Dell Studio 1555

Yup, you can't upgrade th GPU in the Studio 15; the Studio XPS 16 as Phil said is a much better choice, pretty much twice as powerful as the 4570 in the Studio 15.

 

Not sure what constitutes "does it all" for you but the only Windows burning software I've used for years is ImgBurn, which is free. The only thing it does not do in one step is copy disc-to-disc. You can still do it but you have to do two steps, 1) make an image of the first disc then 2) burn image to new disc.

 

This is what most software (even one-step disc to disc software) does, taking up the same amount of space on the hard disk for image files and everything.

 

Can you guys pull out the screen bezel a few centimeters using just your fingernail? I just realized that i can, very easily. Thats kind of a let down, i was impressed with the build quality apart from the screen bezel.



also anyone affected by the screen flicker issue should check out this thread, some people got theirs replaced.

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19263299.aspx

 

I too had similar problem as u mentioned with CD BurnerXP. I did some googling nd installed Intel Matrix Storage manager. After that, the software detected the drive without any problem.
BTW CD BurnerXp is a really good Nero alternative.

 

I just received my Studio 15 and I am loving it so far! The screen (I have 900p) is beautiful and amazingly bright, the keyboard is well organized and has no flex for me, I actually like the chainlink design, and the performance is miles ahead of my old laptop. The only thing that I don't like is that I received a 15% coupon code from Dell today, less than a week after I placed my order. What do you guys think the chances of me calling and getting that 15% are?

 

100%, because if you don't get it you can return it and still get it

 

Mine definitely doesn't do that. My display bezel is very firmly attached. It looks and feels like I would need tools to pry it off. You should get it replaced.

Unless Dell decides to charge their 15% restocking fee since there's otherwise nothing wrong with the laptop. That would be amusingly ironic. ^_^

 

If they say that they won't do it I am just going to tell them that the computer has heat problems and there must be something wrong with it.

 

Which will be fine as long as they don't test the laptop - which they might, no scratch that, they will so they can put it in the outlet.

 

Even it is was purchased from the outlet? And, tbh, it does not really run cold. It gets pretty hot around the touchpad even though the processor and hard drive don't get that hot.

 

Mine does as well. I believe it is the wireless card.

 

That is what I think it is, too, but it does not really bother me. I will just say it does and return it for a full refund and then reorder with my 15% code if they don't allow me to use the code retroactively.

 

It doesn't matter that it was bought from the outlet. A machine goes back to Dell, they test it and if it is ok it will go onto the shelves in the outlet. As an "added bonus" to Dell, they get to see if people were lying to them. Whether they chose to do anything about it; well there you are relying on the human being looking at the test results. You might not get hit with the restocking fee, but you might. It happened to a friend once, but then he returns things loads of times to Dell because he doesn't like them, so you might not be so unlucky. Like I said, it will most likely end up being down to the person looking at the report.

In any case, technically this could be viewed as fraud and therefore I'm not going to say any more on the subject, being that it's against the forum rules

Yes I believe the wireless card is situated below the touchpad; though not 100% on that.

 

Hi

I have installed Windows 7 however I cant get the blue Fn keys working properly, do I have to reinstall some Dell software to get full functionality again (as in graphical onscreen feedback ie. icons)

Many thanks

densil

 

^yea.. you need to have dell quickset installed

 

Just ordered my studio 1555, says estimated ship is 8/31!!!!

Anyone ever get that estimate and get it in like....a week?

 

I ordered mine 7/21 with an estimate arrival date of 8/6 and I received it on 7/30. So...9 days.

 

In The Netherlands we have the right to return it without restocking fee. I'm not sure what the rules are in US but I thought you had something similar.

 

Hello everyone,

I registered to this forum because I was sure to get a good answer here for some of my questions
-> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asPsYquXyO4 Is the screen that flimsy on all the studio 1555's or is it just that the maker of that video has a manufacturing problem?
-> is the keyboard flimsy? IOW, if you press it does it go into the laptop by a lot?
-> what material is the back of the screen made of? plastic? because in the same video you can also see how she can bend the screen by a significant amount in both ways.

thanks in advance!

 

Hi Lucato,

I just checked it. There's is definite keyboard flex. It would not bother me because the keyboard feels fine.
The screen does bend. In my opinion that's completely normal for a consumer grade laptop. My Asus laptop does exactly the same.

If you don't want a bending screen or keyboard flex you'll need a business grade laptop like Latitude or aluminium Macbook. Or maybe the Dell SXPS would do to, I'm not sure.

My back of the screen seems like plastic. I have the 'Jet Black' color that has been replaced by 'Chainlink Black'.

 

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the quick reply! Your response confirms what I thought.. It seems like most consumer laptops/ entertainment laptops are flimsy build. Only the Sony vaio are more robust (I went to Mediamarkt and tried it on several laptops ) However, the XPS system or Macbook is too expensive for me, so this will have to do.
I'm still wondering though: in the video you can see that the person creates color distortions on the screen by inducing force on the back of the screen.
(at 0:24 in the video) Also, is the screen fragile? because at 1:34 in the video she can press down on the screen a lot. It raises concerns for me because I will be using it for school a lot which means I will travel with it a lot too.

 

Are you sure I can not cause discoloration in Sony Vaio? I owned Sony Vaio TZ and Z and I am sure I can cause discoloration in them. They have very thin screens though.

If you're going to travel a lot I recommend putting protection between the keyboard and screen, no matter what brand laptop you buy.

 

hmm well I saw the Sony vaio FW one for 999 euros here in holland,
and I could barely bend the screen and the discoloration was minimal. The HP laptops they had were much worse, more like the Dell studio.
Are you finding it a problem that the screen is 'flexible'? Also, here in holland i can only get 720p option at the website but some people say the color contrast is very bad? What's your opinion of it?

 

You can order the Full HD screen through telephone. Check this thread for all information and how to get extra discounts:
http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/1299997

 

well the 1080p screen is not really an option because it will be too small for me.
but I have registered myself on the Dell website to possibly receive a bonus in the future

 

All the information about coupons and EPP discounts is in the thread above.

 

My 1555 comes today! =D I'm planning to do a bunch of benchmarks between stock, clean-install vista and W7. Anyone have any requests?

 

Hey Phil,

A few last questions, do you think the back of the screen is fragile? if you push on it while its closed, does it bend a lot? It will be my first laptop so I am not familiar with all the different screens :S Its true that the macbook has a great body but it runs MacOsX which I'm not familiar with, also the prices on macbooks are incredibly high. Just for confirmation, you have the 720p screen right? Since you have an Asus too, do you think this screen on the studio is worse than on your Asus one?

Looking forward to your reply!

 

Here in the US, we can return the laptop within 21 days of invoice without a restocking fee, if the return is due to something wrong with the laptop. If we just return it because we don't like it or we change our minds, Dell has the right to charge a 15% restocking fee.

And yes, the touchpad heat is generated by the WiFi card, which is located directly underneath the touchpad. You can help reduce the heat output by running your WiFi card in Maximum Power Saving mode. You might lose the occasional packet, or some speed, but the card will not heat your touchpad nearly as much.

 

Build quality is average. Screen is not fragile but it does bend. If you handle your laptop with care the build quality is more than enough.

I have the 720p AUO screen which is pretty good. Slightly better than the Samsung.

If you want top build quality have a look at these Dell Latitudes. They ship to NL too.
http://www.ndc.co.uk/browse-Dell_Latitude_Laptops-24.html

 

Tipoo: I had the same issues with the bezel (plus many more issues so I returned mine yesterday).

 

Hi Lucato,

That is my video you posted about earlier. Just wanted to comment that what you saw was fingertip impressions showing through the screen as I applied light pressure to the lid. The lid was ridiculously cheap and flexible. I think I was sold a lemon as a lot of people have mentioned theirs was not as flexible/cheap as mine. Good luck!

 

ooh thats good to hear, thanks for the quick responses Phil and J3n82 I think I have made my choice for the studio 1555. I've been looking for other laptops a lot but dell provides a great bang for the buck, so to say

Phil, I looked at the latitudes but I think its not really what I'm looking for
watch this! -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEIG4eM5x1k
also flex on that one. Today I went to the macstore and I saw the macbook pro, which is the first laptop I've seen with no flexing at all! Too bad they are so dam expensive :|

 

Are you student? If so you can get large discount and free ipod (sell it for more discount).

 

I hardly consider $100 a "large discount" on a $1,700 laptop (my girlfriend was looking into getting a 15" Macbook Pro for college). The free iPod is nice, though.

 

In the Netherlands the 1149,- MBP can be around 900,- with student discount and selling the ipod. That's 20%.

But still a lot of money imo.

 

yeah I looked into that, but as Mastershroom points out, the discount is too low to make it affordable for me :S Thanks for the thinking though

 

I'm just on my new 1555...having lots of fun hooking it up to my HDTV and playing some old games on it.

Anyway, I'm interested to know how I'd go about installing Windows 7 on my laptop. I'm really more concerned with the drivers than anything else- will the drivers Dell shipped with my system work on the Windows 7 release candidate, including the ones for the ATi 4570HD?

Thanks!

 

Drivers for Vista and Windows 7 are the same. No prob.

 

Anyone Else having problems installing 5100WiFi drivers on 64bit Windows 7. For me it is givin a error nd stoppin midway. I hav downloaded the latest drivers from dell site. Is it possible to dwd nd use drivers frm intel site itself?

 

I don't think I even needed to install drivers, I believe windows 7 found them straight away upon installation.

 

I just decided to upgrade to 7 and when I went for the disc I burned last month I couldn't find it. Now I have to download the RC all over again. I really hope everything works right off the bat when I install it because downloading this takes forever with my slow internet connection.

I haven't used 7 on a laptop yet but I heard it improves performance and battery life and reduces heat, is this true?

 

Yep, it found almost all of my drivers, at least the required ones. I had to download and install Quickset and the Driver for my touchpad (that allows scrolling, etc).

Abaddon, I don't know about those as I have nothing to compare it to (I used Vista for about an hour and then formatted).

 

I think it's really more about the little things that they've corrected from Vista rather than any massive performance increases. Mind you, I always find it tough to tell considering that SQL server is sat on my notebook doing this:



Gobbling up all of my RAM. Argh, why wont the price of those 4GB sticks hurry up and come down already...!!

 

I agree, can't wait for those to come down.

 

I just bought my Studio 1555 from Best Buy. It came with the integrated graphics. I want to upgrade it to the ATI 4570 but Dell says that my laptop "doesn't have that option." Can anyone out there let me know if I can upgrade it, and if so I can't find any ATI 4570 would the 4550 be an adequate replacement?

 

You cannot upgrade the graphics card, after purchasing the laptop.

The card you want has to be installed in the laptop already.

I believe the reasoning is because the card is soldered onto the motherboard.

 

Hey guys I'm wondering if I should "upgrade" my laptop to a higher spec Studio.

Current specs are in the signature area. I estimate for an additional $100 i can get the following 'upgrades" in the next laptop:

-C2D P8600
-4GB RAM
-1080p LED screen
-9-cell battery
-Win7 upgrade
-1 year warranty



Long story short i'll be selling my current laptop in the sig for $650 and get the "upgraded" laptop for about $750-800 off Dell Outlet (with 15% off coupon).

 

All of that i nice, but it depends on what you use it for:

p8600 (a little faster, you probably wouldn't notice much of a difference)
4GB RAM - I bet you don't even max out thre 3GB you have at the moment
1080p display - nice, but are you really unhappy with the 900p one?
9 cell battery - longer "off AC time" but heavier machine.
Win 7 Upgrade I didn't think was available from the outlet - I'd double check that if I was you.