Studio 15 -- Current concensus/verdict?

A while back there were some mixed views on the 15. In the last month or two does it seem like most people here like it ok??
Besides the bigger screen, are there major differences between the 15 and 17?

 

The 17 has a better graphics card, that's about it...

 

Thanks
Please give us an update in this thread when you get your lappy. Very interested to hear your impressions.

 

Sure thing, I'll be posting a bunch of pics and a mini-review.

 

the studio 17 is also bigger and heavier. but that's just stating the obvious. ^^ also the studio 17 has that number pad on the keyboard.

 

So far very impressed, but this is my first laptop...

 

I'm on my 2nd Studio 17 (they sent me the wrong colour - black, then sent a replacement a week later in beautiful Tangerine Orange).

I've had ity for a few days. The build quality differs between the 2 units slightly.

The black studio 17 had no keyboard flex at all. and the media/speaker panel had no flex.
The orange lappy has a little keyboard flex, and the media panel flexes a little when I press down in one of the corners.
I imagine that this is probably fixable by simply re-seating things properly;
I'll fix that at some later time.

I've also noticed that the touchpad is not very accurate and can at times freeze, and jump the cursor. I imagine this is due to having it as part of the palmrest and not being a seperate module. It can be annoying... but after tweaking the touchpad software a bit, things got slightly better.

That aside, I like the overall design. I much prefer the Tangerine lid to the Matte Black lid....no contest there. The texture of the black paint is very different from the orange. The black lid is more of a traditional spray paint texture feel. The Orange lid feels slightly "spongey" but not in a bad way. The black showed all fingerprints. The orange doesn't and looks great.

I got the ATI HD3650. It's ok, I can run Maya 2008, and and Photoshop CS3 without any problems.

The keyboard is decent. fairly quiet, with the right amount of feedback.

The speakers really suck. But the on board hi-def audio chip is fairly decent. After instaling FL Studio and ASIO4all I find that the latency is a VERY respectable 12ms (using a 512 sample buffer) without loss.
Pretty good for a laptop.

The Wifi is decent - better reception than my year old HP dv9000 lappy.

My Studio 17('s) came with an eSata port - I don't have anything to plug in there yet... but it's preferable over just another USB port. Does anyone need 4 usb ports on a laptop?

Wifi Finder is fairly useless feature for me. Does anyone use this? if someone absolutely needed this, then wouldn't they just have a small portable wifi finder on their keychain or something?

The lack of a locking mechanism when closing the lid is a little curious. Not even magnetic. It's held in place by friction in the lid/base joint. Kind of novel, kind of scary.

I love having a slot instead of a tray for DVD loading. I put a slot drive on my main workstation 6-7 years ago, and have wondered why laptop makers seemed reluctant to use them...

I like the large power adapter head. I've always had problems with the old tiny adapter heads - they seem become loose after a few years and damage the motherboard.

The media buttons are useless in the dark as you can't see them. You need to memorize where they are. Is there no way to have them lit for night use?

the 2.0mb Webcam is much better than the 1.3mb on my HP. The quality difference is huge.

 

I am already having a tech come out with an LCD and video card. I have color banding like crazy.

 

I've had my Studio 15 for roughly 2 weeks now, and there's been a fair amount of problems. Sometimes when I resume the computer after hibernating, the eject key (the touch sensitive one) is lit up, and none of the other media buttons work.. also, the touchpad is very unresponsive at random times. My sister also got a Studio 15, and she had a few BSODs when she tried using the SD card reader. It seems fine now, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Overall though, I'm happy with the laptop. I love the feel of the keyboard (despite having lots of flex), the WLED display and backlit keyboard are great, the fingerprint reader works surprisingly well. When choosing a laptop I had eliminated it down to either a Studio or an XPS, with the lower cost being the deciding factor. Although I still wish it had a better graphics card, I don't regret the decision.