Dell Studio XPS 1340/1640 now available for purchase on Dell's site !!!

Can you tell which rep that was or something? I sure wish I could get a deal like that...

 

Basically i got the full hd 1080p rgbled, 2.8g duo core, x-fi sound card, 500gig hdd (i'll upgrade later cause of the slow rpm) , and bluray drive for 2,057.25 shipped. The woman is really nice and she said that she would give that exact spec and price if someone i know wanted to buy. PM me if you want her name and extension number. i'll be more than happy to give it to you.

 

Yeah, I don't want to be on the phone again (multiple times), getting switched from one rep to another, getting called back a few days later & asked what they could do for me and I reply that I've waited a month for a M1530, you know exactly what you can do for me. Actually at that point, I felt like saying you know what you can do for me, you can take that M1530 and...

Thankfully, I didn't say that (I do have respect for myself). Anyway, a few days later I canceled the order so in a way I did tell them what they can do with it.

 

does anyone know any good reps? please provide me their extension. This saves me a lot of time rather than testing out one by one

 

Well, it's possible that rep was in a good mood at the time of the call. Hey, you never know.

 

Samsung makes both SLC and MLC flash drives, with the MLC drives being cheaper&slower. Unforunately at 128GB, samsung's web page only lists an MLC model (ie the SLC model currently maxes out at 64GB). So I'd assume dell is using the slow MLC model:

http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...ucts/flash/ssd/2008/down/SATA_3.0Gbps_MLC.pdf

 

Thanks man! But, it appears since I just signed up that I cannot PM.

 

Dang! Why is there always something not good about a product.

 

email me [email protected] and i'll send you the info.

 

Hey guys,

So I'm looking for a new computer and really like the 1340. However, the 1330 has 25% off now and has a 256 gig SSD option. It's also a pound lighter than the 1340. I know people prefer the newest technology, but do you think it's worth it to get a pound heavier laptop with less hard drive space and for more money just for slightly faster speeds? I'm definitely getting the SSD and LED backlit screen. The 1340 I configured will be about $1800 after 11% off, whereas the 1330 is $1450 after 25% off. These include taxes. I really like the 1340 but the weight is the biggest issue right now. Hard decision .

 

Get m1330, i'd say.

 

Thanks for the advice. I think in my gut I want the 1340 for its technology but I'm not sure why the 1340 weighs so much more. I would have thought with things like the SSD and LED screen, it would lighten it a bit. As it stands right now, it's a pretty heavy 13'' computer. I'm coming from a 3.8 pound tablet computer so I'm pretty mobile and the 1330's weight matches the tablet's. I take it to med school classes everyday. Perhaps the weight takes into account charger??

 

I think we know can see why the SSD option was only $200 for 128GB (its basically last years MLC technology). I did order the studio 1340 with the 128gb SSD, so I'll know for sure, hopefully in about a week. The good news is the newer&faster drives will probably keep coming down in price and you can always upgrade the drive for a faster SSD drive in the future. I wouldn't pay current retail prices for the faster SSD drives anyways.

Meanwhile it's a good entry price for SSD and will hopefully keep the laptop a little cooler which has already been seen to be an issue.

 

Of course it will! Why would you think it doesn't?

Must be good ol' nVidia making people believe that the Adobe products use Cuda or something for the hardware acceleration implementation. This is NOT TRUE Adobe uses OpenGL for acceleration = it works on any graphics card that supports OpenGL!

 

Overwriting data multiple times is not the "Bare minimum" but imbecility and a waste of time.
(Want to know more? Secure deletion: a single overwrite will do it)

 

Its still an awesome upgrade though. No noise, no virbations, less heat, shock proof, lower power consumption, faster seek times, etc. As someone mentioned, SSD are dropping like a rock with capacity increasing all the time. So, you can swap in the future.

Ive been using an SSD in my TZ for about 1.5 yrs (its 32gb uSATA, lol... but, super peppy with vista), so, i cant go back to having a hot and vibrating HDD below my palm while i type.

 

Keep in mind m1330 has 4cell battery, 1340 will have 6 cell. Also I checked how much configurations would cost and older m1330 (with outdated hardware) ended up costing 100pounds less than 1340 which has ultra awesome looks and 9500 (i mean 9400m) which performs really good .

If you had 6cell m1330 next to 6cell 1340 it would still be 0.5 pound lighter than 1340.

 

And how do you know that?

 

Well, I got my tracking info. Scheduled delivery is tomorrow - Friday, 1/23. Woo hoo! Unfortunately, I have meetings all day so you won't be seeing any fancy pictures or reviews from me until perhaps late Friday evening.

btw-It appears to have shipped from Nashville, TN. I don't know anything about Dell's shipping procedures. Maybe everything comes from Nashville or perhaps that is a drop point for my region - I live in Charlotte, NC.

 

One last thing I forgot to mention yesterday that I, personally, think is hilarious.

My wife (this is a 30th birthday present for her, remember) is a vegetarian. So I bought a computer that is half wrapped in leather for a vegetarian. Maybe I'm the only person who sees the humor/irony in it, but I think it's funny.

 

Maybe she'll dislike it?

Lemme give you my address, just in case ...

 

Is she a veggie for health reasons, or just does not like killing animals for consumption? Maybe you can say its synthetic.. and, so only supporting the oil industry and climate change.

 

I live in Nashville =). There is a large Dell production plant here. They receive parts from China every day via Boeing 747 plane and build the computers here.

If it's going to be shipped right down the road, I might as well just pay less and get ground shipping and get it in a day regardless!

 

Hm, interesting. Is the 256 gig SSD that comes with the 1330 also of the slower type? How slow are these SSD's? Slower than a comparable 7200 rpm hard drive? I need fast hdd access speeds for what I do or I'll go nuts with frustration!

 

Then order it with the cheapest hard drive option and get yourself the Intel SSD.

 

has the xps 13 only got 2 usb ports?

 

Funny, I thought I was the only one who thought about doing this!

I always go with the cheapest hard drive option, then upgrade it myself. Same goes with RAM too. Dell may offer 8GB of RAM for $800, but you can get it cheaper if you look online. Heck, if you wait a few months even, Dells price will go down on its own. It saves me quite a bit of money when I upgrade parts myself.

 

Just spoke to a Dell rep who said my system would ship in the next 2-3 business days. Got excited until I realized 2-3 business days puts me exactly on the original estimated ship date. Ordered earlier than some whose systems have already shipped - not sure why, maybe it's certain component(s).

XPS 1640/P9400/4GB/128 SSD/RGBLED/BluRay

Order date: 1/8
ESD: 1/27

Got a great deal via EPP, they threw in the $200 gift card. Once arrived I will pop the back and report on the make/model of the SSD - if someone doesn't beat me to it.

I plan on running through the recommended SSD tweaks on the OCZ forum (here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=318866#post318866). Anybody know of other good SSD tweak guides? I looked through this forum but didn't see any - maybe I missed them.

 

I might do that once the price of the drive goes down. Would this SSD be sufficient for now? I've been doing some research and last year's MLC technology doesn't seem too bad. Its write speeds are kind of slow compared to the conventional hard drives, but it seems like it'll do for the time being I hope. I want the computer to last for a few years so I'd preferably want to have it built with the latest technology so there's some futureproof aspects to it. I'd be interested to hear from those who got the SSD what model it is! Thanks!

By the way, what is the $200 gift card people are getting? I was going to configure and order the computer online with 11% off (EPP 7% + Dell credit line thing 4%). Do you think it would be better to order it online or through the phone? Is the $200 promotion over? Thanks again!

 

Definitely call; my final price was over $150 cheaper than the quote I got on the EPP website. Rep didn't offer the $200 gift card, but when I gave him the item number, he added it. Item number was 467-2822. Not sure if it's still valid, but give it a shot. Good luck.

 

Still in boxing. It sure takes Dell a long time to carry it over to a box

How many others had thier 1640 in testing for multiple days? That has me a bit concerned, but I know at least one other person did. Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds, and it was just waiting, not that it failed....

That's incorrect, and a bad myth to spread. Check Steve Gibson's info at GRC.com for more if you want to. Writing over data once with zeros would do nothing to stop someone with the proper tools from retrieving the entire drive. The data being written HAS to be pseudo-random or it's worthless, and it probably needs to be done several times (though the government standard is probably overkill).

I think that $200 card's been over for a while, and it seemed like it ended sooner than it was supposed to.

Personally the only MLC drive I'd want to risk is Intel's. It seems like all the others are really slow, and not very reliable.

Which makes me wonder about the drives used in the Mini 9. They've got to be MLC presumably, and I wonder how they actually hold up to running Windows... (or if they're standard sized and can be replaced for that matter).

 

I think you should get the 1330, but thats my opinion...There are some superb deals at the Outlet right now!


Cin

 

Thanks for the help! Wow, this has become a harder decision now finding out the SSD will be slower than anticipated and with more votes for the 1330. I'll try to call and see what discounts can be applied for both computers. I read a post about how to go about asking for discounts on the phone. Did you all just follow that list...ie. go through every upgrade and ask what they can do for you. I'd be interested if anyone has a extension # for a nice rep if you have it! PM me if you do =). Thanks again!

 

Here's my two cents for no apparent reason. Honestly I'm not sure which I'd get if it were me. The CPU difference won't be that major. The GPUs aren't all that much different (theoretically the 1340 could be better if SLI is actually working, but that's an if and it's still not great). I'd rather have an Intel chipset on the 1330, but on the other hand there were those issues with the last generation GPUs...although presumably not with the ones that Dell is still shipping in new systems.

So...I don't know. If the 1340 had Blu Ray it would be an easy decision!

 

No, m1330 comes with a 6 cell battery as a minimum (at least on the Canadian website), and there's an option for a 9 cell battery too.

 

Yes, only 2 USB ports, and one of them is a shared eSATA/USB port.

 

I'm a tad confused about how that shared thing works. I guess it's cool it has eSATA though. (That doesn't accept normal SATA connection though, does it?) Hopefully it's easy to use it with USB.

 

Speed-wise SSD is comparable to a good 7200rpm drive, so it's your choice. I would choose a smaller capacity SSD, like 128 or even 64 for longer battery life and because it doesn't have any spinning parts, but if the speed is the only concern, then go with the 7200rpm, they are still faster.

 

The little "e" in eSATA means External. So, of course, it's a port to connect external hard drives. It is shared with USB, meaning that you can plug either an USB cable or eSATA cable into that same port (not 2 cables at the same time, but 1 at a time, lol).

 

Speaking of the Studio XPS 13, any word on what GPU the Dell Adamo is going to be using? Will it use the same hybrid graphics (GeForce 9400M G + GeForce 9200M GS)?

The Dell Adamo was shown at CES, but the specifications were not revealed for some reason.

 

If you go with m1330, the first thing you do when you get it is update the firmware (system BIOS) -- it will solve the GPU overheating issues that some people were complaining about. After that install the latest nVidia drivers. This link will take you to both Dell site for updated BIOS and actual video card drivers:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_drivers.html

Good luck.

 

No specific specs released yet! The Adamo is my next lappy purchase.

See this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4403391


Cin

 

Yes, it's still a secret. According to Dell reps, Adamo was to be released in the first half of 2009, but according to a post on Engadget yesterday, it looks like Adamo will be released only in the second half of 2009. If it's true, there's no point in waiting for it. I was also waiting to compare the specs (1340 vs Adamo), but i guess i will just go with 1340.

I like your avatar: Soyuz nerushimih respublik svobodnyh, yeah!

 

Can you please link that info from Engadget??

Thx.


Cin.

 

Yes, Cin, you are welcome, here it is:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/21/dell-adamo-to-hit-the-streets-in-the-second-half-of-2009/

 

Thank you very much!

I'm going to link this to the Adam thread..and give you credit for finding it, ok??


Cin

 

Mine is in production stage since over a week ago. I've called twice, but they never tell me whether it is in testing or not. Seems to me they are looking at the same screen that I am.

 

Once again, there are 20% and 25% off coupons for the M1330 floating around. If the M1330 ran on the Montevina platform, I'd jump on that. But no...

Dear Dell Marketing Dept: coupons for the 1340, please and thank you?

 

If you are in the US you can call for an automated order status.

1-800-433-9014

Enter or say your 9 digit order number and it will give you the current status of your order. I have noticed that every other call gets answered by the wrong department. If it doesn't say automated order status hang up and call again.

 

Bukket...

That was a life-saver (for me)....mine's in production for more than a week and still shows "in production" on the website but when I called that # right now, it says the order's in "boxing" stage. Woot.

I guess the website is a little misleading.