New Dell XPS L521X (Ivy Bridge)

Yeah, I only have two USB ports on my current device, and it's mostly been fine.

 

Edit : forgot to answer this one...

You've talked about PLS a few time, but haven't seen much info about it. Care to say more? Or provide a link? What's so great about PLS?

I also believe it'll be enough, although I did once use all the 6 USB ports my Inspiron 9400 offers! But 6 was just exagerated, not even couting internal usb bluetooth!

Now, My secondary monitor (Dell by the way ) acts as a hub, to wich I plug my two TV-Tuners and wireless headset. My monitor sort-of became my docking station

Although I think 3 is gonna be enough, I'd hate to see less than 3! If you really need more than 3, you're more than likely looking for a something like a "usb docking station" or a usb hub... Unless I'm mistaken, when you have more than 3 device to plug, it's not on the go, but at a desk or somewhere else where having a hub sitting there will do just fine!

 

From the picture (and leaked information).
Do you think XPS 15 will weight less than 2.4kg (5.3 lbs) ?
Anyone?

 

It'll start around 5.73 lbs and go up from there, depending on whether or not the battery is replaceable. I believe the new 15 comes with either an 8 or 9-cell, so there really wouldn't be a need to make it replaceable.

 

The Muffin Man said something important about the battery, is it gonna be replaceable or is it going to be integrated without possibilities of buy a secondary and relace it?? There is info about it? (in the case of the xps15)

Now with the USB port i Think it is ok, I possiblily will connect an external mouse, maybe the second and third one will be used for a usb flash drive and an external HDD, but this ones will not be connected all the time, so 3 USB it's ok for me.

About the weight 5.73lbs or 2.6kg personally think it's fine, In my case I don't have problem with carry some weight (obviously no excessive like more that 3-4kg (talking about laptops)) but sometimes I have loaded even 7kg (around 15-16lbs) in books in my backpack and it is not a big problem for me although I'm not gonna carry my laptop every single day at college.

I suddenly remembred something important about connectivity, I know that hdmi ports are present in the xps15 but what about a vga port?? (i think that is). In my college there are not screens with hdmi support in case I may need to connect my laptop to them, I think they only have a some like serial/vga ports.

 

I just read this article about MBP:
Scheduled Down Time
http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/13/retina-mpb-ifit-teardown/

I hope Dell doesn't follows this way:
Ram solder.
SSD with proprietary connection.
Battery integrated and glued to chassis.
Display, Wi-Fi antenna and glass in one piece.

For now we can say Dell maybe has some points like these:
Battery integrated (hope no glued to chassis) and maybe display glued to Gorilla glass...

 

Hopefully the new xps will have dual fans...

The Samsung 7 Series has an DVD drive and still has two fans. However, the screen sucks so bad it's not even funny. Great design with a really bad flaw...

 

Maybe 2 weeks ago I asked Bill about the battery in XPS 15: obviousely he couldn't answer directly, but i wrote that "the trend in high-end laptops seems to be enclosed batteries"...
Bad news for me, I often use my laptop on my desk for many hours, so I generally prefer to unplug battery and use AC, in order to avoid battery heating (it would degrade the battery) and unwanted charge cycles (you know that the number of discharge-charge cycles is limited for every battery).

@Bill: if the battery is enclosed, maybe there would be a tweak that makes the laptop use the AC once the battery is 100%. I mean..if I'm playing a game, I can't waste time to check battery level

 

Muffin Man, dude. Stop already. You're killing me with the Romanian thing. lol

This applies to the GPU's Dell will offer, and is not necessarily aligned with Nvidia's full scope of offerings. This is also not specific to any speculation or product that may or may not exist in the near future.

As a rule of thumb, Dell offerings of Nvidia GPU's will be: 630M and below- Fermi. 640M and up- Kepler. Don't even bother asking about LE variants and what will be offered on the specific, supposed model being speculated about on this thread. However, speculate away! Because it's fun.

I can't say what the supposed 14" system in the XPS line will have, if there is in fact a 14" in development or about to launch.

I didn't even start with the Retina model, since we don't have a resolution that high. Kind of illustrates the fruit brand's upgrade pricing strategy, though, right? Not that we're sqeaky clean on that front, but at least you can upgrade parts on our systems for the most part. I'll just leave this here.

I addressed this question as best I could several pages back. Basically, the Gigabyte looks good, but I don't think we will lose anywhere by comparison if and when we ever have a competing product in the market.

Incorrect info, if the systems shown on the Romanian site were to ever exist at any point in the future. 4xx and 5xx are previous gen.

2 fans /= better cooling than a single fan setup all the time. M4600 bears that out, right? I'll fix one part for you: that's M14xR1. You will find the R2 is a whole new ball game... one fan and all. To wit:

WIKI...Ultrabook...blah blah blah... Just had to + a Canadian repping Kids in the Hall. "My pen! My pen!"

See: Alienware M14xR2 if you gotta have that GPU. (This comment in no way applies to the supposed system being speculated about on this thread.)

 

It will have a miniDisplay port for which you can buy a VGA adapter for very cheap:

Newegg.com - Inland PRO Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter Model 08600

 

But that Macbook is 18mm thick and is too thick to have a disk drive. The XPS 15 at least, isn't an ultrabook, and is going to have a disk drive. It's highly unlikely that Dell would solder to the board.

 

A new technology named Super PLS (Plane to Line Switching) has been developed by Samsung with the intent of superseding conventional IPS. Samsung claims the following benefits of Super PLS (commonly referred to as just "PLS") over IPS:

100 percent improvement in viewing angle
10 percent increase in brightness
Up to 15 percent decrease in production costs
Increased image quality(wiki)
also you can see anandtech's review of XPS One 27
AnandTech - Dell XPS One 27 Review: The Premium All-in-One

 

The problem isn't to have disk drive, but why Apple choices proprietary connection for SSD, or solder RAM?
The answer is: so SSD and RAM are non-upgradeable...

 

Hmm. Apparently the 28nm version IS fermi, but with significantly reduced power consumption. I don't think it's possible for you to find out if it's the 28nm card or the 40nm card? (Both Fermi) Even if there isn't, there's still hope! Do you have an opinion on the Vostros bill?

 

Bill,it seems not only the cat is out of the bag but also it is hunting rats!

 

Ok, but we haven't any info about 15" display, we know only that is FHD with 350nit and 500:1 contrast.
In this moment the information regard PLS display, might be only Bill's joke.

 

sorry double post, can mods delete please?

 

Totally agree: in this way you cant' buy a 512GB SSD for 400$, you'll have to choose it in configuration and raise price for 600$ at least

 

Or also pay $200 bucks for 4 more gigs of RAM...

 

yeah, only hope! But viewing angles are good on the pics!

 

Is it confirmed that the new XPS15 uses GDDR5 GPU's?

 

Officially de-lurking. Wow, it took a long time to get through all 172 pages of this thread! Thanks to everyone for the great info and pics. My M1530 needs an upgrade asap, and I've been looking at the Asus Zenbook, but every computer I've ever owned has been Dell. I'm a tad worried about the weight of the new xps 15 though. I just started a PhD program and wanted something slim and light to take to class with good battery life, but I also want a decent graphics card. It seems like I can't have both. The Macbook Pro Retina would be a great choice, but I hate that you can't upgrade anything yourself, and of course the insane price. I wish that Dell would hurry up and put out the specs already!

 

I have that information, but you need to clarify which product you are asking about. Sorry to be a DB, but if it's not a currently shipping product, I can't provide that level of detail.

I absolutely love the new Vostro. The value you get at that price point is phenomenal. It may not get to XPS/Alienware/Precision levels of performance, but for the money, it's tough to beat.

 

Not going to speculate or raise expectatives, but IIRC, (true) contrast ratios > 500:1 are seen only in the IPS/PLS field... traditional TN is capable of about 75-300:1, in particular with so high backlight power...

To give some numbers, Samsung Series 7 has about 110:1 effective contrast ratio.

 

The specs are already known from the start of this thread:
Dell XPS L521X - Preliminary info - Dell News and more

now we know also the name about the video cards:
GT640m with GDDR5 and GT630m

 

Not confirmed yet, there was a page a long long long ways back that had some leaked specs and I thought it mentioned 640M GDDR5.

 

L502x has TN panel yet ~ 650:1 contrast ratio! If the 500:1 info is true then we will see another downgrading of display quality!

 

EDIT: You're right...

 

Measured! see this..... Review Dell XPS 15 Notebook (i5-2410M & GT 540M) - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

True, but as far as I know there is no Kepler (28nm) 640m of 630m GDDR5. So if Dell uses a GDDR5 GPU in their new XPS15, it is the old Fermi (40nm) card .

 

I saw it... I've edited my previous post right after you quoted it.

 

GT 640m GDDR5 is Kepler+28nm and XPS One 27 has one! see this..
AnandTech - Dell XPS One 27 Review: The Premium All-in-One

 

IPS display of Asus Zenbook is almost 1000:1 :
AnandTech - ASUS Zenbook Prime (UX21A) Review: The First of the 2nd Gen Ultrabooks

in that review there are also visible the results of the old MBP (TN display) and is over 500:1 in contrast, some model is 785:1
AnandTech - The MacBook Pro Review (13 & 15-inch): 2011 Brings Sandy Bridge

 

Thanks for the link. I'm excited for the official release. I hope they will be in stores or at least at Dell kiosks soon after the ship date--I would like to try one out before pulling the trigger.

 

I definitely hope so, but I have a feeling it won't work like a MBP. The advantage of a hingless touchpad is that you can click anywhere. You don't have to move down to the bottom to click. The painted lines imply that there are only particular zones for clicking.

 

But you can configure most any trackpad to "double-tap to click" anywhere on the pad. Read the following article, and though it mainly applies to Windows 8, it's still relevant for most currently shipping laptops:

Windows 8 Release Preview: New Trackpad Gesture Support

 

XD alright. Is this something that I CAN ask you when it starts shipping next thursday?

And awesome. I don't need Alienware/XPS levels of performance, I've been looking for a nice thinish laptop with these kinds of specs for a while, seems like everything with a GT630M was either big and ugly (xoticpc and Lenovo), Sony (crap drivers), or HP (eww). I'm really liking the looks on your entire new lineup.

 

Look at the current XPS 13

 

Well, you have been able to use tapping for years but I much prefer clicking. The reason tapping has always been so popular is that its faster than having to use a physical button that is located on the bottom of the touchpad. The MBP and new Synaptics touchpads for PCs are the best of both worlds since you can click anywhere.

 

@Bill - new mbp has 2 thunderbolt ports, is there any hope of seeing at least one in forthcoming xps?

 

Oh good call, it does look identical. Unfortunately, it is a hinged touchpad

Thanks for the pointer.

 

Well 640M is only kepler so that will definitely be kepler. And 630M is fermi, but Nvidia has 28nm models shipping to some people, and Bill knows if its 28nm or 40nm, but he won't tell me. (For the Vostros shipping) I presume that whatever size the Vostros have will be the same as the XPS 630M.

28nm 630M fermi is still supposed to perform at the levels of a GT550 or GT555M, just with significantly reduced power consumption, which to me is all that really matters because it also means less heat.

Edit: Sorry, depending on the version, it is either a die shrunk GT540 or GT550 as far as performance ability goes.

 

Thanks for the response Bill. I wish you weren't being tied up by the PR guys. At this rate, the announcement is going to feel anticlimactic (and someone will have a complete review up in Romania by then!) >.<

After a few posts from you on this, I'm really confused. Why are you referencing the XPS 27 when predicting features of the XPS 15? They aren't even remotely of the same product category. That's nice that the 27 has PLS and Kepler, but I don't see how it tells us anything about what a notebook computer is likely to have. What, exactly, is the logic behind referencing it?

 

XPS 27 uses a GPU mobile like notebook, and mahapatra uses this example to proof that exist 640m with GDDR5.

 

Why this obsession for thanderbolt, this port is totally useless...
We already seen all the ports of XPS, no one is thanderbolt.

 

Bill -

Will Dell be continuing it's current student gift card program throughout the summer?

Also, if Dell were to release a new product, would there be discounts/gift cards available for students?

 

@Bill

Can you comment on the hypothetical weight of an unidentified romanian laptop with a 14" screen? That is, if I can only curl 4lbs, will I need a spotter to lift said laptop? If not, what if I can only curl 3.5lbs?

 

I wouldn't call it useless it's just fairly new technology that's starting to be implemented. I see it being a main port like the USB in the near future.

 

Agreed, as long as it is a big fan

Bill, can i ask how this hypothetical system compares to m14x R2
in noise during games?

 

well i beg to differ, but it can be useless for you certainly; also my point is that mdp looks quite similar. do u personally think mdp is useful?