Inspiron XPS - My first notebook -picture's inside

http://community.webshots.com/user/lt1fun


Let me just say, you'll be dissapointed if your expecting a real in depth review with charts and stats and performance #'s etc. I'm not into "PC" games what so ever. So don't hold your breath if your waiting to see what my frame rate is and what graphics features I was able to run on X screen resolution on the latest version of Doom or something [ ] That's not what this review is about.

I bought my first notebook computer about 4 or 5 weeks back. I've always used Macs all my life but when it came to buying a notebook, I just didn't have the money to able to buy an Apple powerbook.

I was window shopping at the Dell website and saw that I had the option of building a notebook to my requirments. So, just out of curiosity, I built up a notebook using the best of everything just for the hell of it (hey, I was bored). I was curious to see just how expensive I could make one of these things. [ ]

Well, when I was finished, when I had checked off all the options, it was pretty expensive [ ] Then I noticed Dell had a financing option and thought to myself, "why not" ? I filled the form (not thinking I'd ever get approved) and hit the "send" button.

Keep in mind that it was about 2:30 AM Saturday morning at the time. I figured it would be atleast until Monday before I got the response back telling me there'd be ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE IN HELL of me getting approved [ ]

Wouldn't you know it, about 5 seconds later, a screen pops up telling me I'd been approved

To make a long story short, me, being the idiot that I am, knowing full well I couldn't afford it at the time, decided to go through with it and put in the order.

It arrived at my door step 2 weeks later along with a limited edition XPS notebook back-pack. I'll be finished paying it all off sometime in 2009 [ ]

I've had it for about 5 weeks now so I think I can give a pretty good summary of my experience withit.

Here are the specs:

Dell Inspiron XPS (dell's flagship notebook)

- 3.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 w. Hyper Threading
- 800Mhz front side bus
- 100 GB Hard drive
- 1 GB 400mhz DDR DUAL Channel Ram (expandable to 2GB)
- 8x DVD Burner
- ATI Mobility Radeon 9800 256MB video card
- 15.4" ultra wide WUXGA 1920x1200 native resolution
- Battery with built in subwoofer

Ports/slots:
- 4 USB 2.0
- IEEE 1394 output
- DVI output (Someday I'll have a TV that excepts this :lol:
- S video output
- Serial infrared communications port
- 15pin montor output
- Type I or Type II card slot
- Line out

I figured, if I had to spend money on a notebook, why not make it the most powerful? I hate buying stuff knowing ther's something else better on the market. It drives me nuts. My modow is, go big or go home. That's what I did with this notebook.

I've used Mac's in the past due to all my Photo/Video editing projects. Never had an interest in anything "PC".

Now that I've been using a PC for a while, I'm happy to say that the editing programs available are atleast as good, some even better - then what's available on the Mac. The PC (atleast this one) is just as capable at editing the large (15MB+) files in Photoshop just as fast as my G5.

The screen on the XPS is absolutely AMAZING. With a native resolution of 1920 x 1200, (much higher than any notebook currently available on the market), I'm able to have so much on the desktop at once. I can edit 4 photo's at once if I wanted to. The colours are as clear and as bright as anything available on for the Mac. Image quality is as crisp and clear as my 23" Apple Cinema display, and that's saying a lot, believe me.

With the P4 3.4Ghz processor, all my programs run just as fast as my G5 and games play 10x better than on any Mac I've used. (Don't know why that is, since I've used Mac's that have equivenlt specs to what I'm using now) PC's really do handle games much better than Mac's I guess.

Right now, my only uses for this computer is, as said, photo and video editing. That and running all my NES/SNES/Genesis emulators. I'm happy to say it does all of these, with ease.

I'm very pleased with this notebook. My only complaints are that Microsoft STILL doesn't have an operating system anywhere near as stable as OSX on the Mac. OSX is still YEARS ahead of XP in it's stabilty, funtionality. Plus it just has a much more "polished" look to it.

The second thing I found out is that PC's and the internet don't play well together [ ]

Took me more than an hour to get online. Had to read through 5 pages of set-up instructions in my XP manual and on my internet service supplier' instruction book. Finally got online, and went onto one of the automotive forums I'm a member on. I was only on for about 5 minutes just to see everything working properly. Shut it down and went up to eat.
20 minutes later, I turned on my computer and I had advertisments popping up all over the screen. I was like, WTF??

They looked like internet pop ups but I wasn't even on the internet. The notebook wasn't even attached to the modem?? I called up customer service and they told me I had spyware !! Spyware after 5 minutes of internet use [ !]

Mac's don't get viruses, or spyware, or get pop-ups 'cause our safari browser blocks everthing.

I had to erase the whole HD and start from scratch. Yeah, that was real fun. Having never even used a PC before and now I had to re-format the entire disk and re-install everthing from scatch. I was up literally all night long. Had to take the day off work the following morning cause I was still in front of the computer at 8:AM !!

Needless to say, i've decided to keep the internet only for my Mac, then tranfer any downloads to my Labtop via a little USB storage device.

It's a bit on the bulky side, buy hey, it is a desk-top replacement afterall. It weighs just under 10lbs but that's a small price to pay for such an amazing perfoming machine.

The keyboard is the perfect size and the keys all have a nice feel to them. I've used notebooks in the past, where the keys felt flimsy or to spongy. This one feels right!
All the media controls are located on the right side of the keyboard so it's real easy to skip chapters or forward or pause etc. the Movies your watching. Volume controls are next to the power button and easy to reach.

Speaking of volume, this is the loudest and cleanest sounding notebook I've ever heard. With the subwoofer built into the battery, it really makes a huge difference. Makes the speakers on other notebooks sound small and shallow in comparison. Still, I plan on getting a nice set of speakers anyway.

With all the performance setting set to their maximum, on a single battery, it will opperate for just under 2 hours. Long enough to watch and enjoy a full length move.

When I'm using for music playing/word processing and other minor programs, the battery life is MUCH higher. Somewhere around 4.5-5 hours.

Anyways, that's my review. I highly reccomend the XPS.

 

Thanks for the review

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I TRY TO HELP PEOPLE WITH LITTLE or NO REPLYS TO THEIR
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to make the internet "safe" you need some programs.

1) a good firewall, Zonealarm pro is the best
2) antivirus, Nortan antivirus/mcafe are the best
3) anti spyware, a combination of spybot and adaware is good


For about $80 you could get all of that, cheaper if you stick with teh free editions of spybot and adaware (I still have the free ones, and it works great)