Prospective Dell XPS m1330 buyer. Reliable?

Hi,

Need a new laptop for work and am considering the m1330. Heard a lot of stories about it being unreliable. But those reviews were quite some time ago. I'm wondering if the current units are still problematic.

I'm concerned mostly with build quality and reliability. I would also like a unit with good display and sound. I'm a weapons designer/engineer by trade.

 

Only the ones with Nvidia dedicated cards are problematic. It seems to overheat like crazy.

If you are going to purchase one, go with the integrated x3100 option.

 

They run hot.

Build quality is ok.

Just dont get the 8400M in it. They are susceptible to being defective and failing. as flipfire stated.

 

I got mine with the Nvidia and it was running very hot, so I had to modify it, now it is good, I like it it is great laptop but I don't think it should be that way and if I knew that ahead I would have never bought it, I would go for the Intel integrated graphics card.

 

I agree, get one with the integrated card. The nvidia GPU will eventually die (you can always extend its life by doing the copper mod, this seems to prevent a problem in the cooling system as well). The GPUs tend to die every 6 months or so. Although they say the newest laptops are being built with good video cards, but who knows! Other than that, I'm very happy with the laptop.

 

I've owned an M1330 for almost a year now and have gone through two motherboard replacements in the past month. Without the copper mod the GPU temps soar to over 100 °C while gaming and there's no doubt that sooner or later it will fail. Having a technician stop by and rip the guts out of this machine, or, worse, sending the notebook in for repair is not an experience to be recommended. Although Dell Support has been helpful in my case, replacing a defective part with a refurbished defective part is not very reassuring. I hate to invest in another notebook after so short a time but have to admit the Apple MacBook unibody is a tempting alternative in the 13" category. With Bootcamp to allow dual operating systems and an indestructible product there are more and more arguments for moving to a Mac!

 

Thanks a bunch! Talked me out of a bad decision!

 

There are extremely strong rumours that there are a couple of new XPS models due imminently... I would wait and see if that's true or not...

 

Macbooks indestructible? Oh boy!

 

Not so indestructible after all...I was referring to the build quality of the unibody construction, but just read that Apple is investigating NVidia GPU defects in the newest models. Seems that the screen goes black when gaming and the system can only be recovered by restarting. Users are beginning to wonder why Apple gave NVidia a second chance. I'll wait a bit before making the switch until this has been sorted out.

 

Yup; that's the problem. Build quality is one thing, and from that perspective, I'm one of the majority who are very happy with their 1330s (as are MOST MacBook owners). But when every manufacturer is using the same crappy/defective components....

 

Bang for the buck my XPS m1330 has many more features than the Mac13. I saw it and have to say, body of a tank but they crippled it by omitting needed ports....Apple is to full of themselves.
Hate apple Fanboys!!

 

if you can live with the resolution (i use mine hooked up to a 24" dell 2407 monitor all the time so it doesn't bother me a bit) and dont game at all on it (with the x3100 i mean, because can you really depend on the 8400m without a warranty?) than it is nice i suppose... i only use mine for vehicle diagnosis and reprogramming while it is on my tool box, so i am probably not the person to listen to... i will say that there is no way in hell it could be my daily driver, i game and use my m1710 as an actual laptop and while it is huge, i like its performance (other than the battery life) and if i really need something portable i use my 1505. it will play the sh!t out of bf2 with some tweaking and the resolution is awesome