OFFICIAL: Studio 17 Owner's Thread

See my sig

 

Word. It's like negotiating with a car salesman with the cognitive capacity of a slot machine.

 

We can replaced the Graphics card in the Studio 17's if we want to right? Tell me Yes Guys.

 

I'm pretty sure someone mentioned that the dedicated graphics are soldered on...

 

No, very few notebooks offer that ability and the upgrades are usually far and few between anyways.

 

Yeah I'm just now finding out the my Bro who is faculty at Northwestern University could have probably saved me a few bucks by buying it via his discounts and university perks but all that I got for $1487 including a messenger bag

can't be beat, actually I have no idea what configuration they used to get me the specs I posted at that price not even with and Educational discount, must have been some special Executive Michael Dell's office system.

Dell's office did call me back within less than 24 hours of my email to them so +1 for Dell in my book.

 

soldered on darn it!!!

oh well, what about adding 6GB of DDR3 and taking out the stock 4GB DDR2 8000mhz?

the Centrino 2 Montevienia chipset is compataible right????


in any case, My T9400 2.53ghz 6MB cache CPU should keep my happy for Windows 7 and beyond that big 6MB of cache should give a nice speed boost and battery efficiency savings.

 

The Dell XPS 1730 has the option of changing video cards. Many buy them with the basic Nvidia 8700M and then replace with the 8800GTX SLI especially made for this notebook. No soldering involved.

 

This is true. I haven't installed one myself, but there are guides to this on the net. Very simple.

 

I got my Studio 17 ordered but now I really want something small for max portability.

Maybe an XPS M1330, with the 25% off coupon and 7% off EPP, but I will wait till they update the CPU and make it DDR3 in the next Hardware refresh.

lugging around an 8lb Studio 17 is not very portable.

 

Thanks for the reply Jet757f

how does the Adobe RGB screen compare to the other 1920x1200 Non Adobe RGB screen? Is the only difference in the color reproduction or will fonts and letters be much clearer in the Adobe RGB version? I am primarily going to use this as a desktop replacement for browsing, excel and coding... so I am looking for the clearest font I can find...

Thanks
K

 

I don't think the 'RGB' reproduction method will have any effect on the clarity of the fonts in itself being a colour system, but you may find the more expensive screen is of better quality and so has a sharper image.

To be honest, the clarity of fonts on my basic 1440x900 WXGA screen is superb, I've been using it to code in dreamweaver and find it perfectly clear, although I'm not too happy with the colour I think thats a case of making the correct adjustments.

 

I'm curious about this, too. The chipset is compatible, but I don't think that necessarily implies that the motherboard is. DDR2 and DDR3 may not be physically interchangeable.

No DDR3 and no P8600 are the only two gripes I have with Dell's available configurations.

 

I am looking to buy this notebook. Can anyone tell me if this laptop has dual hard drive capability. I want to install a Solid State Drive once I receive it along with the regular HDD. Has anyone done that?

 

Yes, it does have dual hard drive bays

 

I am gonna try and configure my Studio 1737 for Max battery efficiency.

some email light word processing (thank you Works Plus) web surfing etc.

I trust the Montevienia CEntrino 2 chipset will be slightly more efficient thant the Studio 17 that was reviewed particularly DDR2 800mhz

mt T9400 with 6MB cache will be very efficient because of the 6MB cache can store more instructions than a 3MB cache CPU

that and the RGB LED screen should look very bright even at 50% brightness

and the 16MB cache 7200 RPM SATA 2 HDD is very fast.

I hope to get 3 Hours minimum. I know its 17 incher, But I was Checking out Apple's 17 at the store and its not so bad. And swapping from Apples 15" MBP to the 17" MBP I am beyond glad I went with DELL's 17 inch Studio, I don't like the sacrifice of squsihing down in 15" and enjoying that.

Someone needs to make a bare bones 17" no drive no ports maybe 1 or 2 usb's,and have everything else on a Docking station that comes standard, making a light fun portable 17 incher with all the Desktop replacement goodies when you get home.

I had to go for a Desktop replacement, especially here in Miami South Florida so many Hurricanes, I was tired of Lugging around my desktop tower in my trunk


Only downside is the ATI 3650 about a year old and needs to go.

Also DDR3 should be here by Back To School season 2009

 

7200 rpm HD is going to kill your battery life more than anything. 5400 rpm would be the better idea for max battery life. The denser your HD platter is, the less head seeking occurs as well.

My 9 cell gives me 3 hours 55 minutes of time with the regular 1440x900 screen, T8100 processor, 320gb 5400 rpm HD, and 3650 gpu. I turn my screen down about 3 clicks to get that time and I do also undervolt my CPU although it can still reach full voltage on demand. Other than that, I don't use any special power saving features that comes with these Dells.

 

The only non RGB-LED display that I have a comparison with is the XPS 1730 which Im guessing is using the same screen as the Studio 17. I tried 2 of these and both had different screen manufacturers. The 1st I got was made by LG and the color accuracy was terrible. The 2nd I received was Samsung which I liked very much and would almost say it is similiar to the RGB-LED that I have now only I think the Studio 17 is a lot brighter. There is also a another version made by Sharp which I have heard is good too. My point is that if the Studio 17 (non-LED) is also using these 3 screens as a lottery then it depends which one you get. I think the RGB-LED version is all LG type screens.

 

A quick note to anyone whos just bought a 1737 - Mine came with the A01 revision of the BIOS, A02 is up on the Dell site and has been for some time (since 13th Nov!)

Why they're shipping with an out of date BIOS is beyond me.

 

FYI on my 1737 I just received last week with the RGB LED screen, the bios is A04. This is so new it's not listed on Dell's site yet!

 

I looked at my 1737 that I got like 4 days ago A04 BIOS so thats the newest.

Same here RGB LED

 

I actually read the manual with my new Studio 1737 and it says the ESATA is a combo ESATA/USB port ???? Anybody know where you get the adapter cable for that? (not that I need one with 2 USB ports on either side of the machine...)

 

Hey all!

I posted a while ago and talked back and forth with PhotoFreak concerning the fact that the DELL Studio 1735's LCD Panel (17" 1920x1200) is producing less than accurate results with the default settings.

ATI Catalyst is an absolutely horrible application to work with for setting colors in my opinion... it's poorly organized and as far as I'm concerned -- I do a huge amount of photo processing and this laptop really messed me up as my work all began to look bizarre to other people!

This is the 3rd time I've come back to this thread and it surprises me how few professionals are posting their concerns about the screen color or discussing it.

It's my understanding that there are several different LCD Panels that have been shipped with the 1735 ... so I'm imagining that many might claim that their screens are fine...

PhotoFreak's settings were terrible on my screen - so I'm assuming that he and I have different panels. So -- I'm attaching my ATI Catalyst Profile. Rename it to a .xml extension and place it under: /Users/[Your Username]/AppData/Local/ATI/ACE/Profiles/

It will be selectable in ATI Catalyst...

If this helps anyone please let me know. I'd like to know that I'm not alone and perhaps get a second opinion.

(chris at antiochwebhost.com / www.antiochwebhost.com).

 

I've never used it myself, but doesn't Adobe have a color calibration utility in their software suite? .... or there's the Spyder 2 Pro color calibration gizmo.

 

They now have another panel option for the 1920x1200 which is the RGB-LED. This is a new panel made by LG. Who made the regular panel 1920x1200 panel for the Studio17?

 

I use Adobe products and perhaps I just don't know what I'm doing... there are Monitor Profiles and color workspaces. I use Adobe RGB as my settings ... I find it annoying to move files between computers and be asked if I want to convert my colors to a different color space... it would seem to make more sense that I have my monitor calibrated properly system-wide then just for Adobe products. If I'm failing to see the value in this, let me know. I process photos and do graphic design for web, not print if that helps.

Also -- jet: I went and looked at the panel options and didn't see 'RGB-LED'... I don't know who made my regular 1920x1200 glossy panel, but I'm kinda thinking it's also an LG screen based off of comments that Photofreak made about calibrating both his panel and LG LCD TV in a similar fashion. The colors on my studio were very 'cooked' by default. They look nice -- in an over-exagerrated way, which works fine in some instances, but overall, it made things look highly distorted.

 

Colors are ridiculously oversaturated. It hurts my eyes, really.

My videocard is Intel 4500 MHD - there is no way to adjust saturation (as some of the users did with ATI card).

Is there any way to change the saturation? It seems to be somewhere on the very low level (Video BIOS?) - BIOS and start-up colors are oversaturated also.

After calibrating the monitor with Spyder2Pro color temperature is adjusted, but saturation remains very-very high.
The interesting thing is, that ICM-Aware applications (LigthRoom,Photoshop) dispaly colors accurately (no oversaturation).

Is it possible to fix this oversaturation problem? It is really annoying.....


Thank you!


Dell Studio 1737 RGB LED 1920x1200 (LGD01B3)

 

Im not familiar with that video card so not sure if you have the same adjustments as the ATI card does. With the ATI card you can go into the ATI control panel and make adjustments to compensate for color etc.
I would look for some sort of panel adjustments somewhere in your Control Panel area maybe under Personalization and then Display Setting.

 

I've got XP installed on my new 1737, however I can't find an Intel Matrix Storage Manager package that will work. I've tried installing various Intel MSM packages, but they all come back with a message at the end "this computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software" and it aborts. I would like to enable the SATA AHCI mode. I think the 1737 is an Intel "P45" chipset with an ICH9 controller ??

 

We just ordered Our Studio 1737's they were shipped 12/20.
What does this mean 1737?
Okay so what do we have? Is this all good or what.

Please let me know???


Studio 1737,
Orange Paint with Black Trim
Vista Home Premium System 32-BIT
Intel Core 2 Duo T5800, 2.0GHz, 800Mhz, 2M L2 Cache
3GB, DDR2, 800MHz 2 Dimm
Hi Resolution, glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display
(1440x900)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650
250G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Slot Load CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive) 8X
Vista SP1 Home Premium Edition
DELL RESOURCE DVD,BACK-UP INSP 1737
56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Media Direct 4.0
Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
Dell Wireless 1397 802.11g Half Mini Card
Microsoft Office 2007 Small Business Edition
Anti-glare, widescreen 17.0inch LCD (1440x900) w/ 2.0M pixel Camera
Intel Core 2 Duo Label

 

Studio 1737 is the latest model number for the Studio 17.
What you ordered looks fine. Did you order more than one?

 

410-1163 McAfee Security 9.0, 3-Year Subscription, for Dell Inspiron / Dimension $0.00
312-0707 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery $0.00

3 years of McAfee?? How much was this 1737

 

yes, we ordered two, the other one doesn't have photos shop, but everything is the same. Did we do okay with this. After reading so many of these reviews. Changing this, upgrading this, do this so speakers don't crackel, check bios make sure it is A04. This is all very scary to me.

 

It was over a $1000.00.
Why do you ask about McAffee?

 

Well depends on what you are using the notebook for but I would have gotten the backlit keyboard. Very nice and convenient expecially in low light situations. Dont worry about which BIOS version you have. I have A02 and just got mine this month. Dell constantly posts updates on their website which you can use to update your notebook at anytime. The new Bios update is one they will post eventually.

I would not buy anti-virus software installed on the notebook when you can download it for free online and it actually works a lot better. An example would be: Avira

 

I will be using it for basically ms office, photos, and internet, downloading music, I play music while I work.
My husband has a Inspiron 9300 and I love it. Except it is getting very slugglish. But we will give it to our garndson. I sure hope these Studios work out for us, and I hope we don't have any problems. Iam concerned on what they are saying about the speakers on the Studio. The inspiron music is GREAT.

 

I would never rely on a notebook computer to have decent sound or speakers.
I would get some external speakers for it. I think that they are one of the options when you are ordering the Studio 17.

 

Did we get a good price? The processor T5800 is this fast? and the glossy display is this good? Also, we are faithful Windows XP, are we going to be okay with Vista? Why is everyone on forum changing over to Vista 64? Is this better. We have no idea how to do all these things. Are we going to be okay?

 

Yes the processor you got is fine. I like the glossy display. Some people dont.
Vista is fine once you get used to it. When it first came out it wasnt very stable but now with the update is runs great. I have two homebuilt computers running side by side. One has Vista 32 bit and the other 64 bit. I cannot tell the difference between the two of them. They both run the same. The only advantage of the 64 bit version is that it will read your memory when you go over 3GB the 32 bit only reads up to 3GB.

 

hmm, where'd A03 go then? I wonder if the BIOS revisions are different depending on your build though, maybe you needed a newer BIOS for the screen?

 

I read that ppl are erasing all the software that comes on Studio 17 and reloading. Is this a difficult thing to do?
Just checked Fed Ex Tracking, Studio picked up in Reno, NV, estimated delivery date is 12/23. Probably get it tomorrow huh?

 

Well I am happy with Vista 64-bit I was affraid it would not run all my software games or devices but it does run them just as good as XP Pro.

It takes some time to find where everything is, mainly because its hidden where as XP was more upfront and grouped everything together Vista decides to separate everything.

Plus with 4GB of DDR2 800 RAM Vista flies with the T9400 2.53Ghz Core 2 Duo 6MB of cache.
its probably too much CPU for a laptop but it helps with light gaming.

Plays World of Warcraft at Max setting and get well over 40fps

 

Wow, Im afraid of this Vista, Im going to be totally lost

 

how long have you been using vista?

 

does anyone have the Mike Ming Sea Sky design? if so could you post pictures? i'm deciding between that and the subburst design.. i was going to go with spring green, but then after looking at all thoes is looks so plain to me now!! lol i've seen picture/video of the sunburst by an actual customer, now would like to see the sea sky of an actual customer. THANKS!!!

 

Some else may have posted this but I am new here and I just got
my Studio 1737 last week!

I want to format my hard drive and install
Vista Ultimate (32-bit) and before I begin, has anyone
else successfully installed Vista from scratch?

I read some horror stories about the 64-bit version and driver problems.

Do I need special drivers during the install?

Any other problems after the install?

Any help or guidance would be appreciated!

Thanx!

 

How is Vista Ultimate different than Reg Vista. What is the difference wth these?

 

Ok my two Studio 17's are coming today.
What is the first thing I should do when i get these?
What things do I need to check out to make sure everything is working.
I m a little nervous and hope we didn't get lemons. So any help will be welcomed. Thanx

 

Here you go
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/default.aspx

 

turn them on, check the screens for dead pixels. If they all look ok, I would format them and re-install vista from the CD Dell will supply, removing all the silly little resource hogging applications Dell installs (Dell dock, anti virus demos etc...) then install the drivers, again from the CD Dell supplies, for your specific hardware. You should end up with a nice quick machine ready for you to install your own apps on and enjoy!