Pulled the trigger on a Studio 1749

As the title says i bit the bullet and ordered a 1749

Spec
i5 520m
4gb ram
1TB hd
Ati 5650

All for the paltry sum of £673.
This is the first lappy i have ever bought and i have done so to make space by getting rid of my ageing desktop.
Problem is i am now on the verge of buyers remorse so i am asking for a little input on my choice. I would really like the input of you guys who have been around Laptops for a while.
I read a thread earlier and was interested in ninja2000's experiences with the same-ish laptop but the thread seems to have gone cold.

So my main questions are
Can i oc the 5650 to 5730 levels?
Will my laptop play Games such as Napoleon: total war. BF BC2 comfortably? (not expecting miracles)
Are the throttling issues i have heard about real?
Did i get a good price?

Look forward to your wisdom.

 

Still awaiting delivery of mine so I have no first hand experience to share.

You should be able to oc to 5730 levels quite easily, they are the same part. Keep an eye on temps though.

Check out the gaming page on these forums. BC2 is a bit of a beast so don't expect miracles, medium settings at a lowish res will prob be a safe bet.

Throttling doesn't appear to be an issue on the (limited number) of reports of the 1749.

It's a very competitive spec for it's price yes. If you wanted a 17" med/high power laptop, you'd struggle to do better than these for the money.

 

deleted...

 

Well not a lot of replies to this thread but i will post an update for those interested.

Got my laptop in 8 days, which was a lot better than i expected.

The build quality is good although there is a fair amount of keyboard flex(which i can live with)

Overclocked the gpu to 650/950 and it runs stable and cool.

Scored 9122 in 3d mark06.

Napoleon total war plays beautifully at high settings
Farcry2 runs at a minimum of 30 fps
WoW plays fine ofc
AoC plays great on high dx10 with a few tweaks (shadows reduced etc)

And all of these are at the native res.

Overall i am pleased with my purchase and have my fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong.

 

native res!? meaning 1600*900? What farcry2 settings are that?
How hot does the card get? Thanks =p

 

I think you made a good deal, not sure how much 650 pounds is in euros, but if its around 1000e I think its more than worth it.
I'm surprised your studio runs cool, even after overclocking. A while back I was also considering this laptop, but I was a bit affraid of the temperatures (this 17" studio model is farely new, and the 15 inch model already had some heat issues, especially around the touchpad which is why I held back untill I knew for sure that the cooling was decent).
I think that if I wouldn't need a 13 inch portable for school, I would most likely get that 17 inch dell studio.

 

High settings for farcry 2
The temp never went above 63c and had an average of 54c
Started to see a few artifacts at 650/950 so i have reduced it to 600/900 to be on the safe side.

Still no inordinate amounts of heat, keyboard is cool, touchpad is cool.

Only gripe i have is that the F2 key controls the wireless and i like to use the function keys in mmo's. Guessing there is a way to change that but i dunno what it is.

£673 = 742 euros at the mo

 

Wow thats a bargain! 750€ for such a laptop is insane Oo, If I would assemble myself a laptop with those configurations at dell.be (with 3 years of warranty) it would cost me 1050-1100€.

 

It can be changed in the Windows Mobility Center. The first icon on the left of your multimedia bar.

 

Yup, how did you get it that cheap? On the Dell website currently it's £779 for that spec but with a 500GB drive, and an extra £110 for the 1TB drive. You can get 5% off those prices, but still. An excellent purchase IMO.

 

Yeah! how did you get it at that price??
Spill the beans

 

Well i followed a link i found on www.hotukdeals.co.uk. it wasn't through the main Dell configuration page, more an "e-deal".
The deal has expired now but a friend of mine rang Dell direct and asked them if they would match the deal and they said yes.

 

Would I be right in saying everyone who buys the 17" Studios are buying these as desktop replacements?

 

I didn't buy my 1747 as a desktop replacement - more to compliment my current desktop rig. I just wanted a decent touchscreen quadcore with a good video card and the ability to run a fast ssd alongside a big 2.5 harddrive (since big ssds that meet my internal space requirements are so pricey). Yes, I wish a smaller laptop existed that allowed all of that, but I'll live with this beast. The screen size does grow on you, even if it isn't full 1080p. For a 17" monster the new studio is pretty light and feels smaller than it actually is - even though the display lid is so thick.