Computer reviews

[Dartz]

Computer reviews.... well, they have them on other boards so.

So you like your computer? Tell us why, somebody might be in the Market. If you don't, also tell us why, so we know what not to buy. Fanboyism is perfectly allowed... if you bought a Mac because it's a Mac, fair enough... just try and explain why Macs are better to the rest of us... without quoting the Apple website verbatim.

Try and tell us yourself... and if you like it, you like it.

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Anyway, My old Toshiba L10 Satellite started to die, and it needed to be replaced. I'd basically been using this thing daily for three years, lugging it to college and back in my backpack, spilling stuff on it, and generally using and abusing it. And the grand old thing took everything in it's stride..

But it was showing it's age...

So basically, I needed a laptop that was robust enough to be daily portable. Powerful enough to last for at least three years and still be relevant. I wasn't too bothered with style, or anything like that. I also wanted something that was more than capable of doing anything I needed it to... from work presentations, to DvD's to a spot of Gaming. I also had a budget of €1500 or thereabouts.

I wanted the best of all worlds.

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What I bought:
Basic Specs
Dell XPS M1530
Intel T9300 2.5GHz, 6mb L2 cache @ 800MHz
4Gb of RAM @ 667MHz
320GB HDD @ 5400 RPM
Nvidia Geforce Go-8600M GT 256MB GDDR3
Windows Vista Home Premium
8x DvDrw drive

Features:
15 inch 1440x900 screen
Fingerprint reader
Remote Control
2MP Webcam
Bluetooth
Intel Wireless (Draft spec... I can't find)
McAfee internet security preinstalled

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So, I hate ordering things off the web, but Dells own website made it pretty painless. They acknowledged the order and processed it within 2 hours. The laptop was built on the next working day and shipped. After Three working days, it was on my doorstep and in one piece. That really impressed me.

Some might say that if you drop 1440 Euro on a laptop, you're going to kid yourself into being impressed with it anyway, but...
The XPS itself feels like a premium product. In the box, there's a number of reinstall disks, not just a recovery partition on the HDD like some other manufacturers. Everything from the OS, to drivers to utilities. The laptop itself is well buttoned together. Nothing feels loose or plasticky, and there's little or no flex in the chassis or keyboard, it's clearly built on top of a sturdy metal chassis.

The brushed aluminium palmrest is nice, and media buttons above the keyboard are a nice touch. The plastic-suede like finish on the lid is interesting without being gaudy, It's very grown up. The lid doesn't flex too much, nothing rattles inside, and in two months of use nothing has dropped off.

Style wise, it looks classy. It's not as obvious about trying stylish and arty as a Mac... it just looks nice. Its understated enough that you can open it anywere, and it doesn't look out of place. Not the plasticky bargain basement Dells of old. It's a bit like a Ford Mondeo Zetec, or a Volkswagen Phaeton.

Performance. It's got grunt. What else can be said? It runs Vista quite happily. With XPS, you get what you pay for alright, and if you spec it up you can get som serious power. This laptop is more powerful than the year old desktop we have at home. I use simulation software in the job, and it runs it nearly twice as fast as the P4 Optiplexes we have, even though the software is single thread based and only uses the one core.

Gaming wise... it'll play most things modern at decent settings. DDR3 memory in the Geforce gives it some poke. Good God it runs hot as hell though. It actually runs hot enough to warp pieces of the trim if you're loading the graphics card, especially in the area directly above the fan. It's not cooked itself, and seems to be normal for the model, but it is noticeable. It doesn't help that the fan is pretty loud.

Sound. It's okay. Clear and crisp, if a bit tinny. Touch sensitive volume buttons are effective, if a little slow. It can output 5.1 sound from the 2 headphones and 1 microphone Jack, but this needs to be configured in software.

Screen. A higher resolution than my LCD TV, but goddamn that glossy finish is annoying sometimes. If there's a light behind you, it reflects of the screen, and you really have to use the highest brightness setting, even indoors. It marks easily, and the marks are made even more obvious by the gloss. It streaks when you try wipe it. It's just irritating.

Connections:
HDMI
VGA
3xUSB2.0
i394
S-video
Ethernet

A good selection, even if two of the USB ports are stacked close enough to interfere with each other with certain hardware. The XPS has no modem connection or serial port, which was annoying, as some equipment in the job needs it. It's an entertainment laptop, not a work machine.


Windows Vista: It's Windows Vista... but throw enough memory at it and it behaves. It runs fine. Dell will give you a rebate if you uninstall, as you are entitled to legally.

Linux:
Dell do provide Linux support, but don't offer Linux in Ireland. The drivers for everything exist, and nearly everything worked first time. Except for the touchpad. Being an Alps touchpad, the Synaptics driver just caused it to go haywire. Eventually I found a fix, but it was annoying as hell. but it's prett y common hardware otherwise, and gives me no problems,


The DvD drive. It's a slot loading drive, with no manual release. If something gets stuck in it, there's no way to manually open it. Also, it can't take the small form CD's and DvD's that some manufacturers love to send their drivers on. It's not even replaceable. There is a blu-ray option, but it's so expensive it's not worth it.

The pwer cord is annoyingly short, and just has a tendancy to stretch tight and try drag the laptop off the table when anybody or anything trips over it... which is pretty much guaranteed. For such a pricy laptop, the least they can do is give us a decent power cord.

What I really hate though... and it's such a minor thing, it's stupid that it's even frustrating.... What I really hate is how goddamned difficult this thing is to keep clean. The screen, the palmrest, the lid, the trim.. even the speaker grills and touchbuttons show the slightest dirt and fingerprints. It marks so easily and is such a pain to keep clean.

My old IBM is battered and manky, but looks fine... the XPS looks like shit with just fingerprints on it.

And finally, it's a Dell. For some people that will be the killer. There's a lot of Dell haters out there.. and I've been asked 'Why didn't you buy an Alienware/HP/Mac/Lenovo for that money? (Actually, why didn't I buy a Lenovo?) The fact is, the XPS is a bit like the Volkswagon Phaeton... A good top-spec luxury car... but still just a Volkswagen.

But, am I happy?
Do I think I got something good for my 1500 Euro?

On the whole, Yes.

Would I recommend one?
If it's what you're looking for, definitely. It's a good laptop. For me, it strikes the right balance between power, price, useability and portability.

Some pictures:
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m57/Dartz_IRL/15072008.jpg
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m57/Dartz_IRL/15072008005.jpg
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m57/Dartz_IRL/15072008004.jpg
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m57/Dartz_IRL/15072008003.jpg
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m57/Dartz_IRL/15072008002.jpg
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m57/Dartz_IRL/15072008001.jpg

[Sailor Star Dust]

It seems nice overall. I like it!

[Annihilationscape]

As I build my own machines, all I can comment on is how beastly and/or cost efficient the PCs listed here are. That said, XPS are quality, for the most part.

Are you running Vista 64-bit or 32-bit? I believe Vista 32-bit can see but cannot utilize any more than 3GB of RAM. Which kinda sucks.

But other than that, it's looking very solid. Is heat a serious issue with games?

...Can it run Crysis???

[Logan Payne]

Eerily similar specs to my new macbook pro.

[Dartz]

Theoretically it can run Crysis. You have to be clever with your settings. Never tried it.

It really gets hot when running the graphics chip though. I'm using the latest Nvidia forceware, not the Dell specified forceware... and it's run hot since I did this. It's noticeable, but they all seem to do it.

No burning smells.

It is 32 Bit Vista... that's all Dell supply. But Memory is in two 2Gb modules, so it runs more efficiently than 3Gb, and cost little or nothing extra.

[V]

I use an off-the-shelf Windows Vista laptop. I have no idea whatsoever what the specific capabilities or requirements of it are. I have no idea whatsoever how computers work, much less the Internets, attributing much of it to Clarke's 3rd law.

[tinmeigut]

As for Crysis, I've read in notebookcheck.net that now even the Geforce 8800M GTX SLI can only play at high settings with sluttering. Is there a GPU on earth that can play fluently at high? I doubt.

And Dartz, my dad had just bought a Thinkpad T61 in preparation for my going to university. The T61 is in a number of ways similar to the XPS M1530, but focuses a bit more on business needs:

Core 2 Duo T9300 (Penryn, 2.5 GHz, 6MB L2 Cache)
2 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M (purported to have an independent memory of 128MB, but when I checked my machine with 3DMark 06, it told me it only had 118MB...)
Centrino vPro technology
14.1" Widescreen
Fingerprint reader (this gadget rocks, sensitive and accurate)

One thing I have to nag about the T61 is that the battery life is far too unsatisfactory, with only a run time of 90 minutes at normal settings.

By the way, the newly announced Thinkpad SL series sound cool too.

PS. Dartz, does your XPS run hot when you play games with it?

[BEsERk EVA01]

GPU on earth that can play fluently at high

Maybe the new NVIDIA Geforce 200 series coming out this year. Two GPU cores as well. :)

My specs:
Manufacturer/Model: IBM Thinkcentre M52
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 HT 531 Prescott @ 3.00Ghz 1MB L2 Cache
1GB RAM
Graphics Adapter: Intel 82945G Express Family Chipset 128MB
17" Widescreen
200W PSU
Windows XP Professional SP2
80GB Hard-drive @ 4500 RPM

Realising this desktop computer was designed more specifically for business, it isn't a good one for even some older 3D games, like some of the Conflict series. It's good enough for me since I don't bother much with games but it could handle some tweaking like an upgrade to Core 2 Duo, an NVIDIA 7600GT and a 550W PSU. It's relatively quiet and fast but I think of being lured into the realm of 3D gaming, so an upgrade is almost a necessity. Besides, even Internet gaming needs more requirements so an upgraded computer will help in the future. (Then again there's always fucking parents to deal with FFS).

Processor: Pretty good, just right for my needs although I still can't find a reason why so many people were complaining about it. As above, it stays cool and quiet under supervision by dual 18" fans...although it's kinda annoying to have to pretend there's a second processor core in the die...even though there's only one, physical processor core. (Hyper-Threading...tsk tsk tsk). Under multitasking..for example, playing a video from Youtube, then playing a browser game, then playing a DVD movie, then even going as far as playing Command Conquer Generals at the same time...though it suffers at this.

Viewing a Flash Player 9 based webpage takes an enormous amount of CPU power...on normal operation on the Internet the CPU would remain almost idle; barely crossing 10% CPU usage. But on Flash it skyrockets to 25-35%.

Sound: I don't give too many shits about sound, the sound I have is clear and good enough for me...especially when I have earphones on.

RAM: 1GB is more than enough for my tastes, and as above, if I had a good enough PSU and graphics card, playing games would be a sinch and upgrading my RAM is the last thing I want to do.

Video Adapter: Shit. Shit. Shit. If it's integrated graphics I automatically view it as shit. The only important thing it lacks is Hardware TnL and what really pisses me off is that so many games need it. Other than that, it's O.K....but 128MB memory isn't going to help me as much.

LCD Screen: Same as sound, I don't give to shits about my LCD resolution or "widescreen" stuff. As long as it works, I'm happy.

Conclusion: If you're a businessman, then you could consider it. But then again I seriously recommend you stay away from this...incapable piece of machinery even if you are the casual 3D gamer.

[tinmeigut]

Before I got this self-assembled desktop 2 years ago (yea besides the T61 I mentioned), I was using a IBM desktop. It was a failure- that machine was petite but all components were cramped together. Cooling was especially vital for a CPU like Pentium 4 which runs at such high clock rate but that IBM machine had only had a small fan. Within a few months that old computer broke down due to overheating, which killed the hard disk.

Now my current desktop is twice as big as that old IBM and the specs are as follows:

Pentium 4 3.0GHz (Model 630, Prescott 2M, 2MB L2 Cache)
2GB RAM
ATI Radeon X850XT (Strange GPU, not too common)
160GB Hard Disk
WiFi capable by a Buffalo Air Station connected by USB 2.0
Windows XP Home SP3

The Pentium core does get pretty warm when I play games like Crysis, luckily the cooling fan of this machine is efficient enough.

[Annihilationscape]

^That's pretty sweet. I was curious whether Crysis would run with a P4. Thanks for answering that for me!

I suppose I should share my custom rig.

-Intel Quad Core Q6700 2.6Ghz
-Nvidia 680i Mobo
-3GB Corsair RAM
-500GB Sata 'main' HDD, plus a few externals
-XFX 9600GT vid. card (I hope to get another and SLI 'em)
-OCZ Game XStream 800w PSU
-Dual-booting XP Pro SP3 and Vista Ultimate SP1

I sold my old PC to a friend and took advantage of wedding money to build the thing. I love it.

[Dartz]

That sounds expensive alright. I looked at building my own desktop, to use as a gaming machine/media centre type yoke, with a TV as the main monitor.

Started pricing it from an online seller, and it became pretty clear that What I'd get building myself would be the exact same cost as ordering something similar straight from Dell.... Having to spend a chunk on Vista definitely put the Kibosh on it.

So in the end, I might just buy a big External drive, and use my Laptop... The HDMI output works fine, an running the Image through the graphics card cleans it up a great bit.

Changing the colour settings can really make Anime pop off the screen. A bit more saturation makes it really pop and look alive.

[Action_Bastard]

My rig:

ASUS A8N SLI Premium
AMD64 Athlon X2 2.2Ghz overclocked to 2.4Ghz
2GB Corsair DDR
Seagate SATA 250GB 7200RPM
Nvidia 8800 GTS 320MB
Rosewell PSU 600W
Soundblaster Audigy SE
Windows XP Pro 32bit SP2

yeah..............