Studio 17 with MONTEVINA is up on US Dell Website......

Im glad you got some good picture quality. The display does have the potential for being calibrated correctly unlike the LG panel (non-Led) I had on the XPS M1730 which didnt look good no matter what I tried.

I agree with you in that Im not too sure that the RGB-LED really provides that much difference not only on standard LED but also some of the regular CCFL type panels. I have a Sony 17" (which I have mentioned before) notebook with the XBrite-Hi-Color (has dual CCLF) which has picture quality almost identical to the Studio 17 with the RGB-LED dislpay.

 

I haven't heard much about RGB LED displays outside of this forum; if Dell wasn't charging a $100 premium for them, I wouldn't assume they necessarily offer any improvement over WLED or CCFL...

Anyway, I can't find much in the way of technical data, reviews, or comparisons with WLED. Does anyone know where to find information like that?

 

The Dell Precision 6400 and the Sony AW series have been using the RGB-LED displays so I have read some of the threads on these forums to get information. Both of these notebooks are very costly with the RGB-LED panel.

 

Got my 1737 with the RGB LED display. Have to say at first I was a bit underwhelmed by the display ... I was expecting an experience closer to my plasma TV when it comes to viewing angles ... still better than CCFL backlight or the WLED backlight I've seen on other brands in the stores. Glad I saw Ice Cold's suggestions on tuning the display -- I will try that a bit later. In the 19 gray box test I can clearly see the difference in all but the top 5, but if I move my head a little I can see the difference even on those top 5. When the brightness is turned down below 100%, the white is not what I would call "pure white". When Vista screensaver comes on, I do not get a completely even black background -- I really expected perfection here with all the talk about the "perfect" color gamut. However for some strange reason when I open windows Paint and fill the screen with black, it looks very "black" throughout without variation, LOL. Nice range of brightness adjustment on the screen. When it's cranked up all the way it's really kind of stunning. Will have to check out some movies on it to see how it performs with a wider range of color content. All in all I'd rate this screen better than the Sony Vaio 16.4" FW screens I looked at.

Other impressions:
- even with the extended life battery, this isn't quite the laptop bag monster I would thought it be (my friend has a 17" Toshiba Quosimo and that thing IS a monster!) The extended battery also provides a nice little tilt to the keyboard.
- with that said it seems heavy compared to my old Inspiron 6400. shoulder strap or better yet a backpack would be highly recommended.
- love the backlit keyboard.
- do not detect any keyboard flex as I've seen other reviews complain about
- Intel 5100 WiFi is excellent. I'm picking up APs around my office park and at home that I've never seen before.
- Hard drive is totally quiet
- Don't hear much CPU fan noise when working hard, dead silent when sitting at idle.
- I opened up the bottom to install a Verizon WWAN card. Nice build quality inside. Had to steal a screw from something else to secure the WWAN card (Grrr). Looks like there's no 64-bit drivers for the WWAN card (perhaps this is why I did not see them offered when I configured my system a couple weeks ago?)
- fingerprint reader is neat and I like the way it's integrated with Vista and IE7 ... I can see using this a lot for password protected websites and such.
- webcam ... meh ... doesn't look to good in a half dark room ... my face looks purple ... might be better in daylight

Only complaints so far:
- Fn-F10 to eject CD doesn't do anything. The "virtual" touch eject button across the top bar doesn't do anything. Have to eject via Vista GUI.
- The slot DVD drive is rather noisy when inserting, ejecting and seeking. while playing a movie it's very quiet.
- Right palmrest gets very warm. This will take some getting used to.
- I wish the Mute "button" would stay lit when muted.

... now on to wiping Vista off this thing and putting XP on it ...

 

Seems like something that should have an easy fix. Is the Dell Quickset process running on startup?

Also, thanks for the review, that answers a lot of questions I've had!

 

having read Paule's report Being the owner of a 1737 now myself for the last 72 hours I would pretty much have to agree with everything he said.

Keyboard stands out as a pleasure to type on which I am doing now, no flex and feels nice with good key stroke feel and travel. I could nit pick by obseving that the keys do "wobble" in place. But after all it is a laptop.

Also the lighting under the illumunated keys leaks out too much unless you are looking at the keys from directly above. But since we are all at an angle we we the underside and the bright leds give you more of a car headlight feel.



no palm rest flex either, and build quality is tight no seem gaps

5400rpm sata 2 hdd is silent wonder if the 7200 rpm hdd will also be.

 

I looked in QuickSet in Vista and didn't see anything related to the CD/DVD. If these slot-loading drives don't have a paper clip emergency eject mechanism, they really should make the keyboard eject sequence a BIOS level function and not rely on the OS to do it. This is really irritating me this morning booting with my Ghost 14 recovery CD ... I can't figure out a way to eject this disc in BIOS, "DOS" or WinPE mode.

 

Can't argue with that.

 

So Im guessing you have already tried going to Computer and then Right Click on the DVD/RW E and then try Eject from the Menu?

What type of display did the Sony FW have that you compared the S17 RGB-LED panel with?
I have always been curious about the Sony RGB-LED version notebook and how it compares.

 

Yes, and that works just fine from within Vista. My gripe is that until the OS comes up there's no way to eject a disc (at least on my S17...)

The FW doesn't have an RGB LED display. There was a bunch of talk over in the Vaio thread about the elusive "Hi-Color" display which apparently is not available on the FW's. Then there's something they call "X-Brite". I got so confused over the whole darn Sony display thing, I just went over to Micro Center, looked at one, and was frankly not impressed with the FW screen. It was middle of the pack, not the worst on the laptop display shelf, and not the best. I thought the HP HDX16t screens (not RGB LED either) looked better than the Sony FW, and very close to what I'm seeing with the S17 RGB LED. However HP has a "flush glass" screen on these which would be unbearable with all the reflections.

 

So just the Sony AW 18.4 Series has the RGB-LED screen.

Yes I have a Sony Xbrite-HiColor 17" and it looks very similiar to the S17 RGB-LED as far as PQ.

Ok I see what you are saying about the disc not ejecting. That is a good question how do you eject a disc with a slot loading type DVD player if there is no power? There should be an alternate method.

 

Darnit my SD card slot broke!!! 4 day old 1737. I blame Dell.

I was using an SD card and when I was done I press it in more because the spring loaded mechanism will kick it out.

Only the spring didn't work, and I just kept pushing it deeper and deeper to the point where it took some skillfull knife work to pry it out.

SD slot still functions but it no longer clicks or spring ejects the SD card. And the only way to get the SD card out is by grasping it tightly and pulling hard.

Lets see how DELL responsd to this issue. Tech needs to come out.

Seems silly to have to get rid of an entire laptop so tech can fix a $10 componenet.

I feel like not even reporting it because I risk further damage and misshandling by techs or shipping.

 

Humm... Dell is to blame that you pushed the card in until it broke? I don't know about the 1737 (and I haven't yet done SD on my 1535), but on my 1520 SD cards didn't click in all the time... I would just pull the card out as it already had like 25% out anyways.

Why would you push it in deeper and deeper is beyond me, but like I was always told... "When you point 1 finger in blame at someone else you have 3 more pointing back at you." Hopefully you learned your lesson.

 

well there use to be a spring mechanism that clicks and kicks it out after a gentle push in this mechanism malfunctioned.

 

Yea I get that, but that should have been very evident to you when it didn't respond to a slight push (as the spring mechanisms usually respond with a slight push in). It just seems crazy to me that you just kept pushing it in without thinking, just commonsense wise, that it was going in too far.

A general rule in tech, period, is if something doesn't respond to a push to a port or anything as you expect with a slight push you need to stop and inspect why. Continuing to charge forward results in a lot of broken ports, cables, and other components easily.

 

Regardless of how hard he pushed, the mechanism was already broken before he applied the additional pressure.

 

phew. better Dell quality than I expected mechanism started working again fully. Clicks solidly when it grips SD card. Then spring ejects when you push it in more. Must have just jammed or had the card off kilter.

I was scared for a bit.

No harm no foul.

Vista 64-bit running faster now. With the 8GB Sandisk Extreme III card in the slot. Boot is much faster with Ready boost. And Battery life is improved because it can access the SD card instead of the Hard drive now.

ITs like having a hard drive with an 8GB buffer cache instead of 8MB or 16MB. Hard drive access light has all but stopped blinking

 

Hmm, how much faster is your boot?

 

well I only have to 4GB of the cards 8GB size because I read that Ready Boost can only use 4GB. But Reading AnAndtech Chris Pirillo, and some other reviews They all agree that Ready Boost helps improve performance and battery life. For 2 reasons #1. the flash memory NAND on the SD card has an access time of 1ms vs. a typical Hard drive is 12 or 9 ms. Also the SD card is very low volatge vs. a Hard drive which uses up more power.

As soon as I inserted the SD card Vista recognized it and asked if I wanted to use it For Ready Boost.

Reading some blogs I then went into Device manager under Drives. And Uncheck Optimize For Quick Removal to Optimize for Performance. Thats when the magic started happening. Vista asked for a Restart.

Which enables cacheing and write combining on the SD card for ReadyBoost.

Can't say how many seconds I have improved but I know theres a little card in there saving my battery and hard drive use and boosting performance by a small bit.

I am all for it.

 

Ok, well it looks like if I get the computer stopped via F2 in BIOS or F12 at the boot menu, then I can use Fn-F10 key or the eject button on the media control bar to eject the disc in the slot loading drive. Some disassembly not required. Whew...

I think the issue is this laptop boots so darn fast that once Vista (or another OS) starts loading the eject is disabled.

 

trying out my 802.11 n card out now at Starbucks sure is great to have at&t I can log in without any Starbucks BS card stuff.

 

AT&T is delopying 802.11 Draft N at Starbucks?

 

I don't know but all I dud was log in with my at&t account, using my 1737's Intel 5100 802.11agn card

and I was getting about 3MB down and 1.5MB upload the upload speeds really caught me off guard.

guess I'll have to go again and send up some torrents if I'm feeling generous.

 

3 down and 1.5 up are doable over G just fine. I have FIOS in my apartment and I get 20Mbps down and 5Mbps up over wire and 10Mbps down and 5Mbps up over 802.11g.

I don't think any major hotspots will invest in n until it is ratified. The costs are too high otherwise for very little benefit (their net lines are usually slower than G tops out at and their range requirements are usually very small).

 

Hello
could you tell me please, what are the best e-stores for buying dell studio 1537 or 1737 in London? Thank you.

 

My first stop would be http://www.dell.co.uk

 

I hate to bring up an old thread, but finally after a little over a month my 1737 Mike Ming "Seaweed" laptop arrived. As soon as I took it out of the box I flipped it over an installed my 5300 "N" card, 4GB of RAM and my bluetooth card. So far so good... the RGB display is awesome, along with the keyboard, and I love the on/off switch. Nice! It took a while but the wait is finally over!

 

How did you get a 5300 N card when The only option on DELL's website is the 5100?

 

Bought my own...

 

how did you install it? did you have to remove anything else besides the back panel cover.?

I was goon see about installing some Intel Turbo memory in an empty PCI Express mini slot I have but when I took off the back cover theres the metal cage covering the CPU and it looks like I have to remove alot of stuff.

 

this isn't really ontopic but does anyone know a clear skin for the 1737? I've looked at various sites and nobody has anything for the 17... this prolly belongs in accessories but i figure 17 owners will know more
Thank you!

 

Has anyone received a Studio 17 with Centrino 2 badging on it?

It speaks to the quality of attention Dell is affording their configurations and builds if they can't even put the right sticker on them.