My Studio 15 Review

SPecs

Base config in india with following modifications...
1.ATI Card 3450 256 MB dedicated Memory - dont know if its DDR3!! anyone?
2.Backlit Keyboard and it rocks
3.One year complete cover

Some things that were shipped with it include: - Bluetooth headset, Creative noise Isolation earbuds, A Remote, A USB modem(I actually didnt payed for modem but it only costs Rs. 522)

weight - 2.85 KG on my home weighing scale..

How much i paid - Rs. 50K - including evrything ,shipping too
And if u include the backpack too ..then add 1.1k (didnt bought from dell)

Now here goes the review

The color i got(Ruby Red) was litter harsher than shown in pics at the site.... a bit dark ... but i still like it .. Color annd finish are of very good quality and it dont seemed to be scratched easily...(i havnt tried yet too ) It is as wider as a common 15.4' laptop is ... but a bit thicker... Its a bit inclined(not much though) but surely adding to ergnomics of working at keyboard...

There has been a HP like finish on palmrest that flaunts a design on a so assumed graphite grey background.

Some good ports are being bundled and this amazes me ... a gigabit port and HDMI port ... 4 USb port...if i count in e-sata port too.I dont know why i got an e-sata port on my 1535 but it rocks... though i still have to confirm this.

Got excellent Noise isolation earbuds of creative,,, they cost 1.5k in market ... and they rock ... awesome quality and comfortable too...

A Black colored remote with good connection via infrared. Keys were very responsive ... Also got a bluetooth headset shipped free with the system .... it was well nicely audible and comfortable in range of around 9-10 metres.It got buttons for changing tracks or changing volumes with the system... its configurable with skype and any other call related application...

System is noise less... only sound i can hear is when i eject a dvd from my slot drive ... 2 days back for once i heard a very faint sound of fan .. but only for some time...In all its noiseless

Battery- 6 cell battery
charger - 90Watt
I was able to watch Seven samurai(Japanese) without recharging... with earbuds... at almost 70% brightness..its a 3 Hr movie... but cut down the intro part ...so mine worked around 3hr(after movie finished - it showed 7 min remaining) in total after being fully charged,,, meanwhile my wifi and bluetooth remained off ... and i was watching movie from a USB HDD

ergnomics of keyboard is very good... good responsive keys as i type down this review... i am actually enjoying it ... Also keyboard boosts a backlit feature (can be accesed using fn + right arrow) .Backlit features two brightness mode and auto off incase you dont response to your keyboard for some time..

Sound of system is little lower for me ... given the case i am addicted to hearing loud music...but quality is just fine ... Fear of the Dark- Iron maiden was quite audible and sounds were distinguishable of different riffs and guitar tones... so i would not say itss bad... . System also has an inbuilt mic. Pretty clean voice record was provided by it too. My friend on chatting could hear me correctly too.

Touchpad is little troublesome for me ...as i am used to mice ... But i soon got adapted to it... My mom though found it hard to use.. . Its not much responsive in the end. One feature i would have wanted for every touchpad is the Turn On/off button for touchpad... as earlier i have worked on many laptops and while typing my right thumb would touch the touchpad... and my cursor would go to current position of mouse.. Though Studio laacks it... but i didnt found any such problem with this laptop..as the touchpad is little toward the left side rather than at being middle.

There are some touch sensitive buttons on the upper part of keyboard..they are extremely responsive...so once i needed to clean them resulted in all functions being processed all at once...They are good otherwise.. and tthey show White backlight when touched...impressive indeed...But it catches dust pretty quickly ... same is true for the speakers above the touch penal.

Bluetooth and WIFI were working in awesome conditions...in vista i had some problems working with them in ubuntu although actually starting them ... but once they were done ... everything went on smoothly...

I have Removed the installation done by Dell. Instead I have freshly installed the Vista. I didnt have any problem with installation of any drivers or any thing else. Dell provides a lot of bloatware on company installed systems. I also created some partitions. 50 GB - 80 GB - 80GB (all NTFS) -20GB(FAT32)

It takes around 35 sec to start in windows vista and 45 odd sec to boot in ubuntu from os option to start screen...

Soon I installed Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron on My laptop.The installation went on smoothly. At once .. it worked very well .. though i had to install ATI drivers from internet and some more drivers too.At first it took some problem with detecting my WIFI .. but later i was able to resolve it.

SO far its been awesome for me... little heated after being run for 8 Hrs continously.

Screen is tiltable to around 150 degrees... and still manages the view... Screen is pretty bright too.

It was shipped with Media Direct 4.0 and special Key for it too on touch sensitive penal... I am not impressed by the software though ... but i figured out ..i can use the touch key for something new.. still trying it though

Graphics
Windows rating shows a 4.0 on account of graphics..

Counter strike 1.6 - I got Fps 100 constant ..
NFS most wanted - runned flawless on high details...
Half life 2 today!!

NO problem at all working in matlab and ProE/Solidworks.. these need high power and graphic memory

NO BACKPACK OR LAPTOP BAG ships with it ...
My friend got a 20pc off in Japan ...so if u can ..get it from US or Japan ... In india i dont think dell wants to give any discounts.. Also discount coupons for Dell dont work in india... i would recommend from US ...

In all i am impressed ... except for some audio glitches which eventually got resolved after i reinstalled my drivers..I had some problem with the 2 audio jacks being provided... When i plugged earphone into one of it(nearer to HDMI port) ... and removed it ... the sound didnt shoot back from speaker ... untill i did the same for another jack .. and this happens everytime...I am yet to contact dell customer care...

Ergnomics - 8/10 - Heavy !! i wanted a lighter one ... may be 2.25KG, extra sensitive touch penal...
Features - 9/10 - I want a better graphic card ... Say ATI 3650 atleast... but CS still rocks on it
Value for money - 9/10 - No bagpack, need to ship some freebies..atleast to lure us

I was pretty much split in Xps and Sony vaio once... but when studio was launched ..i knew immediately it was the one!!! ... though its sad about dell that i had to wait 7 days before i can actually lay my hand on my
possession even after paying for it...

Another bad thing about dell is that they didnt gave me any numbers or site to contact incase my system is not responding well .. If Dell ppl are reading ... do something... atleast post your number here...for india

Also The complete cover guide i got .... did not mention Studio laptops(at all) being covered ... It was of make June and said only ab2 inspiron and other series... i guess at the time of its printing... studio was not even launched...guess .. they need to print a new one ...b4 they need to ship it ...

I dont think ... knowing a pc mark score or else matters (..atleast for me...)
Hope this helps for potential buyers....!!!!

I was a bit disappointed that i didnt wait for montevina ... but it was call of situation ... i gravely needed a laptop...i only know how long i waited for my laptop(7 days is too much ...dell ppl are u listening?)..but finally i am happy ... with a decent budget (1200 $ is not small)i was able to cash in on a pretty and feature rich desktop!!!

Pictures soon sorry for the typos



Original Review was posted on My Blog..
http://mukuliitr.blogspot.com/2008/07/dell-studio-15-review.html

 

Thanks for the great review. I kinda wish i went tword the studio 15 now lol.

 

Ah....at last an Indian review for me. You must be one of the first few owners in India !!!

I have ordered mine on 17th July and the ETA is 4th Aug!!! The wait is killing me.

OK, some questions from a fellow Indian-

What exact CPU did u get? I have ordered T8100.

I too didn't order USB Modem, don't really need but will welcome a mistake from Dell

Did u follow the thread in this forum for reinstalling Vista?

U wanted freebies - BT head set is actually a big freebie, its supposedly cost around Rs. 2.5K

 

yeah DDguy i know .. BT headset is a freebie.. but i am human ... i want more

Mine has 5850 , 2.16 Ghz 2.17 Ghz

USB modem when i ordered .. they quoted zero price for it ... i guess there was some error in their software... after 2 days they got it updated...to Rs522

no i didnt followed the guide here... it will not work for us... as MD4 installs as a stand alone application rather than on a different partition or as different OS.

I just put my Vista DVD and booted from it... follow the instructions on screen and bingo!!

btw i paid them on 9th and mine was delivered on 15th evening

 

Hey your Studio is coming on my birthday!

 

Pretty freaky review all in all...

About the touchpad: theres an option in the synaptics control panel that has to do with the palm of your hand resting on the touchpad while typing... it's probably what you're looking for.
IMHO 7 days isn't long AT ALL!

 

@rubenvb

do everytime i type i need to go to synaptic control panel and turn it off.... i think u didnt got my point..

i cant wait for 7 days.. even after i had paid 50K.. mmay be u could

 

I didn't get this part. Can you explain what is MD4 and what really is the problem you described. If u reinstall Vista the way you described, what happens to all the drivers ? (I am assuming that your disk will get formatted during re-install. Without reformat, none of the bloatware is going anywhere)

 

MD4 is media direct 4... the way here bloat removal guide was defined uses ... Media direct installation... you can completely skip it...

We are provided with all drivers for windows vista on DVD's...so once u format it ..u can install evry driver..

Also i got 2 windows Vista reinstallation DVD(by mistake i think) and One Windows Vista Hindi edition too

 

good review... we all r waiting for pics mate

 

Excellent review!!! Be happy you received it so quick - in the US we have to wait nearly a month, most of us anyway.

Please tell us how Half Life 2 runs..

We are looking forward to pics

Also what screen did you get? The 1280x800 or the high def and how is it?

 

I got 1280 x 800

Btw I could only run doom 3 today .. may be half life 2 tomorrow..

with following settings at 1024 x 768 , anti aliasing off

High Qality Effects: Yes
Shadows: Yes
Specular: Yes
bump maps: Yes
Vertical Sync: Yes (if i turn this off .. it will perform way better)

play was smooth... i got an average Fps of around 25 .. recording using fraps

at 800x600

it shooted upto average of 34..

max fps was around 62 in both ..

and pics !! soon !!

 

oooo... nice... lol at Dell, made so many mistakes.. u lucky guy!

 

Impressive.

 

Hi all , mine studio also arrived the day befoe . It is midnight blue with balck rim.
I have also recieved 2 vista CDs in a single pack and one cista cd in a single pack i.e. total 3 . My system is not partitioned ( only C 230GB and one Restore drive 10 GB ) How can I further make another partion say - D drive . My system is taking a long time to boot ( with various Bloatware like - Camera softwar , MDirect, dell suppot, Dell assitant etc.) Can I delete ms works.??

 

Just boot from the vista DVD ... and undergo a fresh installation .. u must have got driver cd ... afterwards install just the drivers from it

 

im from india too... how come you got e-sata? desperately awaiting pics! i hope the prices go down.. india is about 1125 us dollars but in america it is just 750$ starting!!!

 

I actually wrote in my review i dont know exactly... its DIFFERENT in looks with other USB ports i have .. so i am assuming ... but i need to confirm ... will post its picture .. to have opinions

USB works in it .. but that true for esata too .. i suppose

 

thanks for the review! cant wait til mine gets here

 

few questions people.

i am from bombay too. was planning to get a inspiron for 41k since dell studio 15 with 256 card and backlit keyboard is for 52k.

firstly how is that you people have got it for 50k. is the billing ex vashi or bombay itself. i am getting t8100 config for 52k im not sure if its worth the extra 11k since i am never going to game at all on it. cant decide really. please advise.

 

also you people are saying about the vista dvd ? does it come with the system itself. because i hear that dell gives full space to vista on C drive. so if i want to partition can i format it and install vista from that dvd ?

 

I got a Dell OS (Vista HP SP1) reinstallation DVD with my studio 15. Backup partition is gone on mine.

 

I got 2 Multi language DVD;s for reinstalling vista and one DVD for Hindi Vista

everything is on dvd's so u can even delete the recoverry partition

 

buddy do share some pics.

 

Hey mate; I've recently purchased this laptop and have been having some problems tonight; the touchpad has stopped working; banged it on safe mode and it still doesn't work; it does however work for a few seconds during the login screen; the keyboard also is playing up but not on safe mode; also the fan hasn't turned off in around 6 hours.

I don't now if you have any ideas.