Studio FINALLY arrived: Unboxing pics, pics and review. (Warning: LARGE pics)

At long last it's here, see sig for details of delay + specs.
My Studio 15 arrived last night, had a little while to play with it and now it's time to show off a little!

Oh, that's a lovely cardboard box ready to be ripped open:


Mine's in here is it?


Oh, no it isn't! Dell, truthfull as always
What is in here however: Quickstarts, manual, brick + AC adapter, Disks (Office, OS, Dell drivers + utilities)


Thar she blows!


Nearly there!


Lovely innit!



Front:


Rear:


Left side (9-cell clearly visible here):


Seems to have an e-SATA (If anyone wants to give me a free one to test it I'll oblige <_<):


Right side:


Open:


Media Panel:


Screen fully opened:

 

This is my first laptop, and thus my first review. All the opinions here are just that - opinions. What I might think is a firm keyboard, others might consider to have a lot of flex etc. Take what you read here as opinions, with a grain of salt (as you should with all reviews IMHO).

Review:

• First impressions

This is a beautiful machine. It's sleek and tapers right down to a thin point. The 9-cell battery raises the back but doesn't stick out horizontally, giving it a nice footprint whilst raising the keyboard. I'd order the 9-cell almost for the improvement it offers to typing alone. The Jet Black finish is lovely, but try keeping fingerprints off it!

• Build

Everything seems perfect, at least to my limited use thus far. If you grab both corners of the screen, you can wiggle it a bit but not much, nowhere near the amount that would worry me. It weighs in at about 2.5kg according to my bathroom scales, which I don't think is too much. It quite sturdy, I wouldn't be afraid to pick it up by the corner at all. The keyboard "bounces" a bit, but only if you push hard deliberately. Normal typing wont cause it to move at all (at least not that I can notice).
It seems to control heat quite well, I'll put it under "General Use" later.

• Screen

Can I get away with just saying "Wow" here?
I opted for the (cheaper) CCFL 1280 x 800 LCD, and there's no way I could've justified spending an extra €100 on the LED screen. I guess it's personal preference, but I find when I plug it into the wall, and it brightens the screen automatically I manually lower it again. I'm using it at about 4/15ths and it's perfect. The colours are vibrant, 1280 x 800 seems to be a perfect resolution on a 15.4 and viewing angles are second to none. Even opened fully (see above - I estimate it at about 130 degrees (bear in mind that's with the 9-cell)) it's comfortably viewable, but just past vertical is where it's at for me. The side viewing angles are equally impressive, I can read webpages through about 170 degrees.

• Ports & Switches

Back: Battery
Left: Wifi-Catcher, Lock slot, Wireless On/Off switch, HDMI, VGA, E-SATA, USB, Mic in, 2x Headphone out, Card Reader, Express Card slot.
Front: IR receiver for remotes (not included by default. I opted to leave it out, as my phone can be used as a remote over bluetooth)
Right side: Firewire, 2x USB, Slot loading DVD drive, AC in, Power button.

You're well catered for here, nothing to complain about.

• General Use

Noise: A very quiet machine. The DVD drive is a bit loud when inserting disks, but not loud enough that I'd be concerned anything was wrong. Reading/spinning is very quiet. The fans don't come on too often, and when they do they aren't too loud. Even the lowest background noise will drown it out.

Heat: I was concerned that it'd be too hot to use as a LAPtop, but I was pleasantly surprised. On battery, it's very cool for lap use. On AC, it obviously steps everything up a few notches, and as such gets a bit warmer - not overly uncomfortably hot, but if you're near an outlet, chances are you'll be near enough a table/desk anyway. Same goes for the palm rest area, it's warm not nowhere near uncomfortably so.

Keyboard: Nice layout. Keys are pretty well sized and spaced. The only trouble I have is that I use the Home/End/Delete keys a lot, and they aren't in the traditional 2x3 grid which is a bit confusing, but I'll get used to it. There's a num pad accessed on the 7-9, u-o, j-l and m keys, accessible in conjunction with the Fn key. It's a nice touch, but I think I'll get by without 'em.

Mouse/Touchpad: I'm not used to touch pads, and as such I'm missing my Middle Button click scroll, which I usually use to close tabs in Firefox. Clicking and dragging is also weird, but that being said the touchpad is nice. It has a slightly rough texture which gives nice feedback. The buttons are smooth and not too clicky (but nor are they too spongy).

Sound/Speakers: From this forum, I was expecting the worst. They aren't overwhelming, but they're fine for on the go music listening. They go loud enough, although they lose bass as the volume increases. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I wasn't counting on a high quality built in woofer to demolish the neighbour's house (although that would be fun). Plugging in a pair of headphones only makes it better. There's no interference from other components in either jack, and the speakers promptly resumed playback when I removed them.

Fingerprint reader: I love this thing. A single swipe logs me into Windows, saving the need to first click my username, click to get the cursor flashing and then type. If it sounds lazy well maybe it is, but blessed are the lazy for they will inherit... slightly faster boot times?

Vista: I've clocked up maybe 3/4 hours, and I love it. It's fast and oh so responsive. While I'm not a fan of the Dell Dock, the Gadgets bar (Windows ones, I nuked the Google ones at first opportunity) is a nice addition. I don't care if it's been "stolen" from other OS'es (not MacOSX anyway), I like it. Alt + Tab has been updated with nice live previews rather than crappy icons and Flip 3D is my new favourite time waster of all time *wheeeee*. It will never, I repeat, NEVER get old. One great thing is that when/if an app crashes, Task Manager ends it without disrupting other apps/processes/Vista itself. The only Vista crash I've seen was on my Dad's (who ordered the same spec as me except in orange) was to be blamed on McAfee being stupidly bloated. Suffice to say a clean install is on the cards for me!

Bloat: There's a bit. Adobe Reader, Office/Works depending on what you opted for, McAfee 30 day trial, Dell Dock and a host of other Dell utilities.

Battery life: I haven't run it down yet, but the taskbar icon is currently showing 3hrs 40mins remaining on 90% charge, with screen brightness at 4/15ths, a CD playing at 25% vol and surfing the net. Suffice to say, that's not bad if it's correct.



Conclusion
This is a fine machine, one which I can see lasting me years to come. At €805 inc tax + delivery, you'll be hard pushed to find anything of comparable specs/quality.
I think I can safely say that the worst thing about the Dell Studio 15 is the wait!

 

Looking at the pics, I think I'm glad I passed on the 9 cell. I'm so picky, I think that little bit would annoy me. lol

Nice review. Thank you for sharing!

 

Hey PD! Awesome review and pictures you supplied for your *newly owned lappy*

Congrat's to YOU! I'm glad it finally arrived, and yours for the keeping! WoOT!


Cin

 

Thanks for being so patient on my behalf Cin'

 

Yar! Hey I try my best, I'd rather be patient for someone else..when I'm having trouble being patient myself!!!

Like I stated nice pics and review & glad you have it!


Cin.

 

Photobucket did a fairly good job of resizing them.
I made the topic expecting them to be 2048x1536 (3.2 megapixel camera), hence the "LARGE images" in the title.
The only one that came out a little worse for wear was the second - you can't read the box any more, not well anyway.

 

Great review and pics, thanks. Enjoy your laptop!

I had no idea the 9-cell battery stuck out like that! The website said it stuck out the back, so I thought it meant horizontally like you said (like this). I'm sure I'll get used to it when I get mine, it just wasn't what I was expecting at all.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post pics and review. Good luck with your new lappy and congrats.

 

awesome review.
I now wish I would have ordered the 9 cell for two reasons the longer battery life and the elevation for typing and also I bet it stays cooler because its raised up

 

Thank you so much for those pics. No one told me the 9 cell came out at all!