Dismay with Dell Studio 1535.

Hey all. Just thought I would share my disappointment and dismay with the Dell Studio 1535 laptop. I have owned it since September, and am already raising money for my next laptop purchase.

I am just not satisified with this laptop. I paid €1200 euro at the time, and in return got a somewhat unstable system. Windows had this bad habit of crashing often, and not shutting down correctly, until I upgraded to Vista 64-Bit.

I am although, happy with the 4GB of RAM, and graphics, you get what you pay for with them, although the Graphics card is the main reason I am going to purchase a new laptop as my gaming is going to have to go mobile in boarding school soon.

Anyway, the silver casing I bought my laptop with is just unsatifactory. I had it sent back twice for cracked lid hinges, both sides. Now this is the third lid casing I have had, seems to be okay, hinges haven't buckled yet, but the plastic is still flimsy, cheap and very very badly painted. I have had this new lid on for 2 weeks now and the paint is already starting to scratch and peel off above the LCD, and is damaged and quite scratched on the palm rest, although that is to be expected.

I have had a problem with the sound twice. It randomly decides not to play through the speakers, unless I apple pressure to the bottom left of the laptop with my left palm. Got the motherboard replaced twice yet this has only been improved but not prevented. Sounds like a loose connection or bad fitting issue to me.

Lastly, the media keys above the keyboard, ALWAYS freeze. The keys have been replaced twice to, but still it has not been fixed. Every time I turn on the laptop, whether booting into Vista 64-Bit or XP Professional, it happens. Eventually it resolves itself, but is a major annoyance, especially when it decides it doesn't want to eject my disc, and freezes up as a result when I try to eject it by right clicking "My Computer".

Oh, and to top it all off, the keys on the keyboard tend to flick upwards and appear to almost break off, I had a problem with my "K" key coming half loose once.. Not re-assuring.

Sorry to be a pessimist. Just expressing my opinions, not forcing them upon you. Similar stories or opinions are welcome to be posted in this forum. Also, I do not know, but have these problems been resolved in the 1555? It's funny how these days products are rushed to the market without being tested and of a good quality.. Xbox 360's broke up after the first 6 months.. Windows Vista was buggy and froze often at the start, and these Dell laptop are just of an unacceptable build quality that would not have been seen many years ago..

Feel free to post your opinions

 

The media button issue happened to me too. I returned it and bought a Lenovo Ideapad Y530 (which games alot better than this laptop). My main issue was the media keys. Plus, their customer service was useless!

Good to know that many people feel the same way about this laptop.

EnergyXP

 

What do you guys do to your laptops? If you want rugged laptops then buy Panasonic. Paint doesn't just come off, it takes a deep knick, scratch or some other force to start the peeling. I never had the problems you experience with paint and cracked hinges. We have no way of knowing whether you have actually inflicted force upon your laptop and are just upset because the laptop didn't withstand it.

As for the media keys, nearly everyone who has a Studio 1535 has experienced that problem.

Since you have the 64-bit operating system, your eject buttons will cease to function from time to time, this is a defect in the 1535 line with and should be expected. If you don't want this problem then use a 32-bit OS. We are hoping that an upcoming BIOS update will resolve this.

You don't contact customer service for your technical issues, you contact technical support. I hope that is what you meant, they have been nothing but helpful in my instances.

I see that you have been a member since August of 2008. There have been plenty of threads assessing some of the issues you have mentioned and they are always available for viewing. To be honest, you should have done a little more research on this laptop if you aren't patient enough to handle the problems that arise.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the new laptop that you are getting.

 

Sorry, but I take extreme care with my laptop. When it is not being used, it is in a padded soft laptop case, not left about. The hinges cracked simply from open and closing, nothing more. Im assuming the paint from above the LCD is from the lid on the palm rest when the laptop is closed.. I do not go hackin at my laptops palm rest with keys or a knife.. simply opening and closing it. I do NOT appreciate being attacked. This quality, I find is just not acceptable for the price range. It wouldn't kill Dell to use a better quality of paint.. If there was an option for 2 coats of it or special "reinforced" paint I'd pay for it

As for the media keys, such a defect just isn't acceptable for a product to be shipped with. Why pay full price for a faulty product?

Also, if that is a "64-Bit" defect, why is it happening in 32-Bit Windows Professional? Or is that a completely different reason? Funny how people have answers for everything.

Lastly, according to your signature, you own an Inspiron 1420.. So I ask you the question.. How would you know?? Build quality on Inspiron's I'm sure is different.. I am looking at my friends Inspiron 1520 here and the silver finish is of a more metalic style, not glossy or plastic-like.. Which is much more durable and of a better quality, I assume.. So don't rant about something you have no experience of please..

I am just expressing my discomfort and disappoint, in hope that casual laptop users like me might avoid making such mistakes as I have, and research into known issues before they buy.

As I said, I'm sure they have been resolved in 1555 models..

 

When I contacted tech support (which is what I meant), they acted oblivious to what I was talking about, although I have now heard tons of complaints about the media problem. Then the tech support told me to open up my laptop to reconnect the media bar! The laptop was just one week old! I was incredibly disappointed in Dell. Just think, they might tell a totally inexperienced user to do this.

Sorry about the rant, it is just that I expect better quality products from a huge computer company like Dell. This was the first issue that both my family and I have ever had with Dell. We still have a 7 year old Dimension 3000 that still runs quite well.

Oh, and my only issue was the media buttons, nothing else with the computer.

 

Len is with Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9300M 256MB!
Are you joking as Ati 3450 is faster or in the same cat as 9300M!

 

My Dell Studio came with the X3100, so that is what I was talking about there.

 

the media problem exists in both 32bit and 64 bit -_-
yeah and the ati 4570 is definitely better then the 9300m

 

Let's back up here....

Firstly, You clearly state in your post and I QUOTE

That is exactly what I did. I am in no way attacking you, I am posting my opinion.

Secondly, you were not clear in your post as to how the paint chipped and the hinges cracked.

Thirdly, you should read in the past threads before you shoot your mouth off. I will personally refer you to a friend known as Mastershroom who owns a Studio 1535 with a 64-bit OS and had the eject button failure issue. There are numerous people who have also had this issue. Me being one of them. When you say "Windows Professional" I assume you are talking about Windows XP. Well guess what, Windows XP is not a supported OS in the Studio 1535/36/37 line, don't you think that might be why the buttons are failing? Let me know if you have the eject problem using 32-bit Windows Vista. I am not talking about the media button issue I am talking about the EJECT button issue. The media button problem does exist in both 32-bit and 64-bit OSes. The eject button has only been known to fail on a 64-bit OS. That is what I am talking about.

Fourthly, I would know because...um... I OWNED ONE. I have owned a Studio 1536 and a Studio 1535. I had media button problems that you are encountering with the Studio 1535. However, the eject button issue was only present on the 64-bit vista operating system as I stated before.

I am disappointed because you are ranting but you really have no knowledge of the problems you are having. There are threads here that discuss those issues, you should take a look at them.

Thank you for clarifying. When I had my Studio 1535 they also told me to reconnect the media bar. Sometimes if you want something done you have to do it yourself.

Haha. Well in that case, I can understand your pain.

 

Firstly, sorry for ranting. I apologise.

Secondly, yes I am referring to the EJECT button issue. I had Windows Vista 32-Bit on my laptop from September to December when I first got it repaired. On Vista 32-Bit Home Premium the eject button froze up upon turning it on nearly everytime time, exactly as it does now on Windows Vista 64-Bit and Windows XP Professional 32-Bit, so yes, it did occur on all three Operating Systems, exactly the same every time for each, which leads me to believe it is not necessarily an OS related problem. After a total of three different media bars on my laptop, ALL have had EXACTLY the same problem, the EJECT button freezing, unfreezing after time, but not working afterwards a MAJORITY of a time.. Sometimes it does work after, as of by coincidence now.. This seems to be much more common after I updated the Blu-Ray drives BIOS from the dell website.

 

Apology accepted.

Yes that is correct, the eject button lighting up and then freezing is not OS specific. However, that is not the problem I was referring to. I am talking about the eject buttons (both the touch button and keyboard shortcut), they cease to function with a 64-bit OS, meaning that you have to enter My Computer to eject the disk. Did you have this problem?

 

I DID have this problem.. Although it appears to have disappeared.. Pressing the button now and the drive makes the disc eject noise.. But it has ceased to work many many times before.. BIOS update must have helped a little, but I still find it disappointing in Dell.. If the eject button decides to freeze up upon startup I can't eject disks without going into My Computer until it decides to unfreeze.

 

Yeah I can understand your pain there. I suggest you wait a little while longer until the new BIOS update is released to see if it fixes those issues. Just like you, I got fed up, which is why I no longer have the Studio 1535. If I find out that the new BIOS update fixes those issues I will be mad because I actually liked my Studio 1535.

 

Hi! I didn't know I was taking referrals now.

For the record, I can confirm pretty much everything John's been saying. I've had my Studio 1535 since August of last year. For roughly the first half of that time, I was running Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit. During all that time, the eject button would freeze for several minutes upon startup, but once it unfroze, it would work perfectly.

After a while, I installed the 64-bit version of Vista Home Premium, and almost immediately noticed a new issue: after unfreezing, the eject button would sometimes cease to function entirely, along with the Fn+F10 eject shortcut. When pressed, the button lights up like normal, but does not eject, regardless of whether a disk is present in the drive. The only way to eject when this happens is to right-click the drive in My Computer and select the eject option.

In the intervening months, I've had no less than four media panel replacements, a DVD drive replacement, and a motherboard replacement, none of which have fixed the eject button failure. The most recent panel seems to be immune to the freezing on startup *knock on wood*, but the button still fails once in Windows.

Currently I'm waiting on a BIOS update that a Dell technician told me would be released weeks ago, that supposedly should be a miracle fix for the media panel button issues. I'm starting to doubt whether or not this alleged update is ever actually going to happen, though; according to the guy I spoke to over a month ago, it should have been out by last week at the latest. And since then, nobody else at Dell I've spoken to has seemed to know anything about this, I'm going to go ahead and assume that the guy I originally spoke to was lying.

Anyway, eject issues aside, I think this is an excellent laptop. I've never had any issues with paint scratching or wearing, either. I have the standard Jet Black finish.

Anyway, I hope your next laptop works out better for you.

 

Mastershroom are you still with Home Version.
I didn't notice it till now.
But I'm with Ultimate x64 and I don't have your problem at all.

Home Version is somehow with limited functions,and It sound stupid but I really don't have this problem on my Ultimate Version.

 

Build quality of the Studio 1535/1537 is rubbish. I started a poll a while back, and roughly 80% of the owners ARE having problems...and you would think it's the other way around. It's the reason why Dell rushed the Studio 1555 out.

 

What also annoyed me was that I asked if they would change the laptop casing to a coloured one as it is made from a different material and they completely refused.. They said if this new one cracks all they will do is replace it yet again with another silver one.. Ha.

 

If you are willing to remove the LCD and back cover you can purchase a colored one on eBay from 30-50 bucks.

 

the palmrest is really bad, mine has started to show some strange "scratches", just from opening and closing, that's completely true, the 1535 I had was also this way. A friend of mine has a 1535, and it's also scratched, I think the plastic is really crappy. I got this special ed. vapor red palmrest, edge-to-edge lcd like 2 weeks ago, and still the scratches are beginning to appear, from nothing, because I personally did a foam protection for in between the lcd and keyboard/palmrest, it doesn't do any good.
why does Dell use such a poor plastic? I want something that lasts

 

Does this not void the warranty? Might wait until it's up.