Questions About XPS M170 (lots of them)

I should be getting my system in about a week and I'm pretty excited. I have a couple questions though.

1) What kind of junk comes preinstalled on the XPS M170? Does it really slow performance?

2) Would you recemmend a clean install of XP Media Center? If yes, do I need to be careful of any partitions, or should I just delete them all.

3) How do you change the color of the lights? What colors can you pick?

4) What exactly is Pin-modding? Would this void the warrenty?

5) How is the quality of the screen? Is there lots of reported light leakage/dead pixel problems? (I can handle a few dead pixels, but I hate light leakage)

6) How is dell with their video drivers? Can you use the Nvidia Drivers?

7) How is this thing on a lap? Does it feel comfortable? Does the heat get unbearable? I use my current laptop on my lap 90% of the time.

8) How is the build quality? I never use my current laptop in a moving vehicle, but I always have it with me. Can it handel trips about twice a week, or is it recemmend that I leave it stationary most of the time?

9) Does anyone recemmend the dell Accidental Care coverage? I am very careful with things, but I'm thinking I should purchase this extra coverage. Is there any gray areas to the accidental coverage, or is it pretty much black and white... it breaks, they fix it?

And this ones a little off topic. Can anyone recemmend a good gaming mouse? I also need a good laptop cooling pad. Thanks for the help (sorry for all the questions, I'm just getting a little anxious )

 

1) Tons of Free ISP trials, and lots of other free trial junk-ware.

2) Yes, recommended. Just don't delete the media direct partition. And its your choice to leave the restore partition in there. SG has a great guide...

3) Don't know...

4) Pin moding is making a 400mhz CPU run at 533mhz it also increases the Ghz. Yes, it would void your warranty... At least on the CPU.

5) There is light leakage on every screen... But it shouldn't be a problem. You can notice it when the room is black, and the screen is a dark color.

6) Dell's video drivers arn't good. They slow down the 7800GTX. Dell underclocks their laptop GPU's. I would recommend using other drivers... And overclocking it a bit.

7) Not sure...

8) The XPS M170 is quite a solid machine, and you shouldn't have a problem moving it a couple of times a week.

9) I wouldn't... but you should ask others who have experience with this..

 

I just got mine, so here's my take initially.

1) A metric ton of junk software. Media Center installs additional stuff like extra themes, screensavers, ESPN, two basic games (you can find equivalents online elsewhere), 2D dancers, and the whole media center software.

Dell also installs all this ISP stuff, like said earlier. This is why I recommend:

2) Yes, I recommend doing a clean install. I only had a small 40MB partition (that I would assume is the media direct one because I can start up windows by hitting the play button) in addition to the rest, and it shows up as a - instead of a drive letter.

3) Dell has a piece of software called QuikSet they install with it. Choosing the Gaming option in that piece of software will allow you to change the light colors.

4) Don't know

5) The screen is pretty nice. I haven't found a dead pixel yet, but I haven't been looking very hard yet. No light leakage on mine that I know of. One thing I noticed that no one seems to mention, but the screen is really freaking bright. It almost looks a bit washed out because the whites are so bright, but that might be because I'm coming from a 5+ year old CRT and it is just a strong difference.

6) I'm still messing with the drivers.

7) I would get a cooling pad that's comfy on your lap. I haven't tried gaming, but it will get pretty hot just sitting on your lap doing normal web tasks.

8) It seems pretty solid. Mine seems a bit unstable (meaning it won't sit flat) but that is more a problem with the little rubber things the laptop sits on.

9) I didn't get that, so I wouldn't know. I'm really careful with mine though

And finally, I'm still looking for a cooling pad. I'm supposed to be getting one with a carrying bag for graduation, so I dunno.

 

3.) You have to have Dell Quickset installed. It has the capability to change the lights.

9.) unless you are accident prone or have several kids/pets in the house, you probably won't benefit from it. I have it because I've lost a laptop before due to a spilled drink.

as for the other questions, Jason did a good job explaining them.