So I've seen M1330, 1520 and Compal IFL90 in person...

Hello, I have been lurking here for quite some time. And I think I finally have some informations to contribute here. As I am living very close to Akihabara right now, I had a chance to see newly released M1330, 1520(both at Dell store), and Compal IFL90. Here is my impressions.

M1330
I am somewhat disappointed with this one. Make no mistake, this is a fine laptop, and maybe my expectation was bit too high after seeing first look review here. Good things first. This is indeed very small and slim, and LCD screen is beautiful. Demo machine was 2.4ghz/8400GS running Vista and demo video, and I didn't notice any heat or noise. Build is fairly good too, and so is keyboard. However, I think it looked better in picture than in person. Color tones used in this laptop is not best, IMO. However, my biggest gripe is the port layout. Here, Sony SZ is far, better. SZ seemed have most things in right places - with M1330, many ports are in wrong places. The biggest offender is one of USB ports, which sit directly below the slot-in drive, uncomfortably close. I think this is rather poor design decision, considering it only has 2 USB ports in the first place. Also, what is the point of having 2 headphone out if they are both located in front? Build-wise, I think it is on-par with SZ, but I prefer keyboards of M1330. Overall, I think m1330 could be better.

1520
I am positively surprised with this one. Unlike M1330, I think this one looks much better in person. And the build seems much better compared to previous Dell Laptops. Chassis feels very rigid, and keyboard is same as m1330, which, while not "Thinkpad quality" as the certain site stated, it felt very good for consumer-grade laptop. I didn't find heat/noise problem, although demo machine was running 8400GS. Screen, which is 1680x1050 Glaretype, was clearly inferior to M1330 screen. Although I didn't find any major problem with it, it isn't perfect. Still, this is a very good mainstream entertainment laptop, IMO.

Compal IFL90
There's a shop in Akihabara which imports IFL90, and it had Demo machine running. Overall, I liked it a lot. Build-wise, I think it is on par with 1520. It looked nice, and I think its design has slightly better usability than 1520. The unit imported into Japan has 1680x1050 matte screen, which I think was beautiful, with good viewing angles too. Again, I didn't find any heat/noise problem, but it was just idling. One problem, though. The demo unit had Japanese keyboard, which has absolutely horrible flex. I am not sure this problem is unique to this demo machine or not. However, seeing HGL80 had keyboard flex issues, it doesn't look good.

I hope this helps.

 

What is the point of having 2 headphone outputs if they are both NOT on the front?

If they are in the same location, and they always are, the front is the correct location as the laptop will be centered between both users.

 

Point would be when connected to external speakers. Having to connect speakers at the front is awkward. When was it ever awkward to connect headphones on the side of the notebook?

Fine to have one audio output on the front, but I'd think the second output should be near the VGA out on the side. A second headphone user would have no problems connecting from the side.

 

I agree with both of you above. It makes sense to have both audio outs in the front for when viewing/listening with someone else.. However I am far more likely to be plugging in external speakers than listening with another person through headphones esepcially when at home and connecting my speakers which will no doubt be behind my laptop to the front of my laptop is going to be a pain that is already annoying me =\.
if they were unable to place 2 on the front and a 3rd on the back or side thent hey should have gone with 1 on the front and 1 on the back/side

 

Thanks for the mini-reviews!

It what ways do you think the IFL90 has better usability than the 1520?

Also, how would you rate the 1520's screen compared to typical glossy consumer laptop screens (HP Pavilion, etc.)?

 

IFL90 looked bit more slim, and I liked IFL's lid closing mechanism whereas I didn't like 1520's latch much - moving parts are on the lid, not body, not a great idea, imo.

Because it was at Dell shop, I couldn't compare 1520 screen with others - I think Pavillion has somewhat better screen, and Sony FZ or MBP much better. And 1520 screen I saw was definitely not on par M1330WLED screen. However, I remember reading someone here stated that 1440x900 has better screen. The model I saw was 1680x1050.

About headphone jacks, well, from my experience, jacks at front are prone to damage. Also, it is very inconvenient with external speakers. Finally, most of headphones have long enough sable for side jacks - and the same long cables can be problematic when the jack is on front, and you don't want to have a long cable hanging in front of you. It depends on how one plan to use headphone jacks, obviously. But from my experience, long cables of full-sized head phones are very annoying with jacks at front.

 

Some pictures would’ve been nice.

Anyways about this speaker jack placement issue: I don’t think there is any other space left to place them. Besides, doesn’t it come with a configurable 5.1 sound card (like M1210) where the jacks can be configured for Front, Center and Rear speakers ? If that is the case, then placing them all over the notebook will be a big problem when you try to hook up a 5.1 system.