What do all these internal slots mean on the Studio 15?

The tech specs page lists

Internal Card Slots
2 Mini-Card
1 Half Mini-Card
2 Full Mini-Card

What are these all for?
What are they already taken up by (as in, what's already occupying these spaces?)

What can be added later? Tv tuner? Anything cool?
I already know the half mini-card is for wifi right?

If I want to upgrade to a wireless N card which should I upgrade to?

 

The two Full Mini-card slots and one Half Mini-card slot are all mini PCI-Express slots. Two can accommodate full-sized Mini-card devices, and one can only take half-height cards. Generally, the two full-height slots will be used for Bluetooth and WWAN (mobile broadband) cards, if you bought those options. The half-height slot is used for WiFi.

Full-height Mini-Card slots can also be used with Intel Turbo Memory modules, or even certain SSD's. As far as I know, the half-height slot is only used for WiFi modules.

If you want to upgrade to a wireless-N card later on, I recommend either the Intel WiFi Link 5100 or 5300. Performance seems to be way better than the Dell brand cards, which are really just re-branded Broadcom cards.

 

^ So there is a WiFi card using the only half-height miniPCIe slot... can an SSD be placed inside one of the remaining full height slots?

 

Yes, you can put some special SSD's in the other, full sized slots. I take it you don't have bluetooth?

 

What do I use the Express card slot for? Mine is a blank tray right above the media reader slot.

I ordered the 370 Bluetooth Internal 2.1 does that mean I can connect a wireless mouse, I need to get a mouse but I'm waiting for my 100.00 giftcard from Dell.

 

So if I only have wifi then I have two slots open?
Later I might get bluetooth but for the other, I can get an extra SSD? Any suggestions as to one that will fit?

 

ExpressCard is used for a pretty wide variety of stuff. You can buy a media remote from Dell, to control movies and music and such, if you have an IR port. If I recall, the old Studio 15's (1535-1537) have the port, while the new 1555 does not. The remote fits into the ExpressCard slot.

You can also get things like sound cards, network cards, WiFi cards, FireWire cards...just search Newegg or something for "Expresscard".

Since you got the internal Bluetooth card, then yes, you can connect to a Bluetooth mouse. I recommend Dell's own 5-button Bluetooth Travel Mouse. It's one of the relatively rare Bluetooth mice to feature 5 buttons (left click, right click, scroll wheel, two thumb buttons), along with tilt-scrolling. I bought one for like $30 a few months ago, and it's been excellent. It has an on/off switch as well to preserve battery. It runs on two AA batteries. You can even get it in different colors to match your system.

Yes, if you got the WiFi and not Bluetooth or mobile broadband, then you will have two full-size Mini-Card slots available.

If you want an SSD, you can get something like this. Mind you, these will not perform quite as well as a 2.5" SATA SSD that would take the place of your hard drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609432

Also, terminology is slightly confusing here. On Newegg's list of mini-PCIe SSD's, they also refer to half-height and full-height models. In this case, half-height is the size of the full-height slot in your notebook, and full-height is too long even for the full-height slot and will not fit in any of the slots.

 

Well, I don't want to hijack the OP's thread, but I do have some questions in my own thread here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4898473#post4898473

Thanks for looking.

 

Thanks, I saw that Dell mouse on their website, I will probably get that when my coupon comes. It sounds like a good one and the review from others have been good as well.

Since were talking about slots, the smal 8 and 1 media reader....I have a Sony digital camera that uses the Sony memory stick pro duo also called Magic Gate mine is 2GB, I tried to put the stick into the slot and the slot seems too big for the stick, I pushed it all the way in and nothing happened on screen, it got so far in that I cant get it out with my fingers so I had to get a pair of tweezers to get it out. I guess the sony sticks don't work, what a bummer.

 

I never thought of laptops as being expandable so yes please keep the suggestions going.

I will upgrade the wireless card (Same slot though) and add a bluetooth card probably (so the "full heights" are really half height and the half heights are quarter heights?)
so that leaves me one "full" height slot and a 34mm express card slot

is it possible to add a tv tuner?

 

In terms of SSD's, yes, the Dell full-height slot is half-height, and the Dell half-height slot would probably be quarter-height if an SSD that small existed.

Not sure about the TV tuner.