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

Well, I ordered my m1530 on 12/27 with an estimated delivery date of 1/15. To my suprise, I came home last night (1/3) to find it sitting in my living room.

So thats one week for building and shipping...

I haven't had time to run benchmarks or anything but here's my first impression...

XPS m1530, Tuxedo Black

The black lid is sexy. Looks really sleek with the silver casing.

I went with the 1680x1050 display which is amazing! The high resolution gives me tons of desktop real estate, and in my limited use, I can surf the internet, have my AIM window up, and windows Sidebar with room to spare.

The keyboard is great, with no noticable flex. Some people don't like the keyboard Dell uses(which is the same keyboard from the Inspiron 1520) but I'm very happy with it. Key travel is great and an overall pleasure to type on.

The touch pad could be a little bigger, but its decent as-is. The mouse buttons have a good feel, and an audible "click", which I like, but some people may find annoying.

HEAT and NOISE

This is one area where I was concerned after reading what others had posted, but I couldn't be happier.

I had my laptop in a quiet office setting today, inserted a CD, and I could hardly hear the drive mechanism, let alone have it be loud enough to disrupt anyone else.

The hard drive is also not nearly as loud as I expected. You certainly hear it when its spinning and the fan is blowing, but its not terrible, and not a consistent noise.

Also, after about an hour and a half of internet browsing and copying files from my old computer, I only noticed some heat on the underside of the computer, but nothing terrible, and the palm rests were still cool.


I plan on picking up Company of Heroes tonight after work to do some weekend gaming, so I'll try to post a more in depth review next week.

 

Thanks for the little review, and do post back after gaming.

 

You suck drumguy00

Just kidding, my guess is that the 1440x900 screen is a little slower getting shipped.

...Or it could be my legendary bad luck...

 

I dunno, but off of pure luck I guess.

After about a week of playing around with the m1530, I am sort of concerned with the heat it generates without a notebook cooler. I RECOMMEND all m1530 owners should get a notebook cooler NOW.

Heat Issues:
After playing two hours of TF2 and CS:S there would be significant heat under the left palm resting area, exhaust and underbelly.

Man I love this Zalman

 

What zalman? Do you have an aftermarket cooler on your xps? if so link and info please.

 

Drumguy, what other widescreen formats can you set the laptop too? I noticed the 1680x1050 to be really small for text stuff...

 

I find anything above WXGA 1200x800 uncomfortable and essentially unusable for normal computer usage on a 15.4" screen.

I'm sure a higher res is great for Photoshop, but that's about it.

 

disagree completely: 1280 by 800 is atrocious on a 15.4, WXSGA+ is the best

 

When my new one comes, I'll be able to settle the arguement since my first one was 1200x800.

In all seriousness, though, I think a lot of it comes down to personal preference.

 

my first one was 1200 by 800, i did an exchange which was awesome because i got a new laptop with the better screen, thank gosh

 

Agreed, get what makes you happy.

Xe12o, how hot are we talking about?
Does it crash or stop playing games becaue of the heat?
How does the cooler draw its power? usb or external?

 

You can downsize the 1680x1050 panel to 1440x600, 1200x800, as well as standard resos of 1024x768, etc etc..

I havent played with the resolution much, or tried adjusting DPI, but the 1440x900 looked horrible in the few seconds i had it on there.

Just finished about 2 hours of Company of Heroes, still cool as can be, using the 9-cell battery which elevates it off the table a little bit...

 

the native resolution are always the best when you lower the resolution the quality decreases by a lot. i liked the 1200x800

Also COH is not really intensive
I could run it on a p4 2.8ghz with 1 gig of ram and a x700 radeon

 

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3620

Zalman NC1000

Take into consideration about the wear and tear our laptops undergo, we are not desktops so air and cooling are not strong points about laptops. When overclocking/gaming in general, your demanding a lot out of the GPU/CPU - this causes a lot of heat to be generated. Heat = Death to all inner components. Excessive heat causes games to crash, artifacts, and other internal hell.

Now I am saying if you plan to use this laptop for anything that utilizes your GPU - get a cooler.

ZALMAN NC1000 on the M1530
Size: The Zalman NC-1000 in relation to the M1530 sits perfectly on the little rubbler stands, with about a half an inch of the laptop going over the Zalman on each side.

Sitting: It is extremely sturdy and it appears that nothing will move when typing or doing something extensive. There is a slight slant creating about a twenty degree slope of the laptop. It seems comfortable for me, and should be for most people. This laptop isn't going anywhere unless the table flips over.

Heat:I didn't put any temperature readers but it is pretty significant after playing with my M1530 in 19 hours of CS:S/TF2/DoD:S.

[Valve Config] All High, No Vsync, HDR Full Enabled, Color Correction Enabled. Trillinar Shading.

Without the Zalman - After playing an hour or two into the game after various rounds and maps. If you are using the laptop as a keyboard, there is extensive heat on the left palm rest where your palm would rest for the WASD keys (its to the left of the touchpad that general area) , and you can feel the hard drive spin in that area. The hot is not uncomfortable, but thinking about all of the hours I would log onto the laptop to game, the heat over time would be a problem. The exhaust blows heat like a car, it comes, its fairly warm. The keyboard in general becomes warm, you don't feel it, but when your typing or holding down a key for a few seconds you can feel it.

With the Zalman - Heat from the left palm rest is little to non existant, temperature from exhaust is around the same. Keyboard heat is little to non existant.

Here is the kicker, lifting the laptop without the zalman, there is a heat imprint on my desk where the laptop sat. With the zalman, there is not a heat signature on the zalman. NO TRAPPED HEAT UNDER THE LAPTOP.

Power: You plug in through a usb port, and uses the USB power to power itself. It fits perfectly with your USB port on the right or left hand side, it is just your preference. WHen the laptop turns on, you get power, when the laptop is off, you don't have power.

Sound:I don't have a DB reader sorry, but the fan on the m1530 on full blast is louder or equal to the Zalman on full blast.

I feel more confident that my laptop will live longer due to the heat I am reducing.

Price point, Circuit City $52 including shipping. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND A NOTEBOOK COOLER FOR ALL M1530s

 

I am about to join the XPS M1530 club. Just placed my order this morning for a Midnight Blue version.

Intel T7500 (2.2GHz/800MhzFSB, 4M L2 Cache)
160GB 7200 rpm hard drive with Free Fall Sensor
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
3GB DDR2 RAM
WSXGA+ TrueLife
Intel 4965AGN Wireless-N Mini-card
6 Cell and 9 Cell Batteries
355 Bluetooth Module (2.0+EDR)
8X DVD+/-RW Slot Load Drive
3 year Warranty
3 year Accidental Damage

For a grand total of $1,325 including tax and shipping. I am pretty happy and can't wait for it to get here.

 

Mine arrives on the 8th, pretty good seeing as I ordered on the 1st. Just have to hope I get a good one it seems.

 

sko105

Looking to purchase my XPS M1530 with similar features as yours. How did you get the price of $1,325 with all of those features? Even with the $669 discount and a 12% student discount my order comes out to $1,498 before taxes. Any help on getting the price lower would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

sko105 how did u get that so cheap for ur spec @_@

 

Same to sko105, how'd you do that!? Also, people that recently ordered, what shipping option did you get? When I setup my system online, all shipping including next day air was free, but the sales rep on the phone said only 3-5 day was free.

 

I ordered online and got Next Business Day free. Was weird, because
3-5 Day was 19.99-19.99 = $0
Next Day was 69-69 = $0
BUT
2nd Day was (something like) 39.99-19.99 = $20.

I scratched my head, clicked the Next Day option to make sure it wasn't a typo, and sure enough it didn't make my total go up, so I took it and ran!

of course, considering that it shipped on a Friday and we lose the weekend, 3-5 day probably would have ended up getting here about the same time, but oh well.

*still waiting for Monday*

 

What is meant is the memory is matched as to type and specifications.

 

So here is a question i dont own the 1530 yet but is the cpu fan noise any more loud then other laptops or are people jsut nit picking? that seems like a pretty big deal if it is infact loud.

 

I had XPS 1530 for 3 days now. I tried everything you can think of I run it as hard as it can I was burning DVD and playing game and had some other applications going... the results
no noise. The fan started after a while but even with high speed is not loud. as far as heat . nothing unusual...
this laptop kick ass...

 

Is the T7700 worth the extra $125 over the T7500? I know I wouldn't see much of a difference right now, but if I keep this unit for 4-5 years will it be worth it?

 

yeh the aluminum does act as a heat sink, and does help to dissipate heat, but this effect applies more so to the hdd heat (as under the left side fo teh aluminum palm rest is where the hdd resides judging by where the hdd noise comes from). i reckon this will be pleasant warming effect come winter time (im in Australia so its summer here)

The part that gets burning hot when gaming on mine is the section above the processor which is the top left portion of the notebook above the "xps|m1530" logo

 

ive had my 1530 for 2 days now and some new problems i have found are:

-it makes a continuous high pitched whine (just loud enough to notice when working alone in a quiet room) this gets very very very annoying sometimes it stops momentarily and restarts

-the black strip just under the lcd where the dell logo sits on is isnt secure like it should be, its floppy and acts sort of like a pouch.... i can wedge anything up to 5mm thick in between it and the lcd!

this is shocking build quality for dells supposedly flagship 15.4"

im starting to regret buying this, starting to wish i bought an asus c90

 

I have that too. I tink thats normal for the m1530.

 

just a quick question, i'm not so familiar with the credit cards, but if i get my xps through dell prefered card and pay ontime, iwould not be charged extra right?
that is what my cart says
Payment Method: Dell Preferred Account

Annual Percentage Rate(variable): 28.24% > what is this?
Credit Limit: $2,000.00
Promotional Terms: No interest until 2009 on XPS systems with your Dell Preferred Account!

 

thats the amount of interest you pay per year on it...also read carefully those are almost alwyas written that if you dont pay off the whole thing by 2009 you pay interest back to day 1..which is a huge amount

 

this is what it means.
If you pay the whole amount before Jan 1st 2009 you will NOT pay any interest.
but If you keep one $ to jan2nd then you will pay interest for the whole amount as if the no interest deal was never there. so be careful and make sure you will pay it all before the due date.

 

The sleeve that came with my m1530 has magnets. Can those magnets harm my notebook when i put my notebook in the sleeve

 

I highly doubt the magnet could effect it in any way at all. I have played with a much much stronger magnet around my laptop, and it seemed to have NO effect. that said, if your worried you should buy a new sleeve, but I dont think its a problem. Im pretty sure the engineering team wouldnt decide to put a dangerous case in there haha

 

Well, i removed them and it are very strong magnets. They dont have a large range, but they are strong.

 

I'm with you Iintraxz, I don't like the idea of having any magnets around my computer.

I'm thinking of getting a 1530 myself. Was it easy to remove the magnets from the sleeve, and how did you do it?

 

I just took a knife and made a little cut. -the magnets were taped to the fabric. Now there is a hole in my sleeve but i think i can fix that.

Btw, its Intraxz, but i think i pressed the I twice. 8) Is there any way to change my name?

 

Sure, just contact an admin, I'm sure they can help.

 

EDIT: I didn't search very well. Question was previously answered. Sorry.

Anyways the 1530 is great and with the deal $700 is amazing. The only downside is the screen quality isn't the best but for the price it's awesome and only the viewing angle and non LED lit screen is a very minor letdown. Loving it so far.

 

theres a video on youtube. Look it up.

 

so then its about as loud as every other laptop?

 

hey guys-i have m1730 standard SLI 8700mGT and t7700 upgrade 2gb ram vista. I downloaded 169.09 modded inf and renamed to 8800GTX for installation of drivers with have disk in vista. Performance increased a lot in crysis to 40 fps in 800x600 and 30 fps in 1280 it seems early game scenes. Is this normal? Any better drivers-seem to be better than performance drivers from dell website (167.45 i believe?) anyother suggestions for better performance.

 

Hey all, I just ordered my 1530 today, here are the specs, didnt get anything special just got a WSXGA screen...

I do have a few questions though.

How has their estimated ship dates been? Have most people been getting them early or on time?

Are there any problems that have been occuring with users that I should check out when I first get it?

Does it come with the OS CD? I went with Vista Home Premium and I want to format it with a new install to get rid of the junk.

Has anyone tried Call of Duty 4 on this? I dont plan to game too much but it would be nice to play some games.

 

1. Shipping estimate is overly generous. You'll probably get it 1 to 2 week ahead. I got mine delivered 1 week before it was about to ship.

2. All you should check for is screen quality i dont know what else you would need to check

3. It does come with a Vista CD but its a Dell Vista CD so you'll probably still get the junk either way.

4. Call of Duty 4 runs perfectly well with everything at max. Bioshock, Gears of Wars, Guitar Hero 3 will also run really well.

 

Try everything youcan think of. The most likely problems are screen graininess and cursor panic after opening and closing the screen while the laptop is on.

 

I ordered mine Friday (1/4) afternoon and apparently it was shipped today. Wow.

Moving up from a 3 year old Inspiron that got the job done for a long time.

T7770 2.4GHz, 3GB RAM, 15.4" WXGA+ TrueLife LCD
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M G
160G 7200RPM SATA HD
Integrated SB Audigy
Intel 802.11n mini-card
9-cell battery
Vista Home Premium
Bluetooth

Discounts: -$669 & Free Next Day Business Shipping

Total: $1,624.00

 

congratz,

just a quick Q, if i want to install a clean vista biz or Enterprise, can i use the same procedure that flamenko said on this post:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=157838
tnx

 

Hello

Just got my Dell M1530 Monday. I'm very happy about it. But there's just one question. Where can I find my papers about garanty in my box? Or is it so that Dell doesn't send the garantypapers with the laptop?

I have also to say that I've got a free upgrade from 2 to 3 years garanty.
I'm living in Belguim.
Hope someone can help me!

Ronayke

 

Jij hier? staat ook al op got.

 

I fixed the cursor problem with a clean install.

 

Just got mine today.....screen graininess on the 1680x1050.

How do I check to see which screen I have? Also, is there a part number for a screen without graininess at that resolution?

 

Yep Do you have the same name on GOT?