New Studio 17

I have to tell ya, after reading some of these posts I have the jitters. Just purchased a Studio 17 and here's my specs and questions.

Studio 17 Laptop (What is this 1749, etc etc? I don't see that anywhere)
Intel Core i7 820QM 1.73GHz (3.06GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache)
8GB, DDR3, 1333MHz, 2 DIMM
Backlit Keyboard
17.3 inch Full HD (1080p) B+RG LED Display with TrueLife and Camera (What is B+RG?)
Facial Recognition Software Application version 2.4 Compact Diskette
ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 4650 1GB
1TB (2x500GB) 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
8X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive
Soundblaster X-Fi Hi Def Audio Software Enabled
Intel 6250 Wireless-N w/WiMAX (2x2) Mini Card (What is this?)
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Dell Wireless 5620 mobile broadband built-in mini-card, Verizon
2TB Lacie Esata Drive

What do you think?

 

It is the 1747 (Quad Core).

Really nice.

 

I've always thought it meant B+ R G (Blue + Red & Green LED), as opposed to white LED backlighting. My boss's M17x has the R+BG LED backlighting and the colors look so...... Unreally-real. You'll love it if it's anywhere near the same!

That is your wireless card (not to be confused with your broadband wireless card. WLAN is not the same as BWLAN [although they sometimes include WLAN features on BWLAN cards]).

Looks good to me! Personally, I'm hoping they'll add hardware RAID support in the future as I'd love two SSD drives. Then maybe the 1080p screen with the touchpad layer, as I'd find that useful. Heck, while I'm dreaming, throw on an OLED screen, too.

But yes, nice build! How much did you pick it up for, anyways? And did you get a nice long warranty?

 

Intel 6250 Wireless-N w/WiMAX (2x2) Mini Card

Another MEH go with the 6300 3x3 Antenna thats what you need.

Also needs a Bluray Drive. My 1737 has one. Why can't the 1757 3 years later have the same option?

 

It doesn't "need" a Bluray drive unless you want to watch movies. My 1747 came with a Bluray drive and I have yet to really do anything with it outside of what could be accomplished with a DVD drive.

You can always replace the 6200 or 6250 with a 6300. Again, you don't "need" it unless reception is very poor / range issues.

You can also order the 1749 and 1747 with Bluray as an option or you can install one after market.

The main thing is the 4650 and 5650 options which pimp slap the 3650.

The performance of the 5650 and 4650 is very close.

3650 = ~800 Vantage
4650 = ~2800 Vantage
5650 = ~3200 Vantage

With the 5650 you do get better thermals but the Studio 17 is pretty spacious with plenty of air flow. The GPU and CPU are off in their own world on the bottom of the system board.

If you cruise the outlets, avoid the 1737/1735 at all costs. The GPU is woefully inept and it is still trucking along with the other core 2. This is also from first hand experience watching WoW choke to death on a T9900 (3.06ghz Core 2 Duo) equipped 1737 w/ RGBLED screen.

On the 1747 it runs like a champ and with a 1749 that's just extra icing on the cake.

1747 has B+RG which I've found to be nicer overall with less need for calibration and situational tweaks than the RGB LED, but if you want the 1749 has the RGB LED option too.

The 4650 and 5650 are leaps and bounds better and the 1747 and 1749 are actually lighter and cooler than the 1737 with an enhanced sound system and just better overall.

 

It 'needs' a blu-ray drive if you need one. What do you need? Blu-ray drive was a must for me so I configured my 1747 with it. I took delivery about 1 week ago and am absolutely loving it. The screen is out of this world good! thanks electrosoft for your excellent previous posts on the 17 which convinced me it was a good buy. So far it's perfect.

Back to the spec - if you want a blu-ray then it should have one. Way I see it it's a good future-proof. Plus, if you want to watch blu-rays, and - heaven forbid! - rip them, then it's a must-have. Your spec? IMO great except for the missing blu-ray.

 

Can you guys comment on the alleged fan noise of the Studio 17? Mine is coming equipped with an i7 and a 4650 graphics card.

 

My 1737 during Firmware Updates by design I guess DELL has it kick into Jet Engine Mode its max.

But on a daily basis even in High Performance mode, you can not hear the fan even though I am 6 inches away from it.

 

I've not found the fan intrusive at all at the moment, but a) this is subjective to some extent and b) I haven't really stressed the machine to the max

 

Like Coruja says, the fan noise in itself isn't too bad. The management of the fan is though, and the stuck-at-max bug is BAD. About every other time I use my 1749 with a bit of CPU load (running Cubase) it gets stuck at max, which leaves me with two options: go mad or reboot.

--

 

Well, my Studio 17 is in production...has 6gb of ram, i7, and RGB Led.

I'm really excited, but I have a few small questions for those who already own it:

1. Do the JBL speakers sound as good as advertised?

2. Is the screen glass or plastic?

3. Following from question 2, have you had any issues with the screen scratching when the laptop lid is closed? This issue drove me nuts with the Studio xps 1647 and made me switch to Studio 17...

4. Is Dell's official site the best place to get drivers or is there another site for Studio 17 owners?

 

We'll welcome you to the club soon brendan. Here's my thoughts

1. Do the JBL speakers sound as good as advertised?

They're surprisingly good, certainly when compared to other laptop speakers which generally totally suck. I still plug mine into peripheral speakers if I want to listen to music and use headphones for movies (way better)

2. Is the screen glass or plastic?

plastic

3. Following from question 2, have you had any issues with the screen scratching when the laptop lid is closed? This issue drove me nuts with the Studio xps 1647 and made me switch to Studio 17...

Nope, though haven't had mine long and don't carry it around (it's a DTR for me)

4. Is Dell's official site the best place to get drivers or is there another site for Studio 17 owners?

Good question. I installed a video driver update from the Dell website over the weekend and it a) changed the name of the GPU (from a 4650 to 560v or something) and b) disabled the ATI Catalyst Control Center completely. I had to
1) Uninstall the Dell update
2) reinstall the video driver from the Dell driver disk (still didn't fix ATI Catalyst Control Center)
3) download an update direct from the AMD website (update for ATI Catalyst Control Center)

...quiet a pain. So, I'd be interested if there are alternatives to the DELL official site. I'll certainly think twice before installing and update from there again.

 

I'm still curious what the, "RGB LED," panel ID is, as I contacted an owner who ordered a 1749 w/ RGB LED and their panel ID is, shocker, AU149D = B+RG panels in the 1747 models from AU Optronics.

Not that it is a bad panel (It's rockin!), but keep it real Dell.

I'll be curious to see what LCD panel comes with your Studio 1749 Brendan. Of course if it is a 1747 then we know what it is.

Hopefully a 1749 new owner can confirm the one case of a 1749 that came with the B+RG while it was listed as RGB LED on Dell's web site.

 

Hey electrosoft,

My specs on my Dell account suggest that it's the B+RG, so the 1747.

By the way, it was in large part thanks to your (and Coruja's) glowing review of the Studio 17 that I decided to insist that Dell NOT send me a Xps 1647 (with 15.6 inch WLed) replacement. Not only did they finally agree, but they gave me an i7 processor! So thanks guys....I'll update you on the computer once it arrives.

 

Hey electrosoft - where do I find out exactly which screen I got? It looks fantastic but I'm just curious. And what exactly is 'B+RG' - I can't find any info on this - a few discussions I read say there's either WLED or RGB LED. Whatever it is it looks gorgeous

 

You can find the panel ID within Windows: Start->Control Panel->System->Device Manager->Monitors->Generic PnP Monitor->Details->Device Description->Hardware Ids and it will say "MONITOR\XXXXXX" XXXXXX = Product Code / Panel ID.

B+RG is the 1080P panel that is ~90-92% color gamut with ~300nit brightness that is the Studio's version of the RGBLED.

Dell's recent offerings of the 5000 series based 1749's now list the panel as, "RGB LED" versus, "B+RG," but having contacted an owner of the newly relabeled, "RGB LED" 1749, the panel is the same B+RG (AUO149D) that was previously shipping all along with the 1747's.

Like I said, wicked nice panel. I had in my possession both a XPS 16 RGBLED and a 1747 w/ B+RG for a few weeks to compare/contrast and I ended up selling the XPS 16 due to the tighter chassis (extra heat), increased glare on the screen and I actually found the B+RG => RGBLED on the 16 (after calibrating both). The sound system on the Studio 1747 was better playing back itunes and trailers.

The overall build quality/sturdiness of the XPS 16 was better. It felt really tight and solid. I found the Studio 17 keyboard equal to the 16's. The 1747 was bigger, but weight wise they felt about equal.

It was MUCH easier to gain access to the Studio 16's CPU/GPU/BT. Studio 17 of course supports two HDs.

XPS 16 natively supports 3x3 WiFi cards.

In the end, it came down to 17.3" @ 1080P vs. 16" @ 1080P on a screen I found better overall.

 

Thanks v much electrosoft - yep mine says 'AUO149D'. I've got the good stuff!

Your reasoning was quite similar to mine, albeit you are more knowledgeable than myself and I didn't have the benefit of owning the XPS 16 for a while though I had a good play with one (with the lower spec screen) a few times down at BestBuy. The bigger screen won the day, plus my reservations about the XPS over-heating.

I agree I'm not blown away with the build-quality of the Studio 17 - some parts feel a bit cheap; the top of the monitor surround flexes alarmingly (where you generally hold it to open the lid) and sometimes clicks as if it's seating properly from time to time. Also the front of the palm rest area just below the touch-pad doesn't seem to be quite stuck down properly. It's not quite as solid and together as my old HP Dv6.

Having said that the rest of it feels pretty solid and it looks nice. I can forgive a couple of niggles for the quality components under the hood and that fabulous screen.

 

Pardon the ignorance, but do you have any tips on how to calibrate the screen?

 

I use a Spyder hardware calibration unit: Newegg.com - COLORVISION datacolor Spyder 3 Express

It's just easier than constantly manually trying to adjust settings and provides more consistency.

 

I just checked my 1749 that I ordered back in April while the website did not show a full HD option. However, the sales rep on the phone got me set up with one. Its an AUO149D. So you're saying it's actually an RGB LED screen? It's quite nice anyhow.

Whoa! More glare on the XPS 16... Is that even possible? I should be happy with my 1749 mirror then

--

 

Have you guys found a good carrying case for this thing? Most laptop sleeve/cases fit up to 17 inches, but not 17.3. I definitely won't be travelling much with this beast, but I do fly between major cities a few times a year.

As well, is it safe to close the laptop's lid? I know that sounds like a really dumb question, but my Studio xps 1647 keyboard kept on marking up the display when I would close it. I'm wondering whether I should invest in a shaggymac cloth to protect the Studio 17 screen...

 

I use a basic Targus 17" laptop case and it works fine.

Yeah, that was one of the complaints of the XPS 16 due to its E2E display. With its recessed display, you shouldn't have that problem with the Studio 1747

 

Oh really? That's great news. What's the difference between the E2E on the Xps and the screen on the Studio 17? In your pictures they look the same...

By the way, do you have a link to the Targus bag you're using?

 

The bezel around the screen of the Studio 17 will keep the screen off the keyboard.

The Studio 16 E2E is a single, uniform piece of plastic with no protruding bezel which is why the screen can sometimes touch/brush the keyboard.

The bag I have is older, so I am unsure if this is the same, but it looks like this:

Targus - CityGear Miami Messenger Laptop Case - Black/ Gray - TCG200

It fits the Studio 1747 with 9 cell battery fine.