Major issues with Inspiron 1520/Vostro 1500?

So far there are a 3 major complaints about the new 15" systems.

1) Dell websites implied that memory bandwidth for 8600M-GT equipped systems would come with GDDR3 graphics memory. All machines appear to be shipping with slower DDR2 graphics memory.

2) Many people are noticing "graininess" in higher resolution displays.

3) Headphone jacks exhibit interference and noise when listening with headphones.

Are these deal killers? Are there any more issues?

 

The grainy screens are also on WXGA+ not just WSXGA.

 

^ what he said.

And headphone jack, well, its not bad - its abysmal. The whole thing seems very poorly shielded. I couldn't even use my portable phone near 1520.

 

Oh, And I burnt several DVDs all ended up coasters, Its not the DVD's because their Taiyo brand, Ive never had one go bad before.

 

All true. Ended up sending my 1520 back. The graininess was too much to handle for me. The video card was indeed DDR2 although I found it to be quite good on a few games I tried - I'm comparing it to my geforce 7600 GT tho and I thought the 8600m GT was a little better. No stats just observation.

I was a bit disappointed in the earphone interference although on an irritating scale of 1 to 10, I would rate earphone noise 1 and graininess 10.

 

these problems are also with the vostro 1500??

 

Ouch. That does not sound good. Let's see when I get my Vostro 1400. I would not suspect any other/better parts in that compared to the Inspiron.

 

The graininess on my screen is not really problem, it's there if you are like 2 inches from it, but it isn't really that bad. I have only plugged in my headphones to check this interference and it is there, i haven't actually checked it with music though. And there isn't much you can do about the ddr2, everyone has them with the exception of the g1s. If gaming is that important, a 15" may not be your best choice. Overall i have not found them to be deal breakers, but they are there and depending on how sensitive you are to that kind of thing, they could be a bigger problem for you than me.

I am very happy with my dell though.

 

The only thing I'm really worried about is the screen. I never even knew the gpu came in ddr3 when I ordered it, and any sound problems from the headphone jack can at least be remedied by a usb sound card. However, I plan on using my laptop for graphics work, so I really hope the graininess won't be a problem.

 

what exactly does the graininess look like?

do the 1520's and the 1500's come with the same screen?