Inpsiron 17R with GT 650M DDR5?

I've come across this Inspiron and I want to know more about it. This is the special edition I think...What have your experiences been with it? Any issues?

 

I have not had any issues and love mine. I've read many horror stories, but I have not had any problems with this laptop other than after reinstalling windows 8 on a ssd that my gpu boost isn't working. I appear to be stuck qt 745 MHz vs 835mhz. I could probably do a bios upgrade or something and fix the problem.

I have the non-3D 1080p screen, and it is a quality screen with vibrant colours, good contrast ratio, and wider viewing angle than most laptops. It's definitely a better screen than most laptops in the price range from what I've personally seen.

The case is made of plastic, but it's going strong with no marks on it so far. It's a very pretty case with a nice trim and curvy edges. The keyboard isn't backlit (if that matters) but works fine. It comes with 2 hard drive bays and an msata bay (mine came with mounts for the secondary bay). I recommend putting an ssd in and moving the current drive over to the secondary bay (unless you purchase with the msata drive. I bought the 1tb 5400 rpm model, so I wanted a bit more speed.

The gpu is decent at gaming, and can handle dark souls 2 40-50fps on high as a benchmark. It isn't amazing, but it'll get the job done unless you're a hardcore gamer. I have the intel i7 3630qm processor, and that's blazing fast. It isn't a bottleneck with anything.

Your limitations on this laptop are going to be the 100mbit Ethernet, the lower end WLAN card that doesn't support 5ghz, and dell support. You could get a cheaper hdd option and pop a ssd in. The WLAN card is a cheap upgrade if that puts you off as well. The sound quality really makes me happy since I can play videos in the background and stuff without being bothered by the sound quality in most laptops. It isn't exactly a subwoofer in the bottom as much as a midbass driver, but sound quality is very nice compared to regular laptop speakers.

At the price point I recommend this laptop (unless you want heavy duty gaming on new games coming out with ultra graphics options).

 

I have been using mine for over a year now and no complaints whatsoever.