New Dell XPS L521X (Ivy Bridge)

What is so innovative? Dual fans and heatpipes aren't breaking any new ground on laptops. How can you tell that they've "clearly put a focus on cooling"? It doesn't really look that different from the previous generation?

 

There has been no news regarding the new XPS 15 therefore no harm discussing the competition, unless you prefer another 20 pages of people repeating what ports are visible on the leaked xps pictures

 

haha changed it now, I was meant to call the guy claiming apple was good at cooling a fanboy. Possibly the worst cooling on any laptop, apple fanboys believe everything that apple does is "innovative" or the first of it's kind, NOTHING is original.

 

Hey all, been following the thread as i intend on getting the new XPS 15 when it comes out...my two biggest things are trackpad (two finger scrolling) and screen quality...

Now on the subject of cooling and Macs (as it seems the discussion has turned a little into that)...i know there are alot of smart people here...what do people think of the new fan system in the Mac Book Pro Retinal...I don't fully understand it but they are saying they have the fan assymetrical so the sound get spread over a number of frequencies - is this a gimmick or will it actually work?

 

honestly, while looking at pics, it seemed alot like what almost all the gaming laptops are doing with their fan arrangement... maybe diff materials?

 

I'm also not sure where they are getting asymmetric from that. The image linked earlier looks very symmetric.

And onto the display. I saw Anandtech's impressions of the screen, and more specifically, the gaming performance of Diablo 3. Wasn't D3 specifically designed to be able to work on Retina displays. And yet the only device with those can only manage 20fps on "the most intense scenes" they've unlocked so far. Meaning there are probably more intense sections left to be unlocked.

 

no, the so called innovation in the new mbp only concerns the sound emitted by the fans, not their cooling effectiveness... of course with lower noise they could raise RPM to offset the increase in hardware power, but I doubt they will.
the typical mac user is happy with a silent laptop that doubles as bbq grill... (it's not a design flaw, it's a feature)

 

If you do an online search of "MBP overheat" you will pull in 2-3x the number of complaints/issues/challenges than almost any other laptop manufacturer. The fact that they've packed top-shelf specs into a thinner chassis than ever before, and claim to have figured out a way to alter the fans to reduce sound and better dissipate heat is a near-impossible long-shot.

I guarantee you when anyone uses Photoshop or Autocad on the MBPwRD, that thing is going to smoke. The old MBPs do it. The new iPad does it. Apple did not crush unicorn dust into this thing. Apple makes wonderfully aesthetic products, no doubt. And they know how to pack a lot into a little. But they are confined by the same physics as the rest of the industry. It will get hot, it will make noise -- they have solved nothing.

 

Looking at the new XPS15 photos... I noticed the security connector is on the right hand side near the palm rests (next to headphone/mic jacks).

This is such a bad spot, it should be at the back of the laptop near the lid hinges on the sides or even back.

How many people are going to have issues with this on their desks... my office is arranged in such a manner that having it in that spot is a total no no.... such a shame.

 

if you look at the design of the MBP they realy did think about cooling
the vents on the side a kind of high up when veiwed in the side profile so cool air can enter easy on a bed, desk or lap

II. the speakers done fill the whole space there but are designed to allow a passage way for the air entering the vents to get to the fan /MB
the placement of the flash SSD means that will be cooled as air has to pass along that part idk about the ram

i still question the fan design and y they just did not leave the heat pipes and head sync as copper like what lenovo does or some gaming laptops do to me painting it black is a waste ...

but i hope dells internal arrangement of the new XPS is a bit more refined than the current XPS 15z ....... apples internal design is neater and i hope dell took note and integrated some stuff to save space since they wanna get into the slim laptop game as well as i hope the XPS base is carbon-fiber

 

The design of the Retina MBP is innovative because the blades on the fans radiate from the center in a non-uniform way. They have spaced the fan blades "asymmetrically" around the center. It has nothing to do with the placement of the fans themselves within the chassis. The claim is that this disperses the fan noise over a broader frequency range in order to make it *appear* quieter to the user. This will most likely result in a less shrill hum and there's no reason to doubt it will be quieter rpm for rpm than other fans. (This is NOT the same thing that Noctua is attempting, if you're wondering).

The problem with this is that physics dictates that the most efficient way to move air through a fan is with *symmetrical* fan blades... that's why the fans of the world are designed in this way. No doubt apple will increase the fan speed to push higher a CFM in order to push more air.... and, since they're touting it, the end result is probably a marginal increase in air moved at a given dB.

However... +1 to the Muffin Man... there are NO magic tickets out of the physics. The fact is that the added air intake grills in the front of the chassis and the two extra fans (four fans total) added to pull cool air in are the more decisive elements that will give it an edge over previous MBP's... more so than an asymmetrical fan design. The fact that the case is designed to be a heatsink means that, unfortunately for Apple, the case becoming hot *IS* a feature in their cooling system... this is unlikely to change.

 

Please, stop talkin' about the MBP in this thread!! Move to the appropriate one please! We're (or at least, I'm) *NOT* going to buy apples, we want the new XPS...

 

dude we are just comparing and contrasting the new mac and xps no harm done
and we havent really got any new info on the XPS soo

 

@Bill, you mentioned a couple days ago that you knew something about the 3760. Can you talk about it now? Has Dell discontinued 17" Vostros?

New Ivy Bridge Vostro 3000 Series Laptops: Performance, Styling and Security in One Package - Direct2Dell - Direct2Dell - Dell Community

 

+1

fun to talk about tech while we wait for news on the XPS - with people who are interested in the XPS

 

I guarantee this has been done for years on other devices, apple gives a false impressions of "innovation" with everything. Heck, most apple fanboys probably thing this dual fan setup is the first of it's kind.

They even had the cheek to show a graph showing IOS as the most user satisfaction of any OS, when all surveys done in the last month show windows phone coming out on top, this is bordering on false advertising half the time! And I'm an IOS user just to clarify.

 

Just pre-ordered my Samsung Galaxy S3!! Sorry i'm very excited, but about the MBP;

Do we know if they had to under-clock the GT 650M to reduce heat? If i remember correctly haven't they under-clocked GPUs in the past?

 

Actually, part of my point was that it probably hasn't been done on other devices because it most likely only gives marginal payoffs because of the added inefficiency. There are engineers at Antec, Zalman, et al. whose sole purpose in life is to develop fan technology that is quieter and more efficient... none of which involves this kind of design. Nonetheless, it's likely that this very specific application saw marginal gains, which is better than nothing. Either way, the "innovation" deserves the air quotes.

 

i think its the death of the 17" this year once 15" models start getting 1080 P and higher res displays i dont think there is need for 17 " models but who knows what dell is doing

right now i want info on the US spec dell XPS 15 ...... the full works dell sorry to say u are sticking real bad to announce the XPS i car about XPS now not vostro

 

They probably disabled the Kepler turbo while the CPU is turbo and vice versa. If they down locked the 650m they would probably just call it a 640m... the new cooling design is a big improvement over the last mbp and those of you who don't think so are just fooling yourselves.....

They obviously realized that there 7.5 million or WHATEVER hits about overheating and greatly focused on it with this new revision that's why they show the improved cooling system as a major part of the new mbp.

Before you call me a fan boy or something, know that I absolutely hate HATE apple but this new mbp is the next Gen of laptops and I'm very pleased with it. It is a little overpriced but considering apples pricing and what you get for the 2200$ retina model its quite amazing.

Dell you still have a chance at my money over apple but only if: it has a msata ssd blue ray and is reasonably priced (not over 1100 starting)

 

I give Apple major props for getting rid of the outdated and stupid ODD. XPS is a guarantee for me if they offer the matte option.

 

It is supposed to be matte but than with a layer of gorilla glass so it's kinda both in one?...

 

I've read that its still very glossy because of the gorilla glass even despite the matte screen... I wouldn't get my hopes up for a screen that's matte looking.

 

could any one tell its release date i have been waiting for this laptop for over 2 months
also if someone could qoute its baseline price
I am from India so would prefer to know its release date in India and its cost in India. If that is not possible its worldwide release date also work

 

The only thing we know about release is June 22 - July 1 worldwide.

 

I'm not a fan of Gorilla Glass on a consumer laptop. Granted, I appreciate it on my phone, but how many of us are picking and prodding our gorgeous laptop screens?

 

It reportedly costs Apple about $100 to add the 2880x1800 display over the 1440x900 one. Hopefully Dell and other PC makers decide to add this as an option in future versions of the XPS for an extra $100. They can go 2x 1080p and beat Apple.

 

I would have rather they made the screen oleophobic, even a hydrophobic coating would have been more practical.

 

I agree, I have never worried about scratching my laptop screen since I make sure nothing at all even touches the display. I'm using a matte screen right now and it actually seems fairly hard to scratch. Matte alone would be ideal.

 

No, because MS and all other software designers would have to re-write their progs and apps to accommodate that rez. Apple doesn't care -- developers be damned in their eyes. Apple will do what it does and either you go along with it or not. With 5% of the world marketshare in laptops and desktops, what do they care? But by their own admission any program that wants to take advantage of the Retina rez must be re-coded to do so. MS may be somewhat ancient and out of touch at times, but with 90%+ of the world marketshare, they're beholden to quite a few more cubicles. Windows 8 will allow up to 2560x1440.

 

Why is that important? These aren't touchscreens, and you shouldn't be touching them. I clean my phone screen several times a day, as opposed to once a week for my laptop screen. And that's usually just dust, which takes a simple wipe down.

I'd much prefer they just keep the matte option. I used the Samsung Series 9 (which has a matte screen) and it's gorgeous.

 

Is there a thread discussing this issue anywhere on NBR?

I mentioned this earlier, but the heat complaints for the M14x have disappeared on the R2. While it's obvious they put some thought into cooling (they had to because the complaints are so numerous), they've also put as much or more thought into marketing their new thermal implementation, as they always do. I'm not bashing them. I'm in marketing, so really, the innovation I admire in their fan/heatsink layout is their ability to tell the story. It's brilliant, really.
While not every single Dell system can brag about cooling, we've had some seriously serious hardware in the field that never had big cooling issues. Precision, most Alienwares, some of the early XPS systems, to name a few.
Our fan "innovation" on the M14xR2 is interesting. Louis (lead graphics engineer for Alienware) showed me the new fan when I mentioned we weren't seeing any heat complaints. All we did was raise the position of the fan on the Z axis by a couple of millimeters and decrease the length of the fan blades by 50%. This created something on the order of a 60% boost in CFM. Heat problem solved. I wonder how much the CFM increase on the new MBP is. Has to be at least 3000% if you believe the marketing, right? Magic>science.

So eager to hear about this once systems are tested.

iMac for video editing is so old news, and I can cite that.
Video Professionals Find a Compelling Video Editing Alternative with Dell Precision Workstations + NVIDIA Quadro Graphics - Direct2Dell - Direct2Dell - Dell Community

You can tell by the marketing message. If they say they worked on their magic, they worked on their magic.

Indeed. I can now talk Vostro 17. We have moved off offering a 17" in some platforms, because the unit sales just are not there across the board. Managing a product platform requires a base expenditure, and we simply do not have enough revenue from 17" sales across all platforms to justify offering one for every product line. If you look at the Inspiron R Special Edition, you will note the hardware offerings there are unusual for the Inspiron line. We basically put XPS, and even XPS+, level hardware in that system. It is meant as a "catch all" for all those 17" PC customers we left out of the Vostro party. The pricing on it ain't too shabby either.

See you and your money on launch day. And you did say "starting." Gonna be close.

 

Any more info on the teaser page?

 

By this I would assume the starting is $1099 in US and hopefully £799 depending on how dell wants to treat us in the UK with a fairly reasonable conversion (real is £706) Could you hint if this is for the big or smaller brother? tehee

 

On this side of the ocean we never get that kind of treatment! I cant see it being less than 1000 pounds. Look at price for the XPS 13. £949 but $999.

 

Seriously? FFS. Prove us wrong bill!!

 

@Bill Will Dell make their new laptops available to the Dell University site for Students on launch day?

 

i'm really worried about xps price...any chances for a 800$ starting price?

 

Teaser page- A lot going on behind the scenes. I can say the reasons for no teaser page this week are PR-related. Big picture stuff. It's getting down to crunch time, so it may come at an oddly late date, considering we've all been asking about it for a couple of weeks.

Conversion rates are not dollar-to-Sterling for any product I know of. Check our gas prices vs your petrol prices. We pay roughly about a half a quid per liter of gas. It's not the evil Big Oil gouging the good citizens of the UK. It's other factors. (Gas/petrol is probably a bad comparison, because there are a lot of environmental factors that drive governments to artificially increase taxes on gas, but you get my drift, right?)

 

Can you really not read just about 6 posts above you?

 

taxes on electronics are very high in the uk, as bill mentioned a few post back... in Italy the xps 13 start at 1150€ (921£), so they didn't treat us much better. I'm expecting 1099€ as starting price, 999 if they offer a really basic start configuration

 

1100$ I'm out.

 

Im from Ireland and the 13 is €1150 here too. Id still be very shocked to get a base config for €1000. Considering the old 15Z was €929 and these will be a much more premium laptop.

 

Very good question. I'll check.

$800 is more Inspiron/Vostro territory. If you find the Coupon Code of Doom, you may be able to get an outlet XPS for around that at some point in the product life cycle.

+Rep The Muffin Man, people. He's a bit surly sometimes, but he's a great community member and deserves some rep, IMO.

 

OT:
we are charged 0,000981 € for every lt of gas to pay for the etiopian war... not the recent one, I'm talking about the 1935 conquest . And that's just a little example, we are paying at least 0.3€/lt of taxes to "help" the victims of various natural disaster of the last 80 years. My government is not really green-minded

 

What really is going to be revealed in the teaser page? Just a few Design Features and Specs along with a few decent images?

 

Ireland= €1.50 per litre! Ridiculous!

 

we pay 1.808€/lt (last time I checked) but a few months back I paid 1.946€/lt
END OT (sorry)

 

That's one of the main reasons i'm buying Dell, the $200 gift card.

 

@Bill: I have a few question for you, but feel free to ignore them if you don't know (or if it's difficult for you to obtain) the answer, since those are strictly related to Dell service in Italy:

1- We don't have anything like dell university, and I feel really bad about it: both sony.it and store.apple.com/it (the only two great online shop, other than dell) offers a 7-10% discount on laptops for student. Why can't dell offer something similar? (or at least free delivery, I don't ask for much)

2- you previously stated that dell laptops are completely user-serviceable without breaking the warranty. Is that policy limited to the states only? A friend of mine bought an Alienware last year, and confirmed to me that he didn't find anything to support that claim in the contract with dell.

Thank you