I know I know...another n00b with possible Studio 15 purchase...

Hello everybody, I've come over to find out some more details about the Studio 15.

Now to start off, I have purchased 2 HP's and their battery life was horrible(1 hour 30ish min), back they went.
Then I was looking at IBM's/Lenovo to find out that the 6-cell is rated at 2200mAh=about 1hour 30ish min....scrap that idea.

Acer, Gateway I don't trust...so I came across the Dell site today at work.
I started pricing out the Dell Studio 15 and fell in love with what I can have it come with and the price. For this being my first laptop I was ready to purchase it.
Then I did some searching around for the cons and now I'm having doubts.

Some background on me. I work for HP Desktop division so I deal with customers daily and I know about lemons/flaws and how sometimes a company just wont do anything about it.

So my main worry's are with this dell the common issues, the cracking speakers, the multimedia touchpad screwing up, the eject button issue.
How many of you that purchase the Studio 15 haven't had any issue? does it just depend on luck?

As I said, this will be my first laptop and I will be using it for when I travel with the military so I want something that I can rely on. I don't have the patience to purchase a product that doesn't work properly.

I have found I believe people on here that can fix the cracking noise, I don't mind the low speakers but are they still decent?

What about the media touchpad and eject issues, can those be fixed? or is this a 'lets hope dell finally does something about it' issue?


Sorry to make this type of a thread on here, I'm sure this is common. Spending $500.00 on a laptop and having poor build quality I can understand...but not when you spend $1000.00


Thank you and I hope I don't come off as some 'stuck up prick'
Just want to get my money's worth.


Thank you
bart

 

The Studio 15 has a lot of good attributes, but it's not without a few faults-

Speakers- they suck, even for a laptop.
Touchpad- frustrating to use, I bought an external wireless laser mouse within a week.
Eject Button- there isn't an actual dedicated 'Eject' button, the 'Fn' and 'F12' keys pressed must be pressed simultaneously to eject....and it doesn't always work on the first try...or the system refuses to recognize that it has a CD/DVD loaded and, therefore, doesn't allow it to be ejected.

On the PLUS side, mine easily has the best display of any notebook I've ever used (WXGA+ LED-backlit option). Even with a 2.5GHz T9300 processor and ATI graphics card, it can last 3-hours and a few minutes on the 6-cell battery. It's also fairly thin and well-designed for the most part. The fingerprint reader and back-lit keyboard are also very cool extras.

I'd have no problem recommending the Studio 15 to someone who only planned to use it around the house most of the time. But you mention that you plan to use it when you travel with the military. I'd suggest something a little more robust if you plan to travel much with it.

DELL's Small Business division has two different lines you should consider- the Vostro (entry-level) and the Latitude (mainstream). The Vostro has a few over consumer-oriented models (e.g. Studio 15) included a magnesium-alloy chassis, shock-protected hard drive and sealed keyboard to protect from dust and spills. The Latitude E6400/E6500 have all of those features, plus additional magnesium alloy reinforcements in the lid to protect the LCD, overall higher quality materials used throughout and they offer the most up-to-date processors. The Latitude E6400/E6500 also have a standard 3-year Limited Warranty. The E6400 equipped with a 9-cell Battery, LED-backlit display and integrated graphics can easily last more than 6-hours on one charge.

Take a look- http://www.dell.com/business/laptops

 

I know when I bought a Studio 1537 in Mid Dec, I found the speakers to be okay. However, I ended up returning the notebook because of the eject issue. I do not know if it affects all notebooks, but I was really annoyed by it.

As well, there is an eject button on the media touchpad and that in part plays with the eject issue.

 

Thank you to both of you for that.

I am going to pass on this laptop then, its just not 'finished' as it should be. It does suck as it looks like a well rounded pc if it was all working and I was ready to buy it yesterday.

Thank you for the honest opinions and I'll have to just keep looking.


Do you guys know if these issues are also for the Inspiron 1525?
I've looked at the vostro line but it's a bit more then I wanted to spend at this moment.