Studio 1555 Advice (Especially on Heat)

I'm thinking about ordering a Studio 1555 as soon as Dell starts offering Win7 upgrades, and was hoping to get some advice.

The 3 criteria I'm really interested in are:
1) Good screen (that's why I'm really looking at the Studio 1555, it's by far the cheapest 1080p 15" I can find unless anyone knows of another I should look at).
2) Ability to play back 1080p MKVs without breaking a sweat.
3) Heat/noise

In light of the heat/noise issue, I've been following the touchpad heat issues of the 1555 with keen interest. Does anyone out there have a Studio 1555 with an Intel integrated 4500MHD? I was wondering if the heat build up problem would be alleviated by taking out a big heat generating component (the discrete graphics).

How about wireless cards? It seems like the touchpad is very close to the wireless cards from ninja2000's great pics of the motherboard. What wireless card does everyone who's been having heat problems have?

Lastly, how much of a difference is there between the different CPU's? Would even a T6400 be strong enough to decode any and all 1080p MKV's? Any heat difference between the processors to speak of?

Thanks!

 

I received my 1555 from Dell's Home Outlet today. Here's the specs:

1 Studio 15 - 1555 Laptop
1 Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
1 320 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
1 Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T6600 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
1 4 GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz (2 DIMMs)
1 8X Slot Load Super Multi (DL DVD+/-R Drive + RAM support)
1 Dell 1397 802.11B/G Wireless Mini Card
1 9 Cell Primary Battery
1 15.6 inch Full High Definition (1080p) High Brightness LED Display with TrueLife and Camera
1 Black Chainlink

It has the backlit keyboard (which I love) which wasn't mentioned on the outlet's spec sheet. I paid $584.62 including shipping and tax.

The 1080p display is the best laptop display I've seen. I was worried that I couldn't get a 6500K white balance and 2.2 gamma without a dedicated graphics card but the 4500MHD control panel has individual settings for RGB brightness, contrast, and gamma. I've gotten close to what my calibrated HTPC's monitor looks like without much fuss. Firefox w/NoSquint looks great at 120%.

I installed Media Player Classic Homecinema and CoreAVC 1.9 on it and it plays .mkv and all the other HD file formats just fine. It even plays the 24mbps AVCHD files from my Canon HF11 without breaking a sweat. I don't play games on this laptop..have a desktop gaming rig for that.

Vista's battery meter indicates 6hrs of battery life. I haven't timed it but I've no reason to believe I shouldn't get at least 5hrs of light use between charges.

I don't think the 2.2Ghz CPU is that much faster or powerful than the 2Ghz T6400. I've done most of the power user tweaks to Vista and removed most of the bloatware that comes on the 1555. It's a heck of a lot cooler on my lap than my old Inspiron 1520 with a 8600M GT GPU.

 

Hi Manekineko,

As you know I have the ATI card. Here are my observations based on my spec.

1. The 1080p screen I received is gorgeous, its the best screen I have used on both laptop and desktop. I got the LG version, I am not sure if there are others brands in use.

2. Mine will playback HD content without breaking a sweat but I have ATI gfx.

3. Heat. Well I noticed yesterday my touchpad getting hot, this only seems to occur in 2d as the fan rarely spins up so you get a quiet laptop as a trade off for higher heat. Once 3d load kicks in the fans spin up and the touchpad cools a few degrees. Also I had the laptop running all evening and downloading the whole time with my WD 7200 320gb hard drive which probably didnt help.

4. Noise. In 2d low load you will struggle to hear this laptop and this is with ATI gfx. If you put it under load and the fans kick up and it gets quite loud (louder than my MSI GX720 but not as loud as my old Sager 8660 with 8800gt)

5. Wireless. Mine came with the cheap broadcomm option, this card seemed ok but I had an intel 5100 already so have now installed that. This may have increased the heat, I am still investigating. But bear in mind the HD is also very close to the touch pad so I think it is a combination of things (very low fan speed, HD heat, WIFI heat, RAM heat plus not a lot of room around the components)

6. CPU. Mine came with the T4200, this cpu seemed fast enough for my use but as I had a P8600 already I installed that for the lower TDP (for lower temps and better battery life)

7. Battery life. I have the 6 cell battery and get over 3 hours on power saver and that was using wifi, downloading, installing patches and even using the DVD to install a couple of games, I was well impressed, I am sure you would get longer with the intel gfx

Hope this helps
ninja

 

Wow Koui, that's a great deal, almost exactly what I'm looking for. With the Intel graphics, does the touchpad get hot like has been plaguing others?

 

Well, for me, the touchpad heat problem kind of bothered me. Because it's my first laptop and I wasn't sure if the heat is suppose to be normal for laptop or abnormal for studio1555. So i called the dell technician and they said that it was their first time hearing about touchpad heat problem. So i sent the computer on wedesday, and they promised to send it back within5-6business days.. They lied :O I got it back today (friday) haha 2 days . They said that they replaced the cpu fan, heat sink, clean& test and MSR checked..

Anyways, im still feeling some warm sensation still =.= i dont think it helped...

but i may just be too sensative about the heat problem. But ya, it occurs even when im doing this notebook forum and msn. also, the 1080p screen is so amazing that i just decided to ignore the touchpad problem and live on

 

manekineko, I don't notice the touchpad getting hot to the touch..just a little warm maybe..and that's after playing a 2hr .mkv movie.

The deal I got was pretty sweet..15% outlet coupon, 2% DPA, and 3% fatwallet cashback (I'll get another $16.50 back in 60 days). It took a lot of scouring the outlet to find exactly what I wanted, but it was definitely worth it.

I think you'll really enjoy the 1555 with integrated graphics as long as you don't require gaming performance from it. It's a great multimedia machine..HD video playback at 1080p is incredible on the LED LCD. I'm finally able to play an entire HD movie without having to use the AC adaptor..which is something I could never do with my 1520. I doubt the XPS Studio 16 is 'that' much better..especially at double to triple the price.