Its Here! - DELL XPS M1530 - User Review (in progress)

Have not opened it yet, will be taking pics for next 30 min then will put them online for you guys.

SPECS:
2.4GHZ 4MB Duo 2 Core
3GB Ram
120GB 7200 HDD
Geforce 8600 GT
Bluetooth option
DVD-RW
Crimson Red



So the boxes are pretty cool, Silver XPS logo with some fancy graphics.
& it looks like Canadains get that remote for free!

the power adapter is pretty cool as well, no velcro on this guy just a rubber strap .



You get some neat earplugs that are noise supressant, also a microfribre cloth to make your XPS even more kickass. Time to look at the goods.



The case itself is very cool. has a mesh like style with XPS all over it. However the flap closes down via 2 disc magnets, and as we all know, magnets +computers=bad news!


The Crimson red is very sweet looking, it has no shine and is almost matte. The XPS & Dell logo makes themselves know almost looking metallic and is quite reflective.


The battery & fan exahust! The battery sticks out or protrudes as you will, about 1 inch. It does however add to the overall look with this laptop open and i found it helps with typing as it raises the keyboard up as if you put the legs down on your PC keyboard.


My systems only flaw. a Bay cover that was not put into the slot all the way, i have to find some screwdrivers small enough and slip it in myself, other than that shes all good!


Front & Right Side of M1530
The SD/HS/Pro Card reader is right on the front & labeled, Dell has provided filler card for you
As you can see the Barrel hinge is a very cool feature. On my model is is not that stiff & my toshiba's school laptop is about twice as stiff and sometimes will left the Laptop back.


The Left Side of the Laptop, Very clean to look at and accesible. One problem I can see is the USB/power/monitor out are all very close together, you will have to most likely look at the side when you wish to plug in USB when you have power & VGA hooked in.

If you dont know already, the reason that white foam is there is to protect your screen, the keyboard buttons are flat however in time they will rub.


The keyboard & faceplate ill call it is very appealing & clean, My only peve about this layout is that the Centrino Duo Label does not have a 2 on it! I do however remove these labels with a hot steam cloth to keep that overall clean feel. The Fingerprint reader is average size however someone with larger fingers will have trouble making their finger read. The Mousepad has good feel, however if your hand is a bit clammy like any other mousepad it will make things a bit more sower with more friction.


Your media keys are easily seen from all angles and distances, once in time you will memorize the size. I definatley miss my wheel volume tho in a hurry i can always throw it to the left killing volume instead of having to press a button.

Overall the laptop is sleek, stylish and has a bit of attitude on the cover with the Crimson Red I picked.

The webcam is very well hidden and you wont even know its there, which can be a bad thing sometimes! However software bundled can enable motion tracking, timelapse photos, and much more, very powerful software included from creative!



The screen is overly reflective when booting up and when the screen is not full of color. Howver the pure vibrance & sharpness of the glossy screen is astouding! If you are using this laptop near a window or light, you will either have to tilt the screen or rotate the laptop so you dont focus on the reflection, however these things do not bother me.
The power cord is in a nice spot as for me when I want to move a laptop i lift up the front and drag it back or forard, however with a plug on the back you cannot do this as you will pinch it.
Upon starting up the laptop you will be greated with a DELL windows login screen to start the login process, grab something to eat it will take about 5-10 min.


The keyboard is eronomic & practical, it is almost like my toshiba laptop except for the del key at the top right corner, very easy to find however. The shift & tab keys are in natural positions & can easily be found without looking. They are long enough so you dont have to search too much.
The buttons are slightly stiffer however you will know when you have pressed the button and will lift to go onto your next key without slamming it against the laptop on like other laptops where the keys take a breath to activate.

They remote is fairly simple to active, however you must turn on screen notifactions to tell you that you are turning the volume up or down as only a small taskbar will appear for the quickset and then it disapears,

On the last image you will see the laptop lid partially open, this is when mine will start to creep to fall & then after about 1/2 an inch it will just fall down. I am going to see if there is anyway to increase tension for the lid.


More to Follow...Benchmarks, Webcam Footage/Pics.



After 2 days of using the m1530 here are some pros-cons - not performance related. but usability.

My Cons of m1530:
-pause break is not on the same key, windows key +pause or windows key +break or windows key +pause+break do not activate system props
-VGA connection does not have screw wholes - VGA cable can come out easily.
- No sound dial - push button only.
-delete key is top right of keyboard - takes some getting used to.
-right shift key is too small
-needs one more usb port on right side
-left usb ports are tight squeeze between power & VGA
-headphone jack is problem with 1/4" convertor to 1/8"headphone jack as when 9cell battery it raises back, lowers front, adapter will hit table if front is not boosted up.
-my hinge is not as stiff as i would want it to be, toshiba hinge is 3X as stiff.
-wireless switch is not as secure as one would want.

My pros-
-Screen is very bright-sharp & saturation is great from a photographers point of view. Actually have to turn it down 1-2
-Excellent viewing angles, screen remains very bright & sharp
-with 9cell battery keyboard is more natural with slight raise & not flat.
-LCD lights/status on top of keyboard are easy to read & not distracting
-webcam has option to disable blue indicator light - also has remote monitoring feature to upload to FTP

Weirdness
-when LCD lid closed & VGA attached, laptop goes into 1 monitor mode to VGA
-Function Keys still work without Quickset installed
-Ejecting CDs via laptop button freezes system until CD is ejected (XP TEST BED), explorer - drive -eject does not freeze.


** GOT QUICKSET TO WORK WITH XP & M1530**
I got Curious as to why i could not install quckset. So i went searching, and read this int he Readme.txt File.

I just used the Latitude D830 R165094.EXE that someone mentioned however i am sure it would work with the m1330 driver.

m1330 driver http://ftp.us.dell.com/app/R163012.EXE

Basically this will skip all checks windows version does & install it anyways behind everything.

For Advanced Users Only:
------------------------

Silent Install Option

QuickSet is installed via an InstallShield installation program and thus has the ability to be "silently" installed through the "-S" command-line switch. QuickSet includes an .ISS file in the distribution package for customers who wish to perform silent installs. Example: "SETUP.EXE -S".
Nvidia Monitoring



Stability Test


Stats Page


OverClock Settings


Download Nvidia Tune
http://findfiles.com/list.php?strin...xp_international.exe&size=43265912&db=Mirrors

Surround Sound Options for Music.
Simply select a Headphone out jack, select front spekers, and it will go from, headphone1, headphone 2, line in to these settings, Front, Centre, Rear


MEDIA BUTTONS IN WINAMP
Drop this DLL into the winamp plugins folder, restart winamp & it will work for you now!
http://www.mijav.dk/inspiron8600_dll.zip

 

nice cant wait for the pics!

 

looking forward to the pics, after you power up, let us know if there is any noticeable drive noise as mentioned in the review from the hard drive and slot drive.

 

Hope it's a good one (no scratches, damaged parts, etc.)!

 

are you suppose to let the laptop charge for 24 hours before you use it? I thought i heard that somewhere

 

That is certainly not necessary.

 

When you configured your M1530, did you chose the Media express remote in the bluetooth section? Or did they automatically include it? I'm really confused over this... dont want to pay an extra $20, and whind up getting 2 remotes(and i have no use for a bluetooth express remote...)

 

Leftover battery myth from the Ni-Cad days.

 

very nice pictures

 

wow awesome review and pics! it looks sweet!

 

how's the sounds and the touchpad?

 

Dell adapters have been using the rubber strap for a while

Those are some very detailed pictures. Great job. + rep.

Looks like Dell did a great job on the 1530.

Did you get 2 headphones/remotes as well?

 

Afaik, the remote is IR, not bluetooth.

Some nice pics OP, congrats on the new setup

 

i got bluetooth, only 1 remote however. i did not order a remote.

the touchpad buttons do not click and are consistant.which is kind of weird
sound is pretty good for a laptop.

My gawd vista is terrible formating it right now without benchmarking will let you know how that goes.

 

Why is Vista terrible? I have heard so many people complain about it yet I have not had any problems with it.

It is not the big upgrade from XP everyone was hoping for, but it really has been smooth for me (except a couple of programs that wouldn't run).

Let me know....

 

Wrong. The m1330 adapter is designed different and comes with a Velcro strap.

 

Yeah, for the 1330. However, Dell has been using the rubber strap device for other systems' power supplies (mainly inspirons) for quite a while....

 

ive been a power user in XP for 3+ years and going to vista is unneccesary & time consuming. Vista is bad for me, but not for everyone.

If i were corporate and i needed security sure I would use it.

But all programs i have used were XP and vista really didnt bring anything new to the table i needed (areo is cool but i like my normal alt tab better)

Going to run 3dmark06 and then format! See how much of a boost I get.

PS: webcam is absolutley awesome! You can do remote webcam as well. you can go up to 1600X1200(like5fps) for videos/pics and also do multiple capture & motion capture.

 

do u think the magnet plates in the xps sleeve will actually hurt the computer...?

 

The magnets in the sleeve are barely powerful enough to keep the sleeve closed let alone damage your system.

 

lol ok sweet

 

web cam - 640X480

1600X1200


Ya thats me

Web cam @ 640X480 for 15 seconds came out to 200MB * this in uncompressed, u can select your codec with supplied software.

I put it in movie maker @ 2.1MPS it came down to 4.2MB with a title on the front too.
WEBCAM VIDEO

On either side of the camera are omni-directional microphones

Vista does not seem to want to connect to my AP, took 3 min to find it, put in my codes and it still doesnt want to go threw with it? XP:2 Vista:-2

 

nice! i like the leg lol

 

lol, nice pics

How's the noise in your opinion? The review by JerryJ said the HDD was very loud and annoying...so I'm considering buying a seagate to replace the hitachi HDD that comes with it.

 

i can hear it click nothing worse than my toshiba.

its not louder than white noise. the fan is resonable, it has a lower tone so it will be heard over longer distance.

PS: 4502 3dmark06, stock from dell

 

First time poster here...

I am about to click the Submit button on an order for the m1530, but had a quick question. My apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to ask.

How easy is it to re-format and downgrade to XP on a Vista machine? Is there anything I need to know in order to do that? I'm a computer programmer so I already know how to do it etc, but I read somewhere yesterday that installing XP on this machine will render the touch volume controls inoperable. Hopefully someone here will know if that is true or not.

Thanks!

 

Do you have the intel abg wifi card or the agn?

They have been known to have problems with some routers on vista. It's pot luck if you have any problems or not, though. Some routers have had firmware updates to work properly with vista.

 

Do you think you can make a "Windows XP" Thread for the M1530 with the drivers you find and links to them? That would be really nice.

 

Awesome job! Is the 8600m GT on the 1530 GDDR3 or DDR2?

 

i posted the Xp drivers i found under the official driver thread for 1530

i am in process of formating, it is SATA so i need to find those drivers, the installation says it cannot find any hard drives on the computer so that has to be it.. Looking for those drivers now.

I got 4502 with the videocard in 3dmark06, it is GDDR3.

 

Are you sure it's GDDR3 coz it doesn't say on the site ( Dell.ca)

Also, what specs did you get it with and what was the cost? If you don't mind me asking...

 

It is gddr3. I remeber the official nbr reviewer looked at the part numbers on the video card to confirm that it was gddr3 memory.

 

Thanks. My finger, is on the button...(literally, I'm about to order). I have one question: should I go for the 160gb 5400rpm HD or the 120gb 7200rpm HD? Price is not an issue.

 

Yes I'm aware of that. My point was mis-worded.

 

Nice review!

 

SPECS:
2.4GHZ 4MB Duo 2 Core
3GB Ram
120GB 7200 HDD
Geforce 8600 GT
Bluetooth option
DVD-RW
Crimson Red
9Cell Battery
3year Lojack -
Belkin Red Case
PC- $1620


Just got - 4337 in 3dmark, went down 165 marks -
I only updated the video drivers so far so i have to update everything else

 

the pics sure kicked some serius ass...how do ya like the screen and noise...

 

everything looks amazingly sharp when looking at my 3MB 10GP photos i take, havnt tried a movie yet.

games looked amazing

 

the low res didnt make it look to bad with semi high/high settings on? Interested to hear about the movie quality!

(As a side note if I put a game in on my desktop and put the screen size at 1280x800 will that be how it looks on the 1530? Or are desktops set up different? Dont know anything about computers haha sorry )

 

That depends on whether you have an LCD or CRT. If it is LCD, than anythin other than your LCD's native resolution will look like crap. CRT doesn't matter as much.

 

Since price doesn't matter, definitely get the 7200 RPM drive. The bottleneck in that system will be the HDD. The 7200 RPM drive is the way to go.

 

Well, if price is REALLY no object, than go with the 64GB SSD.....

 

over 100 gb at 5400 actually isnt really that slow...density matters kids

 

so if my lcd is 1650x1200 or whatever then id need a laptop with that res to make it look decent or can I make the res 1650x1200 when its hooked up to my laptop? I know theres something about not being able to make the laptop's screen res higher than its native, but does that apply when you hook it up to a lcd too?

 

Price between the 160gb and the 120gb 7200rpm.

 

Haha. Yeah, an SSD would be IDEAL, but since it's not an option, def. get the 120gb 7200rpm drive.

 

What's the deal with the power brick? As small and light as the M1330's? Can we get a another pic please??

 

no more pics of powerbrick sorry, its about 2lbs. a little larger than i used to. its been on for about 5 hours and its only warm to touch

 

Thanks for putting the effort in for all of us. I might have missed it, but what is your impressions on the noise from the hard drive.

 

ive yet to hear it.

i had 2 external hdds (7200 segeates) and a 5400RPM in my toshiba and after all the installation i could neither feel nor hear the HDD. I just knew it was working cause of the hdd light.

Programs install wicked fast & startup super fast (XP) and thats with my botched setup.