y460p small review from dell m1330

Well i went from a dell m1330 (awesome computer) to this computer.

I reinstalled windows 7 on a intel x-25m g2 80gig and all the drivers (I double checked the drivers on the hard drive and they were all teh current ones. Just so everyone knows and do go out looking for new ones just yet.

Setup:
After installing windows 7 from my usb stick onto the ssd I had to install all the drivers. This took a little while but finally got it done. HINT: you have to install everything in the drivers folder except one touch backup and split screen (I dont use these) in order to get the Slide nav to install. The only thing not up to date for the install was flash player was off by .1 on versions
This took about an hour to install windows 7 and all drivers once i figured out i didnt have the touchpad driver installed.

Performance:
Now the computer screems. Is it much noticeable compared to my t7200 core duo. a little, but not much, the ssd really help the m1330 out a lot. Now I have not done intense programs like photoshop yet, but games do run a lot smoother on this computer. I could barely get starcraft 2 to run well on the m1330. SC2 runs great maxed out. Windows index score was 6.7 with the graphics keeping it down. everything else was around 7.4-7.7

Network:
The intell link 1000 sucks. Nothing more to it. It keeps a low connection when I had an ateheros card in the m1330 able to keep a solid 270 or 300 next to teh router. I am getting 18 fluct to 130 on the 1000. This i a cheap wireless card and I am buying the n xtreme 6300 from cdw for 40 dollars. I checked and there is 3 antennas for the 3 MIMO which was a welcome sight.

Battery:
I'm not going to do benchmarks, but battery life was done a few times. One while installing ms office and all of windows 7 updates over the internet, general browsing. I used the lenovo battery option of battery saver and got about 4 hours. Mind you I have not found a integrated graphics card either. I used super saver and got about 4.5 hours, could possibly gotten 5 hours. This throttles back the cpu and the birghtness set to only one bar above the lowest. This also had the screen black out in 5 mins if in non use, but that only happened once. WHen plugged in and full cpu power the thing is a powerhouse, when unplugged and full super saver you can see the processor is not at full power but you can adjust this. There is an auto setting for it to sense but I put it at lowest with supersaver. This is in case I'm on a long flight and need all the battery power.

Build Quailty:
Ok, probably my biggest beef. The speakers do sound great for a notebook setup, screen is actually beautiful, I dont need big resolution b/c have a desktop to do stuff that needs the size. The case leaves finger prints everywhere even though its black. The m1330 had a nice aluminum case throughout and felt sturdier. The lcd does not close completely shut when close and holding vertical. The keyboard is about the same as the m1330 with some flex around the enter key. Its not bad, but it could be better. A minor cavet is that the power cord is plugged in right next to the dvd drive and if its not pointing perfectly toward the back it will interfere with the opening.

Overall:
I'm very happy with it so far the past few days owning it. I got it for under agrand and I feel it is worth it. Just wish the case had a better design.

 

Thanks for the review! I'm glad to see you are getting at least 4 hours. I will not use "battery saver" function, so I am hopeful to get 4 1/2 to 5 hours. That means if we do get a "switchable" graphics option, we would probably be looking at 6 hours of so.

 

Well i did another test with medium display brightness and cpu set to auto. Got 4 hours out of it with some left. I had to leave for work so couldnt do a till the end test. Before that I got 5 hours doing normal surfing.

 

Could you please tell me whether the ssd works at SATA 3.0Gb/s speed.

 

very nice review, there are some other cool features as well if you havent notcied there is a ALS(ambient light sensor) if you click the battery image on the navigation bar above the keyboard, then power scheme and finaly smart control tab. It lightens and darkens the LCD acording to the brightness of the envirement your lappy is in. Also there is voice recognition you can use to do everything you can do with mouse/kb, just type speech into search and also the camera software youcam has facial recognition software in it I found funny to play with.