Coming from a macbook pro, looking at the xps 16

We were forced to purchase mac book pros (early 2008 model) for our professional school. Fast forward just over 2 years and I was having some issues with my laptop that I sent in for service. Turns out Apple decided to void my warranty for normal wear and tear and a few small dents here and there. No different than most of my classmates laptops, certainly not abuse. I was never thrilled about purchasing an apple laptop but it was forced upon us with a ludicrous price as well.

My friends always had great luck with their 'complete care' service plans from dell in undergrad so I have decided to come back to the windows fold (finally!) . I was pleased with the light weight and general smoothness of operation of the MBP. I am using a 'loaner' new MBP and it has a stupendous battery life.

Anyways I am essentially looking for a replacement that is somewhat similar. Thinking about the XPS 16. Got some questions though.

1. i5 or i7, which would be adequate? Moderate gaming I guess, lots of hd video watching, I definitely want the 1080p screen. I assume both would be light years ahead of a 2.x ghz core duo?

After doing some research, I want the i5 with the switchable video card for battery life.


2. Looking for some sort of way to connect the laptop to a tv. I had an old inspiron 1501 which for some reason never worked properly vga->rca 3 cables. From some research I had done it seemed a general issue with dell laptops at the time?

3. Hows battery life with windows 7? Does anyone use their laptops daily and how many cycles does the battery usually last? Do you guys just buy new batteries off of ebay or something every year?

4. FOr those that do use your laptops daily, how does it hold up? I use it everyday at school and look at xrays and patient files when I'm not in clinc so its pretty imperative it be able to hold up well.

5. Any deals or anything in the next month or so? I am not looking at the cheapest inspirons but don't want to obviously spend an excessive amount of money (would prefer to keep it around 1200 or so before service plan but haven't done full research here). I would like 4 gigs of ram and the 1080p display.

6. How is the in home service? Do they come on saturdays? How is availability of the techs? I had a great experience with a service back in undergrad on my old inspiron 1501 but that may have been in the middle of a weekday or something. (I am looking at the 'medium' option for 3 year coverage, is it worth to bump up to the top option?)

7. How is the accidental damage protection? I had a friend with the old complete care who dropped a glass of water on the laptop and they replaced the hard drive and it worked fine. I won't be dropping my laptop or anything but some small dents and scratches (on the case) are inevitable with daily use.

I am sure I will have more questions but i'd appreciate any response.

I am looking also at the HP Envy 14 or 15. Their warranty appears to be a bit more expensive, but the laptops look great and seem like they might have better battery life.

Thanks!

 

My answers/opinions to the questions I have experienced.

 

Thanks. By quad core I assume you have an i7?

I was mentioning the switching since I assumed that was a feature of the i5 models? So the xps 16 always runs off of the main gpu card?

I wandered over to the EPP just now (I assume I qualify since I'm a student) and they have an xps 16 with the WLED 1080, 4 gig ram, 500 gb hd, i5 450m for 1099 or so. Thats a good deal compared to the HP envy laptops. Is that a reasonable deal? I'm still shopping around here so I appreciate the help.

 

Core i7 720 qm + WLED screen and 9 cell i got almost 4 hours 30 minutes. With the RGBled screen on the other hand i struggle to get 3 hours. Also that does seem like a decent deal but shop around. You can usually get amazing deals with coupons + epp from Dell

 

I will be going with the WLED screen seeing they arent offering the RGBLED anyways. Non switchable graphics is a big bummer for me, probably the number one thing that might prevent me from getting a new xps 16. Simply having that option will blow up the battery life! Seems like a big part of the i5 processors. The Envy 14 (smaller I know) has it, but also costs almost 400 more at the current pricing (they bumped the price of their 'radiance' screen similar to the WLED and their service plans are a good $200 more).

 

Does the standard 9 cell battery stick out of the case? I would assume with an i5 i'd get better life than an i7.

In the end i'd probably be replacing the battery 1x a year...Do any of the dell warranties cover the battery past 1 year?

 

I use my 1640 everyday for a year now. I use it for school and I find it no problem to carry everyday. The battery lasts like it did day one but it will not go past 2 hrs for the 6-cell batt. I would think the new processors would be more efficient. I don't feel the i5 would be significantly better as far battery life because they both can be pretty efficient when in energy saving mode. The new GPUs are more efficient than previous versions as well.

 

Lots of questions for me to have a go at answering

An i5 540m would be great for you, but sorry no switchable graphics support unfortunately! That was a big put off for me too but if you're getting 4 hours then you can't really complain in my opinion!
Battery life with an i5 you should get about 4 hours with the 1080p WLED display, and yes the 9 cell sticks out about an inch (helpful for cooling if sat at a desk, uncomfortable if on lap).
The accidental damage support is great, and includes the vast majority of things (water spills, drops etc) but it won't cover wear and tear damage.
Dell battery warranty's last one year only, and they're expensive to replace unless you go on ebay.

Hope this helps!

 

Oh I forgot to mention that the home service has been great for me. An LED light on one of my media lights went out and I called Dell... In two days there was a guy coming to repair it with new parts. I was pleased with my experience...

 

Thanks. 4 hours is great, just the switching graphics on the new unibody mbps and their super long batt life just makes me have a skewed opinion on it now lol. My old mbp had about 4 hours with conservative use when I first got it 2 years ago and thought that battery was the greatest thing on earth haha.

Is the 540 worth it over the 450 for $160?

What do you mean by wear and tear damage isn't covered? Let me recap the damage on my old mbp from regular use. The plastic is scratched up badly on the left side of the trackpad from a watch. One or two small dents on a corner of the case. Messed up slot loading cd drive cover- all bent - thanks to the sh!t design which has the cd slot under your right palm . so that slot cd drive also had chew marks from pliers and me pulling out cds that got stuck - this is one reason they went to the unibody. The keyboard started to stick after a year and half as did the trackpad.

Anything that doesn't effect functionality does not bother me here, but if I sent it in for a sticking keyboard after two years with the accidental/advanced coverage would they cover it? Would they negate any warranties for scratches (not on the screen) or the like? Basically i just need it functional and feel that the accidental damage protects me from getting warranty coverage ever denied...and of course a catastrophic fall/spill which I have not done yet to a laptop, just small stuff building up.

Everybody's batteries seem to go after a year of heavy use unfortunatley.

 

I was pleased with a replacement I needed in the past for an old dell laptop.

How accomodating are the times of the technicians? Evening hours? Weekend hours? Unfortunately i'm not in undergrad anymore and don't have the luxury of having lots of time in the day off

If you did ship it in, I assume they just send you a box or prepaid label?

 

Just to comment on the home service on a personal experience basis - they ar superb. They are very prompt and responsive, so you dont have to worry about that part! I would choose the i5, which is more than enough and gives better battery life. I use this laptop everyday and so far it still feels brand new, the quality of this laptop is much better than the run of the mill laptops you see in most stores. I also look at some x-rays, etc and the WLED screen is very nice for it.

 

Thats definitely why i'm looking at this model vs the $600 type.

So I was just playing with the configurator, and came upon the screen option.

I know the RGBLED is no longer offered, fine with me, but there is still a 1920x1080 FHD option also labeled as WLED. Anybody have this? How much battery life does this drain? Seems for $75 it maybe worth it, more so than the $160 bump for the processor.

 

The technicians will work for you... I have not had to send my laptop out even when the motherboard was replaced. The technician came out and replaced it in front of me.

 

I haven't tried the WLED but the RGBLED is awesome lol. depending on the processor and what you will use it for, $160 may be well worth it... also don't forget to look to see if your school gets a discount rate at Dell. I got 7% off, isn't much but it is something

 

The best rate i'd get is through the EPP, 1099 for an i5 450, and everything i want besides the bigger screen for 75 dollars.

The school itself only has dell inspirons and hp pavilions. no xps or envy.

 

Well I am unsure as to your particular school but for Florida Institute of Technology, there is just a 7% off any system you buy regardless of the model. By the way, $1099 is a great price for what that laptop can do... I paid $2200 for mine a year ago. I wouldn't trade it for anything though!

 

I have both the 1080p RGBLED and 1080p WLED and they are both nice. Would I pay the $250-300 I paid for the RGBLED again after having both? Nope. Don't get be wrong, its a very beautiful screen once you configure it with a good color profile and tweaking (causes a lot of eye strain, and takes much more power = lower battery life), but at the end of the day they both are TN panels and the WLED is more the sufficient for movies and almsot everything else. If you are a hardcore photographer who needs an amazing screen, then you should skip over the RGBLED and go for an external IPS panel, which is much better (Google for comparison shots). The WLED screen is really good and better than a lot of other laptop screens. For the 1080p WLED on "Balanced Mode" on a 6-cell battery, I get 3 hours.

 

Well, you should be happy you weren't 'forced' to buy a mbp at $3500+ which covered a 'special' 4 year warranty (For duration of the school - until it gets voided for some BS like mine) and a few loaners for the 90 person class. Not so funny but that might have been the biggest i've ever been ripped off in my life.

Do you have two laptops? Or did you purchase the screen separately? just curious how much it cost/where you get parts like these?


Anyways back on topic, what are the specs of your 1080p WLED/6 cell? i5 i7?

 

Yea I had 2 laptops the 1640 (RGBLED) and the 1647 (WLED). I told you those stats on a i5 processor, which I would also recommend to you for your needs. Better battery life, less heat, and great base clock speeds. From what I have seen, you can in fact buy the RGBLED screen separately (usually they are refurbs that have been used and conditions greatly vary, but I don't want to tear apart my brand new laptop - like it the way it is!). Trust me, you wont be disappointed with the WLED 1080p screen.

 

yeah it ought to a be big improvement from the 1440x900 in these mbps.

i do appreciate the help, ive been out of the 'game' so to speak for a while now. i used to build my own desktops back in the day of the 2.4C overclocking champ and i built another one when the LGA775 first came out. Hell after a while i'll be on some windows forums or something trying to figure out 7 lol

 

Windows 7 is the best OS imho (sorry, but after using OSX, its just a lot of hype). You will manage pretty well, so don't worry about that. Please let us know if everything works out and what you finally get. Good luck.

 

Another question that popped into my mind this morning.

Does the trackpad have a vertical and horizontal scroll bar? or can you retrofit it to do two finger scrolling and three finger forward and back with the synaptics trackpad softmod i've been reading about?

 

Yes, you can scroll vertical + horizontally on the track pad. I personally don't use the track pad (external mouse is unbeatable for me), but I have read there is, in fact, multi-touch gestures with you install the Synaptics software. Just take a look around, I am sure you will find the answer.

 

for me, I prefer the driver from synaptics rather than the one provided by dell.

the main reason is the synaptics driver allows two finger scrolling, unlike the dell driver

 

Both are much faster than the C2D. The i7 is better, but the i5 should be more than adequate, even for gaming.

The XPS16 does not support switchable graphics.

This is a common misunderstanding. VGA and component video (3x RCA) use completely different signal formats. The VGA to component cables only work with very specific hardware setups specifically designed for it.

The HDMI on the XPS16 is very easy to connect to a TV, and works great.

There is always a deal. Search for Dell coupons on Google. I spent $1160 for the specs in my signature.

No, it sticks out the bottom about an inch, almost like a built-in laptop stand.

Yeah, just install the standard synaptics drivers, and all the multi-touch functions work just fine.

BTW, the WLED screens may not be what the RGBLED was, but they are still much better than the average laptop display