RPM hard drives, and awesome gfx cards. Very smart.

You should really stop complaining about lower end gfx cards for inspirons. They have come out with another inspiron design that doesnt have an HDMI port and a lot of other features that will replace the current line of inspirons (not studio). Im sure they will have even worse gfx cards than the current Studio. Can you say Integrated? lol.

 

Those laptops WEREN'T budget laptops when they were introduced, they were in the exact same position as the Studio line is now. They just replaced them and changed the name. But at any rate, it's very disapointing to see that they're actually putting lower end GPUs in their systems NOW then they were in equivalent systems a year ago.

It's not smart at all if another competitor throws a decent GPU in their system. HP traditionally hasn't, but they could, and certainlly many other companies offer a lot more.

But again, I'm complaining about these "Studio" systems, which are just the replacements for last year's "Inspiron" systems. They just changed the name and decided to do lower end systems called "Inspiron" (which right now basically consists of the 1525 and what's left of last year's Inpirons...but presumably they might drop in some other low end model).

 

No, they are not replacing last years inspirons. Read the other threads with the info regarding another laptop that lacks HDMI port, and lots of other ports as well. THAT laptop is most likely the replacement for the 1525.

I think Dell is just trying to level the field with HP.

Yeah, I remember the good times when Inspiron wasnt the "budget" laptop. I loved my E1505 before I got my M1530. Times have changed now. Inspiron is officially... not what it used to be.

 

Yeah the Inspiron used to be a pretty decent line. Now it is very crippled.

 

So do you you think the Studio line will see an upgrade for the GPU by the time Montevina comes out?

 

It will NEVER see an upgrade in GPU. I can guarantee that it wont by the time Montevina comes out. The Inspiron and Inspiron Studio are guaranteed not to have good gfx cards. Studio does get higher end processors and storage, but the decent gfx cards will always be reserved for the XPS.

 

Anyone know of any benchmarks comparing the 8600GT and the GPU that comes in the studio?

 

The GPU that comes with the studio is capable of playing videos and multimedia that are blu-ray like the 8500GT, gaming-wise it is slightly lower than the level of the Radeon X1400, which is the graphics card Dell used for their 15.4 inch inspirons about 2-3 years ago when they weren't known as the "budget" notebooks as they are today.

What this means is the reason why dell chose the gfx card it did for studio 15, is simply because of the blu ray playback. really nothing more.

 

Well, the Studio 17 has ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650.
What would this be equal to if it were Nvidia?

 

The last chart I saw (sorry, link long gone) had the HD 3650 benchmarked two slots higher than the 8600M GT, but for all practical purposes they were the same.

 

Inspiron not being what it used to be is exactly why these are the replacements for last year's systems, ie the 1520 and 1720. They're better in some ways (mostly just because they're using a year's newer technology), but actually much worse in the GPU department, particularly for when they launched.

If you're comparing it to the 15" Studio, the 8600GT would be twice as good. If you're comparing it to the 17", it would be about the same, as was mentioned above.

That said, I'd prefer an Nvidia part as ATi's drivers have always had issues of one form or another, and also for notebooks there's a lot more support in getting Nvidia hardware running good drivers than there is for ATi hardware (probably since ATi's never been serious about the notebook space-I think they've only one generation had a competitive part).

 

they need to put out new xps now! the studios suck for gameplay but have all of the nice extras like back lit keyboard.... and other stuff. hopefully the new xps will have something to own the studio line!

 

Are there even any rumors regarding new XPSs?

BTW, check out what this article says about the GPU for the Studio:
http://technews.in/reviews/laptop/dell_studio_15_and_studio_17_laptops/

They're wrong right?

 

They are wrong.

 

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. I've never seen any talk of an XPS refresh other than speculation on this forum...and that seems based on the assumption that something must be coming rather than concrete information.

You know it was only about 6 weeks ago that the WSJ reported that Dell was killing off much of the XPS line in an attempt to push the gaming sector to Alienware...and then 4 days later Dell announces, "uh no, we didn't really mean it." Makes one wonder if they did mean it initially, but the idea was so poorly received that they backpedaled. In that case, and XPS refresh might not come as soon as we expect.

Of course, I'm just wildly speculating based upon no actual information. They might announce the mythical XPS M1540 on Monday.

 

I was close to pulling the trigger again on a M1530 last week (originally I ordered a M1530 in April but canceled my order after waiting 25 days). I have this "feeling" that it's almost time for the 1530's successor based on the arrival of Centrino 2 next month and coming competition. I don't want to order and cancel again because its successor gets leaked/introduced next month. It's time for the M1540/50.

 

Darn, if the EPP sight would actually let me order a 17" one with Blu Ray...and if at least an 8600GT was an option, I'd just bite the bullet.

Now if it had Blu Ray, the LED backlight screen, and at least an 8800GTS...