first impressions on my m1330 from a thinkpad owner

I received my m1330 on 01/03/08, ordred it on 12/21/07.

I ordered it in order to get the tax write off just before the year end.

Here's the specs:

Crimson Red
T7500 C2D 2.2 GHz
200GB 72K HD
4GB RAM
Vista Ultimate
LED Screen
AT&T Broadband (5520 HSDPA mini card)
6 cell primary + 9 cell battey
3 year warranty + 3 yrs lojack

Price= $2,178 + sals tax 168.83 + env disp fee 6 = $2,352.83 final price.

I am a long time thinkpad user and have only owned thinkpads the past 5 years. I wanted a laptop that was lighter, good battery life, very good screens (Thinkpads are no known for this), and great performance for both work and some entertainment (i.e light video editing).

Here is my summary:

Pros:
1. Great design and style, the crimson red is an excellent color and does not attract finger prints. The build quality is OK could use improvements, thinkpad still has the edge on this. Keyboard is quite good.

2. It weighs less than my thinkpads, and it is quieter than my thinkpads.

3. LED screen is excellent!! I was not used to the brightness of this screen and it actually hurt my eyes, but now I'm getting used to the screen.

4. Performance, is very good. Battery life is also very good.

CONS:

1. Vista Ultimate cannot run some of the apps I use for work (mostly ORACLE stuff) This is not Dell's fault, but I had to put this in here. There is a work around this.

2. I noticed the screen isn't really flushed against the lid, i.e. like the Macbooks appear to be more flushed, but this is ok for me. I just don't want dusts to collect there over time.

3. The world famous wobble. I can live w/ this.

4. The world famouse cpu whine on the right hand side of the palm rest, I can live w/ this.

5. Vista has a mind of its own, sometime it wants to boot up after reboot or shutdown and sometime it doesn't. I've had to boot it manually several times now, this is really annoying!

Other than that, the m1330 exceeded my expectations - this is my first Dell and so far I'm very happy with it..although I've only owned it for 2 weeks so who knows what will come up.

I've been reading alot of posts on this site and they are quite helpful, however, in my opinion alot of the issues noted here are subjective to one's desire to get a "perfect" laptop and that' just not gonna happen.

We wanted a perfect president and look @ who we got....

 

Great post. Interesting perspective. I'm a long time T43 user and just ordered a 1530. Will be interesting to draw the comparison. Thanks!

 

did you thinkpad run these programs

1. Vista Ultimate cannot run some of the apps I use for work (mostly ORACLE stuff) This is not Dell's fault, but I had to put this in here. There is a work around this

 

3. The world famous wobble. I can live w/ this.

Do you have the wobble with the 6 and 9 cell batteries? I only haveit on one of my 6 Cell batteries.

 

What is this world famous wobble you speak of?

 

the left side is not even...it is a "slight" wobble. Unless one extremely anal about this then it might bother some people. To me this is not a big deal.

 

Mine was just delivered a little while ago and I haven't turned it on yet, but there is no wobble on mine with both the 6 cell and 9 cell battery.
The quality of workmanship looks excellent also.
I've had a Thinkpad, Toshiba, and HP. This is my first Dell.
I loved the size and weight.

 

The Dell XPS m1330/1530 satisfies the "wants" not availabe on a thinkpad. i.e. the bright LED screen, the HDMI port, the stylish design. Thus far, the m1330 is my main laptop....if something goes wrong I can go back to the Thinkpads.

 

6 cell battery

 

You probably already know this, but I can't say it enough that VM's are the greatest thing since sliced bread. With enough hardware, it's actually feasible to have one computer for all environments.

Hilarious. $3/gallon gas. Go figure.

Enjoy the computer. Glad you first Dell experience has been good. Been with Dell myself since the D600 (using it right now), and it's been a great relationship so far.

Regards,
Paolo

 

I haven't owned a Thinkpad for many years now, but the one thing I STILL miss today is the trackpoint pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard.
My one Toshiba had it also.
I'm sure I'm in the minority, but it was sooooo much easier and natural for me to use that!

 

Wow guess dell was a good second choice then, I was going to order one instead of my X61S, but the dell was nearly $1000 more for similarly equiped....Would have been fine with 12 or 13 inch, I hope the screen on the x61s isn't too terrible.

 

the screen on the X61 is pleanty good from a business perspective, dont expect to play games on it though.

 

Ok thats good news, I have a desktop at home with 8800GTS for games, and a PSP as well. Kinda wish the x61S was widescreen for movies though, and had HDMI instead of VGA outputs. Enjoy your dell laptops!

 

AAHH YES! Installed VMWARE Workstation 6.x and running XP PRO and UBUNTU, and RHAT!

For personal and entertainmnt, office apps, I use the host OS - Vista Ultimate
Fo work related apps, i.e. Oracle stuff, I use VMWARE to switch over to XP, Linux.

Now I just have to test out video editing....hopefully the performance will be good.

 

Funny......the CPU on my m1330 is on the left side of the laptop.

 

I'm one of the people who have an unspeakable loathing for the pointing stick (or Nipple Mouse as I affectionately refer to it as).

 

I know we're getting off topic, but just wanted to share my enthusiasm for VMW Workstation 6. All I asked, and then some.

I have an XP VM I use for all personal stuff (Photoshop CS3 runs great on it by the way), and another XP VM for work which runs all the specialy apps we have at the office. Running Office 2007 for both, and boy has it been stable.

About the only thing I ever do nowadays on the host OS is surfing, and that's only when I forget which OS i'm in!

Regards,
Paolo

 

UPDATE:

I just noticed that there is a tiny scratch on the right side of the LED lid. Do these lids (i.e. the sides holding the display) get scrached easily? I used to be a Thinkpad owner and thos are built like a Tank! I'm a bit worried that the M1330 may get scratched easily since I travel ALOT! I'm pretty much at the airport each week.

 

I always heard it called the clit. It even gets a mention on the wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clit

 

I couldn't live with the whine, i think you are speaking of the south bridge whine not the CPU, i had it on the 2 m1330 i received. wish i could live with it but it bugs me to much...