XPS m1530/m1330 - Lets clear up the hateful misconceptions...shall we!

Hi there......as many people who are knowledgeable about Dell know....there have been various issues about the XPS m1330 and 1530 models of notebooks which have taken fire and escalated in the past few months.......Obviously there is truth to these issues and they have been "dealt with" by dell in its usual so-so fashion. However....I think most of us also realize that these issues are blown way out of proportion. The issues have/will only affect a small amount of people who own these laptops. The reason these problems are so prevalent on these forums are because this is the best place on the web to get your questions answered....and to bite and cuss and mope and cry....and have sympathizers when you are dealing with notebooks. People who have good experiences don't often feel the need to exult in joy and praise the Dell XPS god. So what I ask my fellow Dell Owners to fill out this poll truthfully so there is a thread we can (hopefully) link to when people point out the issues of the XPS line and suggest against it.

EDIT: Please link this to other XPS owners you know so they can truthfully tell us what they think....and so the sample doesn't only consist of dell fanboys and girls

 

perhaps you could add some more options to the poll? it isnt always as clear cut as you currently have it...

 

have you have serious problems with you xps laptop.....its a yes or no question.....I guess you mean the loving of the laptop.....perhaps......i'll see what other people say and fix accordingly....unfortunately you can't change polls.

 

I think that there's so many threads about problems with the xps series is that so many people have one now there's bound to have some problems it's like multiplying cells, when u have a lot some evolve (best example i can give someone come up with a better one ^^)

 

dont get me wrong, the m1530 is an awesome laptop, but of the three that i've had sent to me, each has had its own problems. take from that what you will...

 

It's all relative... Mine came with keyboard bulge and some other cosmetic defects. Would have been a serious problem if I didn't already have experience taking apart some other dell laptops I've had in the past. But I voted that I'm happy with no serious problems.

 

The M1530 is wonderful.. I love it so much...

 

My XPS m1530 came with a badly defected screen and the volume up touch control didn't register at all. Pretty bad quality control @ Dell it seems.

I got a full refund and bought a better spec m1530 with a 24" Ultrasharp lcd bundle (AAFES deal) for the same price! No tax & free shipping I'm giving Dell one final shot. The Dell Inspiron 8100 still runs nicely today after 6 years of usage.

 

everythings is fine except had to relpace bad harddrive. had new one in 3 days and i back up so no big deal.

 

mine had a webcam replaced after 2 months, but I wouldn't be without my xps

 

i'm still waitin on diablo 3 or mortal online to come out, so i can really use my m1530. mine has been good to me so far. i use mine with a cooler 90% of the time, so that might help a bit. during benchmark06 tests, my GPU never gets hotter than 70c-71c; CPU peak: 59-61c; HD peak: 36c-37c. i have noticed that my fans barely kick in while i'm usin my cooler.

only con is: i hated the fingerprint reader. i don't really use it so i just disabled it.

 

Though Nvidia is somewhat vague, many do not seem to understand what heat cycling is and think defective cards = fail and the BIOS update does nothing. Hope this clears things up.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3727335&postcount=17

 

Your post has me thinking. I'm using an older driver revision because it has significantly lower idle temperatures (156.65 idles at 58C compared with ~68C on newer drivers)... could this actually be counterproductive due to the greater amount of fluctuation? (and also, is shooting myself in the foot by using an older, slower driver a wasted effort?)

 

No your not. When you start gaming, the temperature rising is more or less gradual. Starting up your computer is most detrimental because of the sudden insurge of heat. Your fine, thats why the A12 bios in your case and all the bios revisions kick up the fans at the start. Fans also kick in at a lower temperatures to further help assist in the easing in to higher temps.

 

Good to know. There has to be a little more going on at a driver level however, since different branches can result in quite significant idle temperatures. I know the 58C on these drivers is not a misreading, because the fan speeds up at the intervals you'd expect (70, 80 etc), though one change with the A12 bios seems to be that the fan does not immediately slow back down again once they drop below 70, I assume to maintain a stable temp.

It's only really idle temps that seems to be greately lower, too. I still get up to 89C playing Devil May Cry 4 or Unreal Tournament (with the new high resolution textures and Direct3D9 renderer), whereas games that are more CPU heavy such as Final Fantasy XI and Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst (ie console ports) hover in the 70's. As you can tell, I've been able to use the m1330 for a fair bit of gaming.

 

Well i didnt know really how to answer in the pool, First of all it's my second laptop and the last one was inspiron 6400, so i didnt really have any earlier experience.
Lets start, I like my Xps 1530 it's fast and respondive, i like it's silky design and the "touch buttons" it's quite fast and didnt encounter any big issues the battery life in 9 cell is very good will stand about 4+ hours in normal work with minimum brightness or even maybe more.
I liked is the remote control and the multi card reader and also the fingertip reader.
It has good exists (HDMI and double earphone jacks) and also come with good earphones and discs case and even a nice sheet for you to clean the laptop with the XPS logo on it.
What i didnt like is the heat up of this computer altough first i thought it's my CPU or my GPU i found that they work fine, the real problem was my HD that shoots up to 54 degrees under load, it's located under your "carpals" and it's makes you abit uncomfortable feeling after few minutes of working.
My advise to you try to buy other HD then seagate 160gb maybe it's the cause of the problem...never really tested this computer under games but once i tried to play call of duty 4 with it and it was really nice and fast withouht any real overheating issues (again except my HD).
Well hope it will help anyone to choose.

If you do ask me if i recommend on this laptop then i will asnwer yes, but take account for it's faults.

 

i'd say i'm very statisified with my m1330... no problems( So far, touch wood..)

 

M1530 is awesome! So glad I decided to pull the trigger on this baby.

All too often I think people forget that we only hear the complaints on notebookforums. I'm guilty of this as well. I don't post about my XPS as much as I should, since I'm playing with custom themes or looking at other sections of the forum now that I've received my XPS.

 

according to the poll it looks like most people are satisfied but by the posts on this board it looks like 99% of these laptops end up messed up

 

most people with complaints will show up

most people satisfied would disapper to play with their new gadget...

80% satisfied out of 50... think we need at least 200 before confirming anything

 

To Shakey_Jake33 does your fan ever turn off when on battery? I think that would be one way to tell if the readings are correct or not because you don't seem to agree with us that they are improper readings. The fan turns on when the temps reach 64C on battery I believe, or atleast that is how mine is. So if your fans do not turn off at all then you know that your temps were never below 64C.

 

My m1530 has been working perfectly since I received it. One minor problem was with the Bluetooth. It was more of a driver problem than a hardware one. The customer rep made me open up the laptop to reseat the card (a horrifying experience) and still didn't work. Looked around in the forum and found the solution.

 

I love both.

 

i agree about the 200+ voters needed......does this mean that there are only around 100 owners of dell xps laptops on nbr?

 

bump for more info

 

Make a thread about what you want to know.

 

bump for more impressions......

sorry if thats not allowed

 

My M1530 is flawless and I'm totally happy with it, although it was refurbished and has some missing accessories.

 

i love my xps m1530
i hate dell tech support

i have seen one replacement, which was worse than the one i had issues with, so i kept my old one. i haven't seen a "perfect" m1530, even my friends' have issues, but nothing to warrant the time waste i've spent to get support/exchange. the system is great but Dell needs to up the quality of service (xps reps are great, everyone else not so much) and the quality of building and parts.

even with the flaws i'd buy it again.

 

I lurves my 1530....that's what I have to say..Yes, I had 1 problem with it..called XPS support, they were awesome! Had On-Site come and fix at my time and convenience...and since then all has been *good-to-go!

The 1530 is my first lappy..and what an awesome lappy it's turned out to be for me! :yes:



Cin

 

great post. I want to know too!! More ppl vote plz! (My laptop has been having annoying heating problems, crashes, etc)

 

How long have you had your laptop? i never really run mine w/o a coolingpad unless im in class.