Questions/concerns from soon-to-be Studio owner

This post is probably a bit unorthodox and goes against many of my own pet peeves, but figured I would probably get a better response this way on some of my more unique concerns.

Towards the end of the month I plan on picking up a 1535 model studio off the outlet (1537 preferred if the price is right) and want to try and make the best experience out of it possible. This includes finding a big coupon to use and cut back on upgrades that can be found on like ebay and added in later with ease. From what I have gathered so far on this forum; Aside from the obvious cpu/ram/hard disk upgrades (Dell seems to be pretty generous in this area anyway), about the only available upgrade options after the laptop is in my posession are the backlit keyboard and the mini-pci-e cards (bluetooth would be one I'd probably get after the fact. Will probably go for the a/g/n card included since the half-slot cards are hard to find it seems). Anything else obvious that I am missing?

Right now I have a pretty tight budget for this and would prefer to stay around $600 maximum if I can help it so anywhere that I can trim back or get second hand will help. I'd really like to spec it out as much as possible within reason. ie: fingerprint reader, bluetooth, webcam, backlit keyboard.

As far as the graphics card is concerned, I'm probably gonna aim for the ATI option for future-proofing. I'm more of a 'casual gamer' than anything. The beefiest games I run are flight sim 2004 (possibly X if the studio can manage) and Sims 2 (due to be Sims 3 when released). The only real demanding game to come is probably Burnout Paradise when the PC version is released next month. But that brings up another point in that I don't have demanding requirements for good gaming performance. Pretty much as long as the framerate isn't like molasses and is above 20fps, I'm happy. My 'gaming' machines up to this point have been lackluster in that department to begin with so I have fairly low standards compared to most. Just curious though how well the ATI card will handle these.

On the more unique side of things, I'm really curious if anyone has done a full teardown of their studio yet and has an idea what size/form-factor speakers are used? Reason I ponder this is I have an old Inspiron 7500 that has some nice speakers for its age that have great bass and high response for not having a subwoofer and have been really considering attempting to shoe-horn them in if the room inside the studio was ample enough.

On that note, curious if there's any other advice or 'Ahas!' anyone has regarding this notebook. Would be really appreciated.

 

If your budget allows, I definitely suggest going for the 1537 instead of the 1535. A few key differences are-

-The standard 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) is LED-backlit on the 1537
-eSATA/USB combo port added to the 1537
-Updated processors (T5800 vs. T5750, for example)
-Odd 'topographical pattern' (some call it "water stain") is gone from wrist rest and touchpad area
-The 1537 has the newest Intel GM45/PM45 chipset vs. the 1535's older GM965/PM965 chipset. On models with integrated graphics, this makes a significant diffence in overall graphics performance/capability. The 1537's Intel GMA 4500MHD nearly doubles the 3DMark scores of the the 1535's weaker Intel GMA X3100.

I would suggest going with the ATI Radeon Mobillity HD 3450 above either Intel IGP. The majority of units in the DELL Outlet have the ATI card, at the moment.

As for upgrades after you buy, the easiest upgrades are the wireless card, adding Bluetooth and the Back-lit Keyboard. The keyboard isn't as simple to remove and replace as on most Inspiron models, but if I can do it- most anyone with a little patience and a screwdriver can do it! I had a Xanax and beer to calm my nerves through the the dis-assembly and re-assembly process.

My Studio 1535 came from the Dell Outlet with the Dell 1397-G wireless card installed. I bought a "Refurbished" Dell 1510-N wireless card and installed it in under 10 minutes, drivers and all! Obviously, memory (RAM) is upgradeable if you happen to find one in the Outlet with just 2GB installed. With a 32-bit O/S, it's not worth exceeding 3GB total.

Any of these upgrades require you to access the bottom of the Studio 15. Rather than multiple covers to access the various user-serviceable parts (my HP had one over each Hard Drive and one over the RAM), the Studio has oine massive panel that covers the about 90% of the entire underside. It is a cost-cutting design that makes the entire notebook feel less than rock solid. The plastic cover is also uncomfortably flimsy and not exactly easy to reattach when you're finished...at least mine wasn't.

The good news is that the 1537 seems a bit more solid than my early-production 1535. I spent some time using a 1537 in Best Buy yesterday and entire unit felt a bit more solid and well-built than my 1535!

I sent you an email to with some additional Studio 15 info that you might find useful!

 

I think you will be happy with a Studio. Like allfiredup said, try to aim for the newer version if possible. However, the Outlet is a great place to buy from too.

 

Thanks guys. Really appreciate the advice.

I've actually been eyeing this notebook for some time. It was either that or the low end XPS systems, but the budget factor comes into play and I'd also lose out on the backlit keyboard too.

The coupon offer is really enticing, but this notebook is being bought with income tax refunds and they don't even start allowing you to file till the 14th. Hopefully a good 15/20% coupon will show up later though. Thanks for the offer though.

I think I have the upgrade situation sorted out and will probably aim to ebay most of them unless I find a good deal on the outlet with all of them included. I'm not at all unfamiliar with getting into these things. My last laptop was an Inspiron 1200 which, by the end of it's lifetime, I had to re-solder the power jack once every couple months and had modded in an RP-SMA connector into the screen bezel attached to the internal wireless card. I think over time I lost about half the case screws on the thing. And my mother's current HP 530 business laptop requires removing quite a few components just to take out the keyboard which I have to do every so often to clean it.

I will definitely be trying to aim for the 1537 model for sure. Having the working e-sata port this time is a pretty big plus. The only beef I have is the maximum of 4GB ram. But it's only a minor beef. Hopefully the 64 bit version of Windows 7 won't have too much ram overhead over the 32 bit version to negate the advantages gained.

The only other concern that has crossed my mind is the screen size/type. I'm in a tossup whether to try and aim for the LED screen or a larger resolution screen. I've had a chance to use a 1280x800 resolution on a regular basis for a while now and while it works, it's just a SLIGHT bit constricting. Then again, this too comes down to being able to find the right one on the outlet when the time comes.

Overall I think I will really like the notebook. It does look really nice and the price is right considering most other notebooks in this price range only offer AMD chipsets/processors. I'm mostly really anxious at this point to get it. The mobility aspect is the real major key factor for me. My old Inspiron 1200 was my first notebook and I got spoiled on the mobility for sure. When it died on me and I got tied to a desktop again, it became REAL painful.

 

I'm just going to toss my two cents in, your mileage very well may vary. I've got one of the early run 1535's, and while the internals aren't so bad, beyond the speakers, the build quality on my case is terrible. Maybe I'm spoiled coming from a mac, but it creaks, and bends and - god forbid you take the little keeper card out of the pcmia slot - loses structure. Not to mention one morning I opened up the lid...only to have the right side back cover/bezel/trim bezel/touch pad all become separated and break. It's currently all held together by a large amount of duct tape. And despite the fact that this happened all on it's own and I purchased the expensive extended service warranty (but not the complete care-), none of it's covered. I was told by a Dell tech online, "I am putting here in your record that the plastics broke and you attempted to repair it yourself and made the damage worse". I attempted to repair it myself by trying to push the pieces of plastic back together in hopes that they just come unsnapped. So, the machine is fast, I fully upgraded everything but the processor, which is 2.0GHz, 4GB RAM, N-wifi, ATI 3450 (which is at best meh), 4GB RAM, 320GB harddrive, works well enough, but the case is very poor, and the speakers are awful - really, really awful, even with the 'upgrade' they offer. The speakerphone on my old phone plays cleaner, clearer music. It's entirely possible I got a lemon, but this is my first Dell, and for a $1,600 laptop, I'm really not impressed. At all.


REVISION: I'd like to revise my original statement. Do not use the IDT audio drivers that Dell supplies! I just found another thread here that said to remove it and switch to the Vista High Def audio driver, and while the speakers still aren't great, they're not NEARLY as bad as I thought they were. Everything else stands, though.

 

Well, just figured out today I can look forward to ordering on Jan 30th at the absolute earliest so I guess time to start looking for coupons.

I had a few more questions too which are probably a tad more technical but worth asking anyway:

Are the extra components like the backlit keyboard, fingerprint reader, mini-pci-express cards compatible between the 1535 and 1537 models? I assume so considering not much has changed aside from the motherboard chipset. The case should be the same. But wanted to be sure.

Has anyone attempted to self-upgrade to a larger resolution and/or LED screen and succeeded? ie: Grab a dfferent screen but from the same model notebook off someplace like ebay and drop it in? Curious if this is another upgrade that is possible here since nothing above the standard WXGA 1280x800 seems to be listed on the outlet below my budget point.

Is the BIOS on the Studio the same general thing as used in older Dell notebooks like say 2005-2006 model year Inspirons and Latitudes? Used to be dell has the BIOSes standardised around that time, but not sure if that's changed. Mostly curious about this because I have a tool laying around that I used with my old Inspiron 1200 where I could drop in a 640x480 8bit bmp image into the bios and it would run full screen during the POST step, completely covering up the default dell logo and progress bar. Nice little bit of customization really.

And lastly: Does anyone know of any simpler way to search the outlet? It's extremely painful trying to track down the optional features like the keyboard, bluetooth, etc.. I found outletscanner.com, but it seems to have traded in the searching functionality for other problems. ><