Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
I used this forum quite a bit to gather data on picking a laptop to fit within my limited budget, so wanted to contribute by sharing my experience/opinions. I've had Dell's in the past and never had any real problems, but I hadn't used one in a while and was a bit skeptical given much of the negative feedback I found on the web during my research. I needed a desktop replacement and was aiming for a 17" screen. Anyway, with limited time for more research, the Dell E1705 won out on price ($750 coupon makes a big difference).
Got my E1705 earlier this week. So far, I'm underwhelmed, but not disappointed. Took 8 days from order to door, which was nice. Primary specs: XP MCE, 1.83GHz Duo, 512MB RAM, 120HD 5400rpm, WUSXGA truelife, ATI x1400, intel wireless, bluetooth, DVD-burner....
Unfortunately, I had to go with the ATI x1400, but I won't be doing any hardcore gaming. I'm upgrading the RAM aftermarket, since it is so expensive to do it when ordering. I went with the 1.83Ghz Duo since I didn't think the $150 was worth the upgrade to 2.Ghz. [The super pi benchmark gave me 1m 17s (2M digits), which is only 1s slower than the 2.0Ghz Duo reported in the review on this site. Not a real world example, but bolstered my feeling that shelling out $150 for another .17Ghz wasn't worth it to me. ]
Anyway, needing a decent laptop right now outweighed my desire to get a tricked out system; so while this doesn't satisfy my geeky desire to have the fastest laptop on the planet, it does satisfy my real world priorities and constraints. [when I find the time, I'll benchmark it and see how it fares.]
Rebuilt the system and it was pretty painless thanks to the thorough instructions on this forum. I kept the media direct partition, so only had to do the repair. Prior to reinstalling I downloaded all the latest drivers from dell, including the media direct repair utility (burned to CD) to a usb flash drive; I made visible and burned the restore partition to a DVD (just to be safe). After loading up Windows XP MCE I plugged in the USB flash drive and loaded up all the new drivers and selected Dell utilities.
I contacted Dell via chat the day after I reformatted and requested the Cyberlink and Sonic CDs (around 4pm). They were at my door the following morning by 10am (again a nice response from dell, but seems far from typical). One question I had: the Sonic app on the system as provided by Dell was DigitalMedia LE v7, the CD they sent only has Sonic's RecordNow application. Do I have to request the DigitalMedia LE specifically?
Didn't use the system too much prior to rebuild, but it seems to be a bit quicker and I'm assuming more RAM will pick things up even more. There is a noticeable (but small) lightleak at the bottom of the screen, but it seems to only be a problem with dark screens in low light (not worth sending back). No sparkles or any other problems with the screen that I have noticed. I wasn't sure how I would like the glossy truelife screen, but reflections haven't been a problem, which are really only noticeable with dark backgrounds on the desktop or in a web page; and even then I'd have to focus on them to interfere. Subjectively, it is a pretty nice screen and I'm definitely liking the real estate.
Like I said, I'm underwhelmed but not disappointed. So far it seems to be a reasonable value (even with the downgraded graphics card). In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm almost always underwhelmed by the computers that I buy.
Thanks again for the useful info on this forum.
New E1705 Owner - Verdict: it's ok
Discussion in 'Dell' started by nbr42206, Apr 23, 2006.
