Thinking of buying xps 1730...

Thinking of buying a XPS m1730 with WinXP installed from Dell. Does anyone have the 1730? I would like some user opinions of the machine. I'm getting XP because it is better for gaming.

 

Its a really nice machine mate. Initially I wasn't keen on the photo's of it, I thought it looked ugly. But in person, it really starts to grow on you.

The performance is also quite good. Plays most games at good settings, the screen is good too, but I do have some light leakage from the bottom of the screen.

Overall, not a bad lappy!

 

Its grossly overpriced. Take a look at a M570RU with the 8800GTX from any of the Clevo resellers, better performance for less $$.

 

M570RU is a good price, but all the components are just below the 1730, memory speed, screen resultion, single card. Pay what you get.

Its not grossly overpriced. Its a top perf laptop, the price is comparable to a good mid range desktop.

Since owning mine, my desktop has stayed off.

 

i'm not sure what you're smoking, but i want some of it

i don't have anything against dell, they make quality machines, and the inspiron line has a pretty good bang for the buck. the 17" xps systems are of questionable value.

let's go ahead and apply common sense in the context of a cost comparison for similarly priced "lower-end" systems . . . and keep in mind that dell's prices increase exponentially as you upgrade.

yes you can get dual 7950gtx video cards. they're great if you have a game that supports sli and are willing to accept the fact they are more or less obsoleted by the single 8800m gtx in the m570ru. this is with early drivers.

from dell.com:

xps m1710 - $2,299

cpu: t5600 1.83Ghz
ram: 1gb ddr 667
lcd: 1920x1200
hd: 120GB 5400 rpm
vc: single nvidia 7950gtx
wl: 3945 a/g

from xoticpc.com:

sager np5792 - $2252 ($2184 if paying "cash")

cpu: t7250 2ghz
ram: 2gb ddr 667
lcd: 1920x1200
hd: 120gb 5400 rpm
vc: single nvidia 8800m gtx
wl: 4965 a/g/n

oops, this np5792 would easily beat the xps m1710 in terms of performance, and you can get even better pricing by shopping around a little.

no, the np5792 doesn't include an os. go pick up a copy of windows for about $110. Yes, that puts the price slightly over the xps for the non-"cash" discounted price. but i'll pay the xtra 60 bucks for a faster processor, more ram, and vastly superior video card. its all about value.

 

Any rumors to when Dell might have the 8800's available for the m1730? I am also looking at the sager 5792 but I'm not interested in the 9262 because of the desktop processor that is used in it. I've heard bad things about desktop processors being used in the notebook form factor.

 

I think the 1730 is shaping up to be an awesome laptop. Receiving my top spec M1730 on the 9th and I cant wait!

 

Anyone running the m1730 with WinXP? Any significant differences in performance between XP and Vista?

 

buying the Dell 1730 would be a wise decision. I looked for 2 weeks, read reviews, priced out alienware, sager, xtreme, clevo, etc. The one i really liked was the xtreme 20" but it did not have the best processors and even person from xtreme said it was troublesome. The quad core intell q6600 xtreme 17" was what i was going to choose, was ready to hit the submit button.

What stopped me was the warranty. THERE IS NO WARRANTY LIKE A DELL. Read the fine print, you NEED TO HAVE accidental coverage on these types of notebooks!!!! NONE of the others mentioned above sell it, they say limited warranty, read the fine print. Even if extend it to 3 years, again read fine print, they have about every exclusion they can (spills, accidents, don't clean out fans, etc, etc). Dell (and Toshiba) are the only vendors i have ever gotten accidental coverage from.

So, i purchased the dual core intel 2.8Ghz Dell XPS 1730, fully loaded, 4G ram, vista ultimate, blah blah blah. Cost me an arm and leg $5.5K with everything got, but i usually use notebooks for 3 years, have piece of mind if drop it, spill something on it, etc it will be repaired or replaced very quickly (within a day or two).

So, if you want to spend $2K-$5K on a notebook and not have anything but the manufacturer limited warranty like all the other brands, then take the chance and get the xtreme or sager. Hope for best, pray works great, if does not, good luck waiting months to get repaired, and god forbid you accidently drop it, spill something on it, you are out of luck. You can buy third party insurance, but it's pretty expensive and most are good for 1 year only, (safeware), and you only get one replacement. (i replaced my toshiba Qosmio G15 motherboard twice, and LCD twice in three years)

I would have bought the xtreme quad core 17" if it had the accidental coverage, but without it, was not worth the risk for me. Plus, heard night mare stories about sager, xtreme on getting repairs done quickly. Some say takes months on xtreme.

I have tried many different brands, like toshiba, dell, even had a macbook pro. But dell seems to have the best warranty and on notebooks that is the #1 thing i look at. I am sure within 2-3 years the XPS will have the intell V8 (2 quad core processors in 1 CPU), so it will only get better.

If after getting the XPS 1730 (shipping Jan 4th) i change mind and it sucks, i will let you know.

 

I would appreciate it if you would let me know how you like it. Good luck.

 

I bought my xps 1730 recently, but i have one BIG problem, at the bottom of the screen it has a brighter horizontal bar right where the taskbar is located. Is it normal ?

 

If you're not in a hurry to buy, perhaps consider the alienware m17x. The m15x was just released and is available for order. The m17x is probably not far behind.

http://www.alienware.com/intro_pages/m17x_m15x.aspx

 

I have considered it but the discount my wife gets is too good to pass up on the Dell. Hopefully they will announce 8800's in it soon.

 

There is no point in buying M1730 until 8800 version is released. SLI 8700 are no good for gaming, lots of problems and average performance at best. Of course, M1730 can be used for other tasks, but in that case there are other, cheaper laptops that will serve just as well.

 

^^^
I agree.
The M1730 is an awesome machine. I love mine. But the 8700m GPU's inside it are crap - well at least the drivers for them are. Game performance on the newer games is not what I expected at all.
I for one am waiting for when I can upgrade to the 8800 GTX's, and I'll be upgradin glike a shot. Im sick of the SLI issues with the 8700's, so much so, that I have had to disable SLI just to get good system stability!

 

I love my machine. I do agree on poor driver support though.

I played Company of hero so far @ high/ultra high settings mostly @ 1900x1200, and it does blow my M90's 7900GTX 512MB card away.

 

Is anyone running this machine with Windows XP? How is the performance compared to Vista? Any benchies between the 2 OS's?

 

I had an XPS 1730 running XP for about three weeks but returned it (Dell is very good about that). Although there were many things I liked about the machine (including Dell XPS technical support) I had several problems-shutting down for overheating was the most serious. The killer, though, was poor game performance. Dual 8700m's seem to score close to a single 8800m in 3DMark tests, but there seems to be a vast difference in games. I would find a 1730 with an 8800m (even a single one) to be attractive however.

The information I've gleaned from XP/Vista comparisons available on the net suggests XP might be up to 10% faster than Vista right now on some applications. I suspect as Vista and Vista drivers improve that gap will narrow.