Inspiron 17R SE ? a photographers review

As the title suggests it this will be a subjective review which will concentrate on using the Inspiron 7720 for photo editing. Don’t expect to find here a technical review that focuses on benchmarks and such. Do expect to find here my personal findings after using the 7720 for over a month.

I was looking for a replacement laptop for my good ol’ trusty Inspiron 1720 (Core 2 Duo, 4 GB DDR2 RAM, 2 x 120 GB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 256 MB, 17 inch Full HD glossy screen) which I have been using the 1720 for almost 5 years and still works like a charm. I did a fair amount of photo editing on my 1720 but nowadays as the size of digital files increased tremendously the 7120 just couldn’t keep up anymore. It was time to start looking for another laptop.

The crucial aspect for anyone who is looking for a photo editing laptop is the screen. I needed a 17 inch screen with Full HD resolution and a matte coating. I would like to stress the importance of a matte screen: there is nothing worse than trying to edit photos using a glossy screen. No matter how hard you try to control the ambient light you will still have glare and unwanted reflections. Not to mention that you always see your own reflection. The ideal photo editing laptop has all the above characteristics plus an IPS panel. For those unfamiliar with the terminology an IPS panel is better suited for calibration and is far more accurate that regular TN panels.

Screen
The 7720’s screen is unfortunately not IPS but this does not mean it’s not adequate for photo editing given the price. After careful calibration using my my X-Rite i1Display 2 Colorimeter the results were encouraging: although the display calibrated well. The end result was more accurate colors, properly adjusted brightness and contrast.

The before and after differences are striking. So much I would STRONGLY advise all future and present Inspiron 17R SE owners to calibrate their displays.

Overall, i rate the screen quality a 4 of 5 stars. Had it been an IPS panel it would have gotten a perfect 5.

Sound
Another pleasant surprise was the sound quality. The speakers give a fuller, richer and distortion free sound than those in my old Inspiron 1720.

To test the sound quality I played Boyce Avenue’s cover Grenade. I couldn’t believe my ears how great it sounded. I raised the volume at 100% and still no distortions. Clear midtones, powerful bass, great overall sound.

A perfect 5 in this regard.

Keyboard
Coming from the 1720 the first thing I noticed was that the 7720 has a chicklet-style keyboard. The keys are well-spaced, I love that backlighting feature and the fact that it has a dimming setting. Typing in Word is ok but compared to the 1720’s keyboard I get more typos on my 7720. I can’t say the keyboard is worse but it’s not better either.

There is one thing which is clearly not ok: the space bar. The majority of my typos come from the space bar not being registered if I don’t press it in the middle. I noticed that several other users complained about this too.

I rate the keyboard at 3,5/5. For me it’s a downgrade but I also think I need more time to adjust to it. Maybe in time I will get better at using it.

I find the 3 special keys useful. Love the settings keys and the options it provides. The sound preset key is also useful but I found that using the music preset works best for me so I guess I won’t be using it too often. The customizable one is also a nice addition. I set up mine to mute the sound.

Processing power
The 7720 is a beast when it comes to processing power. I have the following configuration : Core i7-3610 - 16GB 1600MHz – 2 GB Nvidia Geforce GT650M – OS drive: Seagate Momentus XT 320 GB (4GB flash cache NAND) – Secondary drive: 750GB 7200rpm – DVD writer – Backlit keyboard.
Fortunately for me I could upgrade the laptop from 8 to 16 GB of RAM and it also came with Ubuntu which meant I did not have to pay for a Windows 7 license.
Notice I don’t have the mSATA card included. I wouldn’t even want this card as I feel that my Momentus XT does a nice job of speeding up the laptop. In the near future I plan on installing a 128 GB Samsung 830 SSD to really give it a speed bump.
I did a clean Windows 7 Ultimate x64 install and now I get 30 seconds boot times and 15 seconds shutdown times regularly. All my office programs, browsers, media players and other regular software are quick to start.
Photoshop is also a joy to use. To give you an idea of how much of a beast this laptop is I am able to simultaneously open 20 .psd files each varying in size from 100 to 200 MB and the machine churns through them without a single slowdown. Amazing! The 2 GB Nvidia Geforce GT650M surely plays and important role here but the 16 GB of RAM are vital when it comes to image batch processing. My advice to anyone who plans to use this laptop for photo editing is to get 16 GB of RAM. It’s cheap and makes a huge difference!

A perfect 5 from my part when it comes to processing power!

Gaming performance
I’m no gamer but I couldn’t resist testing the gaming performance. I installed Crysis 2, updated the graphic card drivers to the latest Nvidia version using the modified drivers from LaptopVideo2Go: NVIDIA & Laptop News and ran the game.

In 1920-x1080, High quality setting, using Fraps, I recorded 30-40 fps. However in NFS Hot Pursuit 2010 the game seemed to stagger no matter the settings. Not sure why this happened and I may have done something wrong.

Battery performance
Using the high performance setting in Windows 7 I get around 1 hour of battery time. Using the Power saver mode I get around 2,5 hours.

I find the battery performance satisfying if you keep in mind that this is a desktop replacement.

Look and feel
Compared to my old Inspiron the 7720 has better overall design and materials. I like the honeycomb finish which add a classy feel to the laptop although it tends to attract fingerprints and smudges.
I love the metal hinges and the fact that you can change the display lid although I don’t think I will invest in a custom one in the future.
The choice of placing the power button in one of the hinges is a good one. What I really like is that they did chose not to place any ports at the back. Kudos to Dell for that!

Wrap-up
Overall I’m really happy with my 7720. It can handle anything I throw at it, it has a good enough screen for my needs and has a nice and ergonomic design.

What I like
- Great processing power
- Good screen for my needs (see below for my niggles)
- Great sound
- Good enough battery time
- Beautiful and ergonomic design
- Good backlit keyboard (see below for my niggles)
- Great selection of input and output ports (4 USB 3.0 ports, 1 HDMI port etc.)
- 2 available and easy accessible HDD bays plus one mSATA

What I don’t like
- Screen panel being just TN and not IPS
- The space bar in particular and some other keys fail to register sometimes
- Bulky and heavy power adapter
- Laying on a perfectly flat surface the front right corner sits slightly lifted (this is something really minor for me but worth noticing anyway)

 

Nice review. Can you post the results of your screen calibration? Also, does your system without the mSATA have the mSATA slot? Thanks!

 

How would you recommend someone calibrate their screen without having the $200 X-Rite?

 

I cannot post the results of the screen calibration since I didn't write them down or take a print screen. Trust me, I makes a big difference to have it calibrated.

All 7720s have the mSATA slot. Mine has it too.

 

The only real and effective calibration can be done using a hardware calibrator. There are cheaper alternatives than the X-Rite. Check the Spyder calibrators. Look for used ones online.Or you could browse the internet and look for someone in your area who does paid calibrations. The downside is that calibrations must be redone every month to ensure the screen stays calibrated.

 

I'm glad you like it.

 

Can you post the ICC profile? I wouldn't mind seeing the results for myself.

 

The profile is specific for my screen and the lighting conditions in my room. I won't be relevant to your laptop event though it's the same model as the panel is slightly different.

 

That may be the case but if your screen has been correctly calibrated the ICC profile can reveal the performance of the screen, like its colour gamut, which can be plotted against known colour spaces like sRGB and Adobe RGB. You can do this yourself - if you have X-Rite ProfileMaker Pro even if you don't have a licence (and a hasp dongle) you can plot one profile at a time against sRGB or Adobe RGB in demo mode.

Incidentally, does the GPU make that much difference for Photoshop? My experience is that even a modest GPU, as long as it is supported, is adequate. Where a GPU really makes a difference is for Adobe Mercury Playback Engine hardware acceleration and this is specifically for Premiere Pro and After Effects video editing and processing.

You haven't mentioned Lightroom - I have found that the quad core i7 2670qm CPU in my 15R N5110 has made a massive difference to the usability of Lightroom 4.1, with the adjustment sliders now lag-free and very responsive.

Ian

 

Frequent calibration of your screen is not as critical as it used to be. LED backlights are much more stable than old CRTs and LCDs with CCFL backlights. Monthly calibration is good practice but I am finding very little difference when I recalibrate these days.

Ian

 

Attached you'll find my latest calibration profile from a couple of days ago.

Interested to find up how well it stacks up to sRGB and Adobe RGB if someone can test it.

OBS! I had to change the file extension to .txt in order to be able to upload it. Change it back to .icc in order to use the profile!

 

Your screen has a gamut (at L50) mostly larger than sRGB but not as wide as Adobe RGB in the green area. I have attached a 2D plot from X-Rite Profile Editor in demo mode, which comes with Profile Maker. The white trace is your monitor's gamut and the darker one is sRGB. That's not bad at all for a laptop screen . I have only calibrated my 15R N5110 screen using a Datacolor Spyder4 colorimeter and I'm only getting 75% of sRGB. However, I have installed X-Rite i1 Match and will calibrate again using an i1 Pro spectrophotometer and compare results.

Ian

 

Thank you for taking the time to analyze the profile.

Good news for 7720 users!

 

Andrei, can you please check what type of display you got in your 17R SE? Is it the LG or the CMI?

 

Where can you find this information?

Ian

 

In device manager, properties on the monitor as below (that is from my desktop pc)

 

I'm currently comparing the color profile provided by Andrei and the one in the official review by notebook check.

Review Dell Inspiron 17R-SE-7720 Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

First you should be aware that inspiron might come with at least two different matte panels, one from LG (LGD02DA), and one from Chi Mei (CMN1720). Calibration will be very different for the two panels. Also there is slight variation between panels from same manufacturer too.

Too bad notebookcheck didn't state which screen their inspiron sample had.

 

easiest way to see all your hardware is to use Everest
link.....
Downloads | AIDA64

 

Use HWiNFO64, it's 100 free.

Hm, they should have, they do it most of the times. This might be a Dell request.

 

Andrei, apart from 'space' key issue, what's your impression of the keyboard, compared to Inspiron 1720? I've got Vostro 1700, which is virtually the same laptop (different colour) and I love the keyboard. It's rock solid and absolute pleasure to type. How is the one in 17R SE in terms of flex, noise, stroke and feel?

 

Unfortunately, I feel the 7720 is inferior in quality to the one in the 1720 due to the flex in the middle, around the F, G and H keys. On top of that mine has a particularly stubborn space key that refuses to register if I don't strike it in the middle.

The stroke is ok and so is the overall feel of the new chicklet style keyboard. I will try to put some foam under the keyboard to see if it helps.

 

Not nuts about the space bar on mine either (though no complaints otherwise)... The Inspiron keyboard is easily removed and replaced though (I beleive there're even instructions in the manual); does the good Vostro one fit, I wonder?

 

i can tell you thing....i never own a Vostro and i never tried a vostro keyboard before...until now.

i dont know if DELL is laying a bit more work behind their Company(vostro) gadgets.........because the vostro 3750 backlit keyboard i got is a very well made.

ps...i see some people complain about the 7720 (non backlit) space key.............i had no issued with my space key on my non backlit.

 

I have a Dell Inspirion SE now for a week, and I always had the feeling something wasn't right. I always use a simple solid color as background instead of a wallpaper.

To tell you simple, the Chi Mei 1720 screen flickers like an old CRT at 60 herz.

I Do not like the laptop anymore, I consider it wasted money. Before buying make sure you do not get the Chi Mei Display version. If you have it, set a solid background instead of a wallpaper, for example blue/green. Now at various brightness levels look, you will notice digital/analog/conversion like noise, the same noise wich was there if you had a VGA hooked up to a TFT Display. Very annoying. It ruined everything, WASTED!

Is this a hidden defect? When showing people old style CRT screens at 50 hz or 60 hz not all of them notice the flicker, but I really do, this laptop is wasted because DELL wanted to make a little bit of more money on that flllllll cheaper display

All I can do is sell the laptop to some old lady hoping she won't notice the flickering of the Chi Mei CMN1720 display.

Thank you Dell, you wasted my day!, You wasted my money, I have to get rid of this laptop as soon as possible, the flickering makes it worse. Why did Dell do this to me???

I suspect the Chi Mei display uses fast dithering to display colors it cannot actually display at all. THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANTED DELL!!! This is not what I paid for. No one was warning me, don't buy a Dell with a Chi Mei Display, I hope now people have been warned, only buy a Dell with a LG Philips Display. You have to see the difference yourself. I would have paid more money, yes, this whole f.... thing of a laptop is a waste because of this, why DELL? WHY????

Things I have to do, Get Rid of this Laptop just because of its display. Buy a new one. This takes lots of time. It wasn't necessary, if Dell would have only not hold back this important kind of information.

Edit:
It has been confirmed, this Display only has 6 bits to display 8 bits and uses color dithering.

Monitor
Windows description...... Generic PnP Monitor
Manufacturer............. CMN
Plug and Play ID......... CMN1720
Data string.............. HDKPVƒ173HGE [*CP437]
Serial number............ n/a
Manufacture date......... 2011, ISO week 2
Filter driver............ Monitor
-------------------------
EDID revision............ 1.4
Input signal type........ Digital
Color bit depth.......... 6 bits per primary color
Color encoding formats... RGB 4:4:4
Screen size.............. 380 x 210 mm (17,1 in)
Power management......... Not supported
Extension blocs.......... None
-------------------------
DDC/CI................... n/a

Color characteristics
Default color space...... Non-sRGB
Display gamma............ 2,20
Red chromaticity......... Rx 0,640 - Ry 0,330
Green chromaticity....... Gx 0,300 - Gy 0,610
Blue chromaticity........ Bx 0,150 - By 0,060
White point (default).... Wx 0,313 - Wy 0,329
Additional descriptors... None

Timing characteristics
Range limits............. Not available
GTF standard............. Not supported
Additional descriptors... None
Preferred timing......... Yes
Native/preferred timing.. 1920x1080p at 60Hz (16:9)
Modeline............... "1920x1080" 141,290 1920 1976 2014 2110 1080 1084 1090 1116 +hsync -vsync

Standard timings supported

Report information
Date generated........... 1-9-2012
Software revision........ 2.60.0.972
Data source.............. Registry-Active

Raw data
00,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,00,0D,AE,20,17,00,00,00,00,02,15,01,04,90,26,15,78,02,ED,95,A3,54,4C,9C,26,
0F,50,54,00,00,00,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,31,37,80,BE,70,38,24,40,38,26,
46,00,7E,D7,10,00,00,1A,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,FE,00,48,
44,4B,50,56,83,31,37,33,48,47,45,0A,00,00,00,00,00,00,41,01,9E,00,00,00,00,02,01,0A,20,20,00,F0

OOhh Dell, God WHY??? Why did you do it to me?

 

Dude you need to chill out.

I have the same laptop with the same screen, and have never seen the screen flicker you're describing, even when displaying solid colors. The many many reviews of this laptop you'll find online have never mentioned any screen issues what-so-ever. On the contrary, many have commented on the excellent quality compared to the competition.... Have you considered perhaps that your screen is defective? Why not call DELL and ask for the screen to be replaced?

 

What I see is after I studied it is named 'Temporal Color Dithering'. The laptop screen is 6 bit, that is 2^6 colors for red,green and blue makes up 64x64x64= 262144 colors.

Now however because of the Magic Trick called Temporal Color Dithering, the screen is able to display almost 16.2 million colors. But there is a caveat. Not all people are perceptible to this Magic.

I hope you understand that I see different than others, give your granny an old CRT TV let her use it a while, and ask is there something wrong with the screen, and probably she says NO!

But you know the screen flickers at 50 hertz or 60 hertz, and I see anything below 85 hertz as flicker. So although the TV is perfect, nothing wrong with it, as you granny will be convinced and many others too, some people, like me, see the flicker.

Temporal Color Dithering is Dithering Over Time. With a Color to Bright fast replaced by a Color to Dark an interbetween Color is Percepted by most humans. For example you are not as perceptible as me for this Fast Over Time Temporal Color Dithering the screen uses to do its Magic Trick.

I try to live with it, especially grey areas are fluctuating fast for me, and so do some solid colors e.g. a Windows desktop without Wallpaper, so I put a Wallpaper on the desktop.

It is assumable that I have been unknowingly gotton used to Spatial Color Dithering, wich is the same Magic Trick but not over Time but over space. If I had the choice I would set it to Spatial Color Dithering.

You can find many links of other people having the same problem, for some reason I and others SEE TOO FAST for this trick to work. Off course I am not sure how fast I see. All I know is the screen might not be broken at all, just like the old crt tv for granny. It is me who is perceptible and sees right thru THE MAGIC TRICK

Dithering and Frame Rate Control (FRC)
TFT Central

Dithering and Frame Rate Control (FRC) relate to the colour depth of a monitor panel and are technologies used to boost the colours which the matrix can display. For instance TN Film screens are traditionally more economical than other technologies when it comes to colour depth. In fact, they only display 64 red, 64 blue and 64 true green shades by default through pixel rotations. The maximum amount of colours achievable from liquid crystal rotation alone is 262,144. In order to reach 16 million colours and above, panel manufacturers commonly use two technologies: Dithering and Frame Rate Control (FRC). These terms are often interchanged, but strictly can mean different things.



Spatial Dithering - This dithering method involves assigning appropriate colour values from the available colour palette to close-by pixels in such a way that it gives the impression of a new colour tone which otherwise could not have been created at all. In doing so, there complex mappings according to which the ground colours are mutually assigned, otherwise it could result in colour noise / dithering noise. Dithering can be used to allow 6-Bit panels, like TN Film, to show 16.2 million perceived colours. This can however sometimes be detectable to the user, and can result in chessboard like patterns being visible in some cases. Spatial dithering is rarely used in the modern market and instead Frame Rate Control is more widely utilised.


Frame Rate Control / Temporal Dithering - The other method is Frame-Rate-Control (FRC), also referred to sometimes as temporal dithering. This works by combining four colour frames as a sequence in time, resulting in perceived mixture. In basic terms, it involves flashing between two colour tones rapidly to give the impression of a third tone, not normally available in the palette. This allows a total of 16.2 reproducible million colours in 6-bit TN Film matrices. FRC is also used to enhance the colour depth of 8-bit panels, boosting them from their standard 16.7 million colours to 1.07 billion in the case of "10-bit" panels (8-bit + FRC). There are a number of FRC algorithms which vary in their effectiveness. Sometimes, a twinkling artefact can be seen, particularly in darker shades, which is a side affect of such technologies.


Because all of this I cannot say if my screen is not fully functional or not, I have to compare it with another identical laptop from Dell with the same or a Philips LG screen. Like I say, have I been spoiled by AMOLED screens that don't flicker at all? Have I always had Spatial Dithering? In That case this is the first time I am confronted with Temporal Color Dithering, a Magic Trick that works nice as long as you do not know the trick.

For example you know the speedtest.net website, it is a site showing shades of grey, I see them flickering very fast, and so with large areas of solid colors. I asked do you see the flicker, but they said to me I DONT SEE IT.

But on other screens like MVA, PMVA, IPS type panels and offcourse what I suspect are Spatial Color Dithering screens I do not see the flickering.

It is a feature of the magic trick to display million of colors while it in fact cannot display these colors at all.

Conclusion: Defect status is unknown since I cannot compare it to another identical screen from Chi Mei or an Philips LG.

My Samsung, HP and Toshiba do not have this problem.

"It involves flashing between two colour tones rapidly to give the impression of a third tone, not normally available in the palette. That is the defination of Temporal Color Dithering, that is exactly what I see!"

People like me should perhaps need an In Plane Switching panel that does not use Magic Tricks. Magic is fun, but once you see thru the trick the fun is over. The panel is designed this way to fast fluctuate.

I chilled out, try to live with it. I studied what the problem is, only Spatial Color Dithering is a solution or setting the screen to 16 bit (wich is not possible in the Intel or NVidia driver.)

The problem is real, but luckily not for you, people who are happy with their laptop in my opinion are more likely to write postive reviews.

If you are a true photographer, - I AM NOT- buy a laptop that does have true 24 bits for showing colors, and not 18 bits with Magic Tricks.