NEEDless MEDIAdirect??

AHOI comarades of inspirion land...

ok so i got my 9400 a week back......i looked at it and my heart sank ......i had painfully crafted this decision to buy 9400.....and what follows was a few mails i sent to dell>>.....


Dear Friends (From Dell)



I write this after suspending all my notions of US and THEM and the CORPORATE and the CUSTOMER syndromes …and I also hope u would all be able to appreciate the informal tone of this letter as it helps me express better…the issue is …..no matter what I say or do now….i have now ended up with a DELL notebook (trust me….. against much popular wise advice) ….reason…..well I have always felt that the guy in market who shouts lesser than the rest is a wee bit more honest than the others …..and I also like the way dell lets people choose what goes inside the notebook…….thus I too gleefully joined the bandwagon……being an artist and a designer u can blame me of getting a little carried away while choosing things……but then you would be surprised how much pride and care I render onto my material possessions ……thus the transparency of your process was what drew me to dell…..it was unfortunate that a little rioting in Delhi delayed the delivery (I received my book yesterday only)…..and then later the Bluetooth was missing in the notebook (ya ya it might have been overlooked during ordering but in a 88k book for a student like me Bluetooth is kind of a given )…..all this left a lil sour after taste….but the book is pretty and I was happy ……only until I switched it on ……please do be reminded this is not a CRIB or THREAT mail …..I am in genuine trouble and need solutions……..now the thing with dell is u don't have stores where one can go and see the TANGIBLE product …..Well all the inside hardware can be taken care of on the internet but the look and feel of the product isn't really communicated well …..thus I was so sure of all the components I had handpicked for the book …..but not the screen ……earlier …..my visits to your competitor's showrooms HP TOSHIBA etc etc …..only gave me sights of glossy (BRIGHT VIEW tech by HP etc etc ) sharp screens thus I had come to understand the old hazy faded UNI-viewpoint TFT screens are outdated and no one uses them …….i didn't know what I ordered itself was such a screen ……I wish I cud have seen the book b4 buying …….but this model is too new (and expensive) to appear anywhere in my milieu ……and the virtual world of dell.com doesn't extend much of an idea……..



I am a product design myself …..and would like to bring forth an issue no-one seems to have raised with your notebook ……the plain TFT (and not the glossy BRIGHT screen like HP mac etc )….is not viewable from the sides ……it is best viewed from only the front ……having said that the issue really becomes this>>>



In a NORMAL TFT works fine for 12-15 inch displays …….BUT BUT BUT …… …..when a user is sitting 2 to 3 feet away from a 17 inch screen the cone of vision isn't large enough to cover the whole screen …..and the edges are faded and dark ……might work as a desktop display or a TV or something where the viewer is farther away …but for a LAPtop…this screen is simply too close to be seen in TOTALLITY……and thus the regions of the screen beyond the cone of vision are really quiet faded and dark……thus I have to keep moving my head all over to see wat I am doing clearly in parts and never as a whole ……seeking that illusive crystal clear angle for the whole screen …..and I have given up now…..since I will work on 3d max and illustrator and maya etc ….I need sharp images ……else the 2gb ram(@667)….the nvidia7900 gs go …..the 1.83 core 2 duo (@667) are of no use what so ever ….and things like seeing movies with other (thus multiple view angles )….is really quiet improbable on this screen .

Now the solutions >>



So what do we do now……I have to do lots of work …n quickly …..but me stuck ……if I start using the book…..scope of replacement etc diminishes…….and I feel sad looking at the screen neways…..and being a student I have already pushed my budget …had I know about the screen issue id have gladly taken lesser ram for the screen or something like that…..can we reach such an arrangement…or I would be forever keep popping my head around To see parts of the screen separately….??



I really don't think you guys should put these screens at all in these huge powerful notebooks.





Humbly Disgruntled

Himanshu khatri


SECOND MAIL>>

Dear DELL friends,

i have finally spent a few minutes on the notebook ......in my humble understanding .......i'd like to share a few pointers ........

a) The quotation claims 1.2 gb space for media direct .....wheras in reality about 3 gb of space is allocated to media direct (going upto 5 gb in other dell models)

b)My book has
intel T5600 2 MB L2 1.83 GHz 667 MHz

at its core.........but the sticker on the casing shows intel centrino duo ......small observation......but one wonders if other mix ups have occurred aswell in the hardware within the shell

c) AND mentioning the RPM rate of the hard drive on the quotation might be a good practice as 7200 hard drives are much faster (about 30%) than 5400 hard drives i had opted for 5400 it seems.....but eitherways its an important bit of information.....

and back to my story .....hoping to get the screen soon ......and give away the 1gb ddr2 667 mhrtz ram :-(.......

will share anything more i can .......but hey then again .....two pennies for my thoughts ..

Cheers n Greets
Himanshu Khatri

<<TERMINATD >>

so fellow consumers i ask u now these things>>>

A) WIll the WUXGA TRUE LIFE save the say and be as vivid as HP BRIGHT technology......or will ther still be light lekage all over the place..

b) WATS wid the space.....?...ok the disk is 80 gb....it shows only 70 .....fine 3 gb goes into media direct.....then about 487mb(i think) in some basic system stuff ......then about 1.g gb more in say window stuff and dirvers...lets round that to 5gb .....but 10 gb are missing ...whers the rest 5 gb gone??.....hiding ...wher...??

c) Is media direct really needed.....??...i mean it duznt run any downloaded or ripped stuff (or does it ??)....and since i have loads of divx etc etc rips ....will it come of much use....and id neways keep lappy on hibernate mostly.......and wid media direct gone id have the 3GB back ......maybe use a linux version of a media direct parallel software n map the media keys to it giving away only like .....100 mb or so (will need research though )......or just map the media keys for 3d MAX tools or something ....



and yes i am a novice...

thanx if uv read this essay already.....and shud i now return this danm thing and buy a very little more xpensive mac book pro ?.....

reactions .......bazillion thanx before hand

 

A large chunk of your hard drive is likely to vanish when its formatted. Not sure how much exactly though.

 

btw, there is no difference whether you get a core duo centrino or a core 2 duo centrino. The sticker is exactly the same

 

centrino = wireless technology isn't it?

 

Centrino = Intel processor + Intel chipset + Intel wireless adaptor
Eg:-
Centrino Duo = Intel Core or Core 2 + 945 Express + PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
Centrino = Intel Pentium M + 915 Express + PRO/Wireless 2200 or 2915ABG

 

A) As far as I know both Inspiron 9400 and E1705 are same. According to this E1705 (UXGA TrueLife) review , the screen looks good enough. So I guess WUXGA TrueLife will give you better results. One more thing; you shouldn’t compare Dell Inspirons with high-end expensive models like Toshiba Qosmios etc.. because they use better screens. Maybe they should be compared with Dell XPS or Precision series.

B) Main reason for hard disk space difference is the confusion created by HDD manufacturers when quoting the size. Because their MB is 1000x1000 =1,000,000 bytes, where an actual MB is 1024x1024=1,048,576. Therefore HDD advertised as 80GB actually has 74.5GB. Then FAT (File allocation table) also takes up some space when you format. Given all that, your HDD space is accurate

C) Media direct can play DivX files, But I don’t know whether it will play all the codec types floating around the net. I think it is a nice feature for multimedia. It loads up quickly, has a nice and easy interface and saves a little bit of battery power as well. Since its free I don’t see why not use it. I’m not exactly sure but I don’t think media direct takes 3GB, maybe you are talking about the recovery partition. However as I said I could be wrong.

 

Just something else to note, a faster hard drive will create more heat (normally). the 5400 RPM's should be using perpendicular storage, in which case it should be reasonably fast. For a mobile pc, as nice as a fast hard drive is, I'd rather have something less likely to fail from mechanical wear.