**Official Dell XPS M1530 Owner's Lounge**

Kansei, everyone, - I also was crazy enough to order the Hi-Def WUXGA screen. In fact, I am upgrading (to the say the least) from a Dell Inspirion 4150 I purchased 6 years ago (back then it was loaded with 2.0GHz processor, 512K of RAM, 40G HD @ 5400 RPM, 1 USB 1.0 Port [ouch!], 1400X1050 display, etc.) and it is still my only machine to this day - actually, other than for gaming (though I was addicted to COD on-line for some time), this machine still performs exceptionally well.

Now, once again, I'm purchasing a machine which I hopes lasts me about 5 years:

XPS M1530, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9500 (2.6GHz/800MHzFSB, 6M L2 Cache)
4GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm, for XPS M1530
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
250G 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive w/ free fall sensor
Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate Edition
Slot Load Blu-ray Disc (BD/DVD/CD read/write)
Intel 4965AGN Wireless-N Mini-card
DELL WRLS 5720 EVDO, Verizon Dell Wireless 5720 EVDO Mini Card for Verizon
Blue Tooth & Wireless USB (Dell Wireless 400 Ultra-Wideband Mini card)
Ordered on 4/23; due to ship on 5/22 - I hope!

The Hi-Def screen seems like it will offer teeny-tiny text from what I have read; however, I like having the real estate and high resolution. We shall see whether it proves functional for everday tasks without me upgrading my eye-glasses to microscope lenses!

 

I was wondering did anyone get a sleeve with their refurbished XPS M1530?

Does it come with all of them? Or do you have to order it?

Thanks

 

All I can say is you'll be sorry! I've seen both and picked the 1440x900. Very glad I did.

Your suppose to get the sleeve unless buying it refurbished is different?

 

Is it pretty common for the HD to run and or blink / click quite a bit. Mine sounds like a quartz watch, "ticking" about ever second.

I have the 5400 320g HD

 

Well I have read several threads about the HD "Clicking" and tried several fixes including the Notebook Hardware Control util. I turned off indexing and turned off the swap file (virtual memory).

The Toshiba 320g HD just runs all the time.

Thinking of calling dell to replace it I guess. Man what a hastle. It has taken my 10 days to get this thing switched over from my old Inspiron

 

Just got an e-mail today from dell,
"Although we anticipated being able to ship your order sooner, we are experiencing an unexpected delay and have adjusted the estimated ship date"
New estimated ship date: 05/20/2008

 

Hmm. Ooo-Kayee. You have my attention with the "you'll be sorry" part. Tell me straight up - how small is the text on the WUXGA screen? I know it will be small, but are we talking microfiche-like print? What did you observe/compare when you saw both the 1920X1200 and 1440X900 screens? Thanks.

 

Yeah, I had the opportunity to look at my friends M1530 with WUXGA compared it to anothers with LED Backlit 1440 display. The text on the WUXGA is readable, but yes it is like you say, microfiche print because it is a 15.4 inch screen, though it is very tiny. If you are kinda tired or are not as focused, you WILL have to go up close to look at the screen. On top of that, the screen is not as bright as the LED, which I found to be much more easy to read not only because of the 1440 resolution, but also because the screen is brighter. I would consider the WUXGA if they offered LED backlighting which would remove some of the eyestrain from a screen not as bright with microscopic text.

I had originally ordered the WSXGA+, thinking that the real estate was above getting an LED backlit display, but after comparing the WUXGA and the LED 1440, cancelled my order and changed to the LED backlit display.

 

For me anything beyond 1440 on a 15inch display is overkill. I think that resolution is perfect for the screen size.

 

I once thought that having 1280x1024 was awesome. Then 1680x1050, then now 1920x1200

 

How much of a difference is the LED 1440 compared to the non LED? I actually took my laptop to an Apple store to compare it with the Macbooks and I didn't see much of a difference so I decided to keep my computer. I haven't seen the quality of the LED screens on the xps systems yet.

 

Ok... Maybe saying you'll be sorry was a little strong. Sorry for that.
That said, these two post pretty much sums up what I was trying to say:

Unless you have really, really good eyesight and are young, I think anything over 1440 resolution overkill and hard on the eyes. Your best bet is going to Best Buy or similar and looking for yourself... but bear in mind, looking at the higher resolution over several hours will be different and more telling.

 

i disagree i had a 15" lcd dell monitor for the past 3 years at 1024x768 and i switched to this laptop on the 1680x1050 and it was a bit hard to get used to for about a day or two, now when im at work and have a 17" lcd with 1280x1024 unless im using my laptop everything looks GINORMOUS. your eyes adjust to the resolution it seems.

I personally think the 1680x1050 for a 15.4" laptop is the highest i would go, and also the best. you can always buy a higher res screen and use a lower resolution if you need.

 

Seems like you had some eye strain too. Time will tell.
Your probably a young guy too.
I respectfully disagree with the last paragraph as with notebook if you don't use the native resolutions, doesn't look as good.

 

Like a few more knowledgeable users have said here in the past, the highest resolution you will want is the highest resolution you have owned. There's many users on here who have had 1920x1200 15.4" panels on older Dell laptops (D8XX, etc) and have stated that they'd hate to go back. One user transferred the panel into his new M1530. I guess I feel the same way.

It's completely a matter of preference, and I'm not one to try and convince anyone otherwise - but I've been working on a 1600x1200 15" notebook for the last 6 years and there is no way I'm going back to anything less (if anything I want more!). I'm a web developer and it's a simple case of the more real estate you have the better. Same goes for anything involving multiple windows (simple tasks like web browsing / instant messaging). Gaming isn't an issue because games scale fairly well; and for most people, playing multiple games will mean playing at various resolutions anyway (in order to get max performance).

Anyone who hasn't spent some time (ie. owned a laptop) with a high-res screen is going to make them out to be eye strangling monsters, but as long as you get a high quality panel you won't ever want to go back. Sadly I think the samsung panels that the M1530 comes with are less than spectacular in 50-60% of cases, personally I chose to avoid the issue and get myself an LG 1920x1200 panel off ebay instead.

But yeah, my advice to anyone deciding is - make your own call, and try to spend a significant amount of time using a high resolution display beforehand. If you won't use the real estate then there's no need to pay for it, and while gaming at non-native resolutions is fine, doing anything else isn't - so be aware of that.

 

I think owning over 25 notebooks since 1985 counts for "some time owning a laptop"
My first desktop and laptop both made in 1985. I still have 'em.

And the latest!

When I want more room & real estate, I use my 22" monitor on my Desk. Or I use this:

(using wireless mouse/keyboard)

However, I totally AGREE with this:

 

It really is a matter of preference. Personally I find 1680 to be perfect in terms of everything. If Dell has an LED backlit version of it, I'd order it immediately.

In terms of LED backlit XPS, if you put it side by side with the Macbook Pro, you will notice that the XPS is actually brighter than the Macbook Pro except the Macbook pro has better color reproduction.

 

whats funny is ive heard the color reproduction on the xps is actually better. where are the MBP shows whites as a slightly more yellowish tint.

although i have never owned another laptop before i do at time spend time on different laptops and desktops and i really personally feel unless led is the only option or a free upgrade, its not worth the money for it.

my screen next to an led in the brightness category is so insignificant that i probably wouldnt have noticed a difference unless i was looking for it.

then again that really goes with anything you could have a fingernail scratch on yer car under the hood that nobody would notice but as the owner you would see it and it might bother you .

and to jack i wouldnt say i am young or old i am in my late 20's. But ive just used every possible resolution on so many different screens in the past, going from a 15" with a max res of 1024x768 to a 15.4" laptop with 1680x1050 took a few days to adjust but to me any lower resolution looks ginormous. Then again i spend a lot of time in illustrator and photoshop so the real estate is a godsend

 

Thanks Jack53 and everyone else as well; fantastic posts with subjective and objective input . . . I have quite a bit to consider - preference is certainly going to be my major consideration on WUXGA vesus others, however, your comments on the pros/cons of a WUXGA based on the application being used will also be a key factor for me as well. I need to pop into Best Buy and look a number of 1530's with different screen resolutions and spend a some time "working" them to get a better feel for which screnn works for me. This notebookreview forum is KickA.

 

Switching topics from LCD's to wireless-N. I just want to say that 5ghz Wireless-N set to 40Mhz Wide-band is freaking fast!!

I have had a D-Link MIMO router for about a year or so now, although I don't have a MIMO card. Basically using it at wireless G speeds (54mb max). I just went and bought the new Linksys WRT600N dual-band wireless router and just got it set up.

Prior to switching to the linksys, I copied a 2gb file from my file server (wired) to my M1530 using wireless. It started out at 2.37mb/sec, and then slowed down after about 150mb worth of copying to around 1.7mb/sec. Lets just say I cancelled it at around 20% as it was still estimating around 20 min remaining (this is Vista)

I then configured the 5ghz Radio on the Linksys to wide-band 40mhz mode, connected up using the M1530 and tried to copy the same file. It copied at a sustained 11mb/sec, and took less than 3 minutes. I wasn't looking when it finished so I didn't see the entire time elapsed, but it was REAL fast.

I'm sure others have said something like this, but dayyyyummmmm did that copy faster than I expected. I paid $199 for the router at my local Best Buy (i'm impatient and couldn't wait to order online) and with the ammount of data I do transfer internally at home between computers, this is WELL worth the investment. Its also got 4 gigabit ports instead of the typical 100mbit of most routers. Works nicely with the 5-port Linksys gigabit switch adding a few extra ports

Anywho, i'm happy. Thought i'd share.

 

No no... re-read my post, I said owned a laptop with a high resolution screen. I'm not saying you haven't but your comments just suggested that - and there's nothing wrong with that, given the preference factor, but I just think most people wind up with a different opinion after they get spoilt using a WUXGA/UXGA for a few years. It's just a b&*$! to go back.

22" panels are usually 1680x1050, and I'm not sure what that nice TV is, but it doesn't look like it's much higher res than that either?

When I say real estate I mean resolution, because physical size doesn't make a difference to how much space you have available. Also, having spent some time on 1920x1200 on 24" displays, I personally think there's too much eye / head movement involved compared to using the same resolution on a 17" or 15.4" display. Not a big deal, and I'd certainly rather have the 1920x1200 on any size display than having something lower, but there are advantages to higher resolutions on smaller displays I guess.

BTW - love the other laptop, that's old school!

 

Udi
I think you said it best here:

 

Nice, kinda a random shift of topic (Referring to Wireless N Post), but, good to know nonetheless.

You will notice differences between LED and standard CCFL just by looking at it without even trying to focus. There are threads around with comparison photos, but yeah I agree, your eyes can get adjusted to higher resolutions easily. Typically when you use higher resolutions, you tend to stick with it for your next laptop or go higher. The same goes for LED displays where if you've had experience with LED displays, you will want to have LED for your next for your next laptop.

Unfortunately for me, my previous laptop was an E1505 at 1680 and my next was a tablet with 1280 with LED. So I am literally torn between choosing higher res or perfect display. For me, I decided to go with the 1440 with LED to perfectly balance my need for decent resolution while having near perfect screen quality with LED. Though I feel it is likely that they will release a 1680 LED display in the near future probably within a few months, I will probably manually upgrade it if I see fit.

Though this is entirely biased as each person has their own views, I feel that because 1440 is only a step down from 1680, LED outweighs the resolution. Observing the trends in purchasing, the majority of people who have ordered an M1530 have either gone with WUXGA or LED, the majority of people have gone with LED. There have also been quite a few who have ordered a high res screen 1680 and above without LED just to cancel their order or ship it back and get the 1440 LED. Though out of the people who have ordered LED, none have shipped theirs back for a higher res screen without LED after seeing the difference with the screen.

Once again, it is a matter of personal preference, but, just throwing my opinion out there.

 

I really love my m1530, the only thing that I don't like about it is that it gets really warm on the bottom. Is there anything to do to cool it down without buying a cooling pad? Like downloading a driver or something?
I really don't play any games and it happens with non-grueling events haha like internet, word processing, or just sitting here

specs.
windows vista home premium
intel core 2 duo
4gb ram
[email protected]
NIVIDIa GeForce 8600M GT

 

You may want to try undervolting it. This will cool it by 10c or so.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

 

What did you guys do to clear off the extra crap that came on your m1530? Was it that difficult, did it really take everything off, and was there a strong performance jump afterwards?

 

Les's Bloatware Removal Guide

No not really,

Yes, And

Yes

Then follow the Vista Tweak Guide.

 

What did you guys do to clear off the extra crap that came on your m1530?
Reinstall Vista

Was it that difficult? NO

did it really take everything off. YES

...and was there a strong performance jump afterwards? YES

 

whats nice about dell is they give u the vista cd with the key already on it basically just pop the vista cd in and delete the old partitions and create it so there is 1 then hit ok and about 15mins later vista is installed then you just need to install the drivers. i have an account on file dropper so i just made a rar file with all the drivers on there for a reformat.

 

Very true. That CD they give you will do a very clean/fresh install of Vista. I do, however recommend using the MediaDirect CD prior to installing XP/Vista so you do not run into issues with the Button causing you problems.

I have my M1530 triple-booted right now. Everything works great. I have XP Pro, Vista Ultimate 64-bit, and Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit. Everything works in XP and Vista, I haven't messed around too much with Ubuntu yet, so far the only thing I know is troublesome is the touchpad, but many people have noted that.

There were a few guides written for XP 32-bit and Vista 64-bit, but the XP one was missing a few drivers (Wireless for Intel ABGN, and the Dell Bluetooth 355 card), but I found everything and definately saved them all on my file server in a nice'n'neat way so I could do it again if I had to.

MediaDirect works fine from within Vista and XP, its a little quirky when pressing the MediaDirect button while the notebook is powered off, It hung for a while, and eventually started up.... but none of the Blue_Screen_of_Death troubles like i've heard about.

I started off with the MediaDirect CD, let it partition the disk however it wanted (no recovery partition anymore as I had wiped the drive prior), loaded XP real quick... when XP was loaded I installed MediaDirect from within Windows XP, I then used Partition Magic (I have it on a bootable CD) to resize the very large C: drive for XP down to around 40gb so i'd have room for other OS's, Rebooted and started up off my Vista Ultimate 64-bit CD (you could use regular Vista 32-bit of any version, I just choose to do 64-bit) and set it to only use 200gb of space (I have a 320gb drive)...installed that completely, rebooted.. and then installed MediaDirect again from within vista so it'd write whatever it needed and would work from within Vista, rebooted, started up off my Ubuntu CD, installed that completely... and voila.

Long rant/ramble, but basically I'm very happy. I have a perfectly good working install of XP Pro, Vista 64-bit, and Ubuntu on my M1530 and both versions of Windows work awesome.

 

awesome, for some reason i was under the impression that no vista CD came with the system. where is the best place to get drivers after the clean install?

 

I believe there is a driver CD that comes with it as well for doing that, although I never used/tried it because I went with 64-bit when I reinstalled ( I have the discs).

One note, it may be trivial, if you like the XPS wallpaper, make sure you save it somewhere as that is not on any discs they gave you. Its in C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\

 

What games do you guys play? I'm about to order one (in comparison, the XPS M1530 is dirt cheap in Holland..).

How does Assassins Creed, Rainbow Six: Las Vegas 1/2, GRID, Crysis run?

 

Anyone? Sorry for the fast bump..

 

I'd reply, but I dont have anything usefull to say about the games you mentioned. doh, I guess I replied anyway. I have played Quake 4, Doom 3, and Transformers and they all play quite nicely, as long as the settings are not set to max. I didn't ever check what framerate I was getting, but it wasn't laggy so I didn't even wonder.

 

Hey quick question, on the Dell website (aussie one anyway) the M1530 specs say 8 in 1 media card reader.

Is that correct? Someone got a list of which cards it reads?
I only really want SD and MS... CF would be rad too but I'm guessing that isn't supported.

 

Has anyone fooled around with the built in webcam settings for motion detection and emailing the captured pictures? I have not been able to configure it correctly for any of my email accounts. I always get the error message saying "check email settings and make sure you are online"!

 

I just put Assassin's Creed on my laptop and it runs really well. I don't have the settings maxed out though because I only I have a 1.66 gHz proceesor (I think the minimum requirement was 2.4 gHz). But despite that everything looks and runs much better than on the old desktop that I was using.

 

Sorry if this has been posted before me, but I simply didnt have the energy to read 128 pages.

I have just recieved my 1530, and it works finr, but....

Even when no programs are open the 1530 makes a ticking sound, as if it was a clock. I guess its the harddrive doing something

 

No CF support.

SD, SDIO, MMC, MS, MSPro, xD, High Speed SD, Hi Capacity SD

and for xD, i've read that its the older xD cards. I think the newer ones do not fit.

 

Hey, just wondering what people think of this configuration for the m1530:

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 8300 (2.40 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 cache)
Vista Home Premium
15.4" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900)
4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
HARD DRIVE: 320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 8600M GT - 256mb Graphics Memory (I think it's DDR3)
Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)

=£675.79 (Including bluetooth mouse)
Brand new from dell, VAT off (through business), as well as £100 off. I think that's a fairly good price.

I'm about to take the plunge, so hopefully I'll have an awesome laptop winging it's way, or being delivered to me sometime soon!

Oh, and I know that Vista clocks out at 3.5gb ram, but I'm going full to get dual channel. And, should I ever feel like it, I might get 64-bit vista. Unlikely though. This is unless there's something more worth me spending money on than an extra bit of RAM.

 

has anyone messed around with vista lite? i was thinking of downloading it and installing vista with no bloat and not installing IE and using firefox. probably do this once firefox 3 becomes final.

but there is definatly some vista features like the mail and contacts i dont need thanks to gmail .

 

Thats annoying- my camera saves onto CF cards and I was hoping I could do away with plugging it in with a usb cable etc. Oh well, I'm still getting the laptop.

 

I'm still torn between the M1530 and M1330. I have an M1330 and like the portability but hate the 8400M. I'm not sure if the M1530 is still worth it. I mean, the 8600M GT has been released more than a year ago. But, the 9500M GS which is supposed to be it successor is basically the same thing... Any thoughts? I'm not sure when Dell will upgrade the M1330/M1530's GPU..

 

Anyone know what the 1440x900 screen is?
I'm ordering soon and I can't really go any higher unless it's urgent. Stupid forums making people worried they'll get crappy samsung screens etc.

 

Good question. It would be one hell of a bugger is dell upgraded the graphics and stuff right after you got an m1530.
I'm getting an M1530 because I'll go mad with a smaller screen than that. Whats more, the processor and graphics can get be much better, hopefully enough to play some decent modern games, unlike the 8400M.
Its up to you I guess.
And I bloody welll hope the m1530 is worth it.

 

Actually, thanks to Rhodan's Top 10 Questions (well, 16) about the M1530, I now know that it can vary, but it's a minimal chance it will be samsung. depends on what the situation in the UK is as well. Thanks.

 

Hey guys. I just received my 1530 that I ordered 27 days ago and thought I would throw a few items out there fwiw.

I ordered on the 22nd of April with the others that caught the 40% discount.

General Config....

Tuxedo Black
Intel® Core 2 Duo Processor T9500 (2.6GHz/800Mhz FSB, 6MB Cache)
4 GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms)
Full Hi Definition, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LCD (1920x1200) & 2.0 M
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
250GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive Free Fall Sensor
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition
Slot Load Blue-ray Disc (BD/DVD/CD read/write)
Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-card
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
90 Watt Spare AC Adaptor with 3FT Power Cord
Auto/Air AC Adapter
Finger Print Reader XPS M1530
Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0+Enhanced Data Rate)
​

I ordered a spare ac adaptor and got a good laugh out of having one 3-prong plug (the spare) and one 2-prong plug. Not sure if I will bother calling Dell for a replacement for the 2-prong.

I only had two display options when I placed my order (1650x1050 and the 1920x1200). I got the 1920x1200 after reading so much bad stuff on the other option. I would have preferred the LED but it wasn’t available with the discount.

It’s a Samsung (SEC3255). It does appear to have some grain to it and light bleed from the bottom. The grain is a sort of a digital glitter with a bright white window open. I assume this is the gloss mentioned in the part description. I don't think its something that will bother me very often as I'll have it plugged into a monitor when I'm home and won't care about it much when I'm not at home. Of course after the newness wears off my opinion on that may change.

For those talking about the high resolution, I personally have no problems with the 1920x1200. It is bit on the small side for someone coming from a 1280x800 res but upping the font size increases the text size a good bit. It’s still very readable to me without adjusting font.

I did panic a bit when I first opened it. There was a nasty scratch just above the keyboard next the XPS logo. I was about to have a fit when I realized there was a film stuck to the bar. Removed the film and no scratch underneath. Coronary avoided lol. Otherwise it seems to have been put together well. No lose parts or bulges or poorly fastened pieces. After all the horror stories I expected I would need to get out the repair kit to properly put the thing together.

It does have the hard drive click but I haven’t gotten around to trying out the potential fixes in another thread.

I’m still debating on doing a reformat. I usually have to put the OS I really wanted on the system after I buy it or build it but this came with the Vista Ultimate I was going to use. Google desktop and PCcillin appear to be the only programs I see that I don’t want (and will take all of 15 min to completely clean out) so I’m not sure if the potential gains are worth half a day of rebooting and potential headaches. Are there any definite gotcha’s that I will miss if I don’t reformat?

 

I think I already told you that!

I'm far pickier than most folks too as I use my notebook 8-12 hours a day 6 days a week doing PhotoShop, Webmaster, Running forums, building websites and online research.

 

Ehh...i'm this close to pulling the trigger on an m1530, but for some odd reason i'm scared that there is a new model or redesign coming soon this summer/early fall since the new Inspiron models were shown. I need a laptop regardless before I start college in late August...am I just being scared for no reason and is a new model out of the question?

Should I snatch up this $599 off instant savings right now or should I save my money for something better coming soon?