Apple :: Refreshed Macbook Pro 13 - First Impressions
Apr 20, 2010
Coming from a PC I guess this is a review on Mac OS X and the new Pro.
I had on many occasions for the past 5 months been playing with Macs, at school in the comp lab, and in BB and the Apple Store. So I knew what I was getting into.
This decision was hard for me being a PC user, and seeing laptops for 4-600 dollars cheaper with similar "specs" I had also not long ago built my Phenom II 955 BE Gaming rig, after OC it a bit I feel I am fairly well versed in the PC realm.
Anyways I decided to take the plunge into something new. I decided for the 13 b/c of battery life mostly, and b/c the 15 is too much money with the apple care. I am only using it for school, and any intensive photo editing goes to PS CS4 on the PC. The 15 MBP would likely not be as fast as the PC so I opted for battery life over speed. Although I would have liked the extra real estate.
I am Glad I made this decision. The 13 is very fast, I got the base model 2.4Ghz. I am actually surprised with how seamless I can move through all the windows, dashboards and spaces. I filled my dashboard up and it isnt slow at all, I have 4 spaces and when I am running apps (Safari, Chrome, QT, Pages, Keynote, iTunes, etc.) in all of them there isnt any lag. Obviously there is some getting used to, but overall its pretty easy and straight forward, and best of all it just works....
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Apr 15, 2010
I don't have time for a full review because one of the reasons I jumped so quickly into this new notebook is that I am on a deadline. However there are a few first observations I don't want to forget about, should anyone be interested in a more complete review.
A little history first. I have been a Mac user for the past 20 years. I grew up with them, have been responsible for them in an IT capacity and have made a living generating content from them. I know the platform well. I am however not the type of guy to put all his eggs in one basket and also routinely use Windows, mostly for gaming, and Linux, mostly for serving.
The point is, I make my living around the Mac.
Purchase and Arrival.
I made the decision to buy after 6 hours of spec shopping. I called around to the local Best Buy (you never know until checking) and the closest Apple store, which for me is 120 miles away. Neither had them in stock, but they both at least knew what I was talking about. The Apple store didn't have an ETA, but expected them within the week. That wasn't fast enough for me this time, so I ordered directly from Apple. This was Tuesday night at 5pm. Wednesday at 2:30PM, I took delivery. Nice. The outer packaging was a plain brown box. Inside, the standard Mac packaging with nothing but the notebook, a power adapter, and a simple folder with barebones manuals and the OS DVDs. Good presentation, but not a lot of goodies............
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Apr 14, 2010
Intel and nvidia are currently in legal battles. nvidia wants to make chipsets for Intel Core i3,5,7 and think they have the legal right to, but Intel denies that saying their previous rights end with the Core 2 Duos...
until this is settled, nvidia cannot make chipsets for anything newer than Core 2 Duos.
Apple wanted to refresh the Macbook Pros... just refresh, not a major change. This means, keeping the same design and adding in new parts. There is not enough space in there to fit as well as cool a discrete GPU, they must use an integrated. A future remodel job might be in the next update, but the current shape and size casing stands.
So Apple had to decide between two choices.
Upgrade to a Core i3,5,7 and use Intel HD graphics... which would be a much better processor with MUCH worse graphics.. even worse than the still selling standard Macbook...
or
Keep Core 2 Duos and upgrade the chipset to a better chipset from nvidia and be able to still use nvidia integrated graphics, and get graphics that are leagues better than the Intel HD.................
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Dec 15, 2009
What is the probability that the next refreshed MBP will have a high res screen as an option. At least 1680x1050. I really want to buy a MBP before end of the year, but I would definitely wait if the new models have high res screens. But, who knows when the new models will be released.
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Feb 25, 2010
Wondering when there will be a new chassis and upgraded GPU?
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Feb 5, 2009
To start I should remind everyone that i'm not a mac user. I have never owned a mac or used OSX properly before today. As such, my opinions should be taken as coming from someone who has much knowledge and experience as far as PC's are concerned, but who is a total mac n00b.
First Impressions
When I first walked over to the Macbooks I was quite taken aback. The build quality is out of this world. In fact, I immediately walked over to the latest PC laptops to compare and immediately thought "manufacturing FAIL". Really, the Macbooks are italian sports cars, and PC's are 30 year old farm tractors to use the typical "car analogy".
The Macbook
I really only had any interest in the Macbook when I first went to the Apple stand, but came away with the intention of buying a MacBook Pro. Let me explain:
The MacBook's build quality is awesome. It's solid, no creaking plastic or flexable build, completely and utterly solid. Awesome.............
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Mar 7, 2009
I have been speculating over this prospect giving the direction that Apple took with the starting price of the 24" iMac (upgrade everything else and downgrade the VRAM).
I mean, this is something I would like to see, but I wonder if it is a smart move on Apple's part given how much they make off the current MBP's with the so called Apple Tax.
And, if they made this move, one has to wonder if it still would be considered a Pro.
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Jan 2, 2009
This is going to be my very first Mac. I'm really excited about it, but I don't know which one I should go for... I narrowed it down to these two models. Which one should I go for and why?
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Feb 10, 2009
I bought a black macbook this summer and every night when I'm in bed trying to do work I can barely see which keys is which. Obviously this wouldn't be a cheap fix but is there a way or is it possible to install the new light up keys of the new macbooks onto a pre-remodel macbook?
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Oct 25, 2009
just wondering if anyones seen anything on any websites of some more solid spec lists
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Feb 20, 2009
i've decided to put off both the vaio z and dell xps 1340 because neither really do it for me. it's been a while since
i've heard anything about the vaio sr, however. could it be that they might update it to make for the student market 2009.....
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May 9, 2009
I downloaded this updated for my unibody Macbook Pro, and I think it's pretty vital. However, it gave me this error when I tried to install it: "You cannot install Macbook, Macbook Pro software update on this volume. This update requires Mac OS X 10.5.5 or newer." Now don't tell me that I have selected the wrong partition to install the update, or that I need to update my OS to 10.5.5 because I already have 10.5.6 and I chose the Macintosh HD partition to install the update.
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Sep 12, 2009
So I'm definitely getting a 13" Macbook or Macbook Pro. Apple has some great prices on refurbs so that's probably the route I'll be going however I'm having trouble discerning the difference between the 13" Aluminum Unibody standard macbook and the 13" Unibody Macbook Pro. From what I've read they both have the upgraded screen, they're obviously both unibody, both have the large button-less trackpad, and both have the 9400m. They even have the same dimensions and the only difference I can see between the images is a slightly different case bevel (also the firewire and sd card ports, both are useless to me).
Unfortunately, none of the Apple stores or BestBuys in the area have a non-pro unibody 13" Macbook for me to actually handle and compare. So, basically, what makes the pro version with the slower cpu and smaller hard drive at the same price point worth it?
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Jul 6, 2009
If I make an image of my hdd from my white macbook with disk utility onto a hard drive I take out of a unibody macbook pro will it work and boot properly?
I will do this by taking the 250gb hdd out of the unibody macbook pro and putting it into a sata external usb hdd enclosure, then making an image of my current 120gb white macbook and writing the image onto the 250gb. After, I plan to put the 250gb hdd back into the macbook pro and boot it up normally as if everything from my white macbook was just copied onto the macbook pro.
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Feb 25, 2009
This is weird, only just noticed it. The dv7t is not really a dv7t anymore. Its screen ratio has changed. And is now available with ATI HD45xx and 46xx GPUs. Oh and, Quad Core Intel CPUs.
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Mar 11, 2009
HP just updated several notebook models with some new features and options on their US website. I've posted a brief summary of the changes below, with those in bold as considered major. Feel free to leave comments about these new changes or let me know if I forgot something in the list below.
dv3z:Full-size back-lit keyboard ($25 upgrade from standard keyboard)80 GB Solid State Disk drive option ($350 from 160 GB base option)Slot Load Super Multi 8X DVD+/-R/RW w/Double Layer Support........................
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Sep 22, 2009
Was curious what is the difference between the short-lived aluminum macbooks and macbook pros. Only thing i could spot is the illuminated keyboard.
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Aug 12, 2009
She has a white macbook with leopard I think, and has a separate partition in which she has boot camp, she uses specialized software that can only run in windows (doesnt run in vm). She got a new macbook air but wants to keep everything intact.
Do programs like duper clone drives with all files intact, including partitions? Keep in mind that the windows side is more important, installation of this software can only be done remotely from Russia, so it's a bit of a hassle if we screw up, we have to contact IT at a specific time and get them to do it.
Would I have to take the drive of the macbook air out? Or can i just clone to an external hard drive and then move that to the mba hard drive, in target disc mode or something.
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May 3, 2009
I really love the black color of MB404, but is it good? does it crack easily?(is it plastic?)
Hows screen quality?
What do you think? which one should i buy?
I really wanted to buy Alu one before i hear about slanted keys and loose battery covers(i know %99 of them don't have that, but it's hard to risk when there's no way to fix it in here), because there's no Mac center in my country and i'm SO picky.
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Mar 24, 2009
For a while now, I have only considered using Thinkpads. Primarily because of the great keyboard, but also because of the business aethetics.....solid pure black design and great materials. Often I would rant about how somebody else had to adopt these two features and add some competition.
I have to say Dell did an outstanding job with the E6400. The keyboard is actually nicer than the Thinkpad keyboard due to a shorter slope on the edges which give them more surface area on the top. Otherwise, the feel is very very similar. Excellent job.
The design is serious and sophisticated with a lower maintenance lid. The Thinkpad, however, still has more polish in the build construction. Specifically, the amount of overall flex and how well they had their seems disguised.
The LED WXGA+ screen has ruined me. My desktop LCD now looks dim. It's the most beautiful matte display I've ever seen on any monitor or notebook. I'm not sure I've ever seen an LCD television as nice. It's just spectacular.
I'm very happy to see Dell finally taking the business notebook market seriously. From what I've seen, I believe they've succeeded in broaching the hallowed arena held for so long exclusively by the Thinkpad. While not quite there in terms of build quality, they have more than matched Lenovo in at least a few areas and hopefully this is a sign of things to come.
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Jan 10, 2010
i'm shopping around for a laptop at the moment and have spied the Sony VGN-NW26M: Intel® Pentium® Processor T4300, 4GB RAM, 320GB HD, Intel Graphics 4500MHD
I've heard that Sony laptops have good build quality but how about the heat and sound they produce? Is there anything specific i should know about this series? Any problems etc?
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Jan 19, 2009
Has anyone purchased or seen this notebook? It's fairly new, so no reviews have been made of it yet, but from the specs and overall looks of it, it seems to be a pretty amazing notebook for it's price range (not to mention the 30% off coupon floating around).
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Apr 16, 2010
I've been looking at basicly two models, both got almost the exact same price tag here in Norway, so I'm not sure which one to go for.
The first ones is a MacBook Pro 15" with High-resolution 1650x1080 glossy screen, featuring the top of the line Intel Core i7-620M CPU the other is a MacBook Pro 17" with even higher resolution (1920x1200) glossy screen, featuring the slightly slower Intel Core i5-540M.
I don't list the other specifications as I don't really care about them, I already got a pair of 4GB 1600MHz CL7 (2x2GB) DIM's and a Intel X25-M 80GB SSD that I'll be using anyway.
There will be lots of movies and series played on my MacBook Pro, that's why I don't really considering paying a premium for the anti-glare screen, even though I love anti-glare and tend to struggle with glossy screens I don't see the point in actually paying more for it. And when watching movies and series, in often very dark rooms the glossy screen actually have some advantages.
The hard thing to decide here is slicker and lighter, with smaller screen and lower resolution, but better CPU versus the bigger, more heavy but featuring bigger screen and Full-HD+ resolution but slower CPU.....................
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Apr 26, 2010
I have started this separate thread to get more visibility (for now) but this can be merged into the master 1558 thread eventually.
I have the laptop for 1 week now
Pros:
•Great screen, 1080p screen is easily the best thing about the laptop. Very bright and sharp.
•I5-520m is quite fast. Good enough for most task and even some gaming, I ran the beta of Starcraft for a dew mins and it ran at mid to high settings for most (I have 4570 GPU)
•6200N is a good card and is much faster than the g card I was using in Vostro. Connects to the router in about 10 secs if I turn it off and then turn it on while laptop is on.
•9 cell battery performance is decent, I think I get about 4 hours of use with light to middle load of use. With very light use I should be well over 4 hours.
Cons:
•Slot DVD player is noisy, makes one loud clicking noise when every you boot the laptop. Sometimes there are two clicks.
•Froze one time when I booted up one morning, had to reboot again by holding the power button. Not sure what happened there.
•Biggest issue is heat for me, coming from a 14” Vostro I thought this will produce less heat but it seems to produce the same amount. The touchpad is quite hot to the touch as well as the bottom area just below the laptop. These external temps do not fluctuate much with the change in the core temps, at least that is what it seems to me. My core temps have not been too bad. 35-38C idle, 40-46C with light use (internet surfing), ~50-55C watching youtube etc. 70-74C when stressed 100% for 5 minutes. So what can be done about heat as that is my biggest concern and I have to decided if I want to keep this laptop. I opened the bottom cover and saw the CPU is smack under it. CPU is quite small and the heatsink as well. I could not see where the fan is but it does not seem close to the CPU so no wonder you cannot get heat to get out. Has anyone tired put a larger heatsink over the CPU or put thermal paste?
•Fan Control is very poor but I am optimistic that eventually DELL can update bios to address that. Fan turning on and off every minute is not acceptable.
•Has anyone noticed some light vibration around the touch pad area, when you put your hand to feel it? My laptop seems to have it and it is the highest close to the touch pad area. Not sure if it is the fan or CPU or the DVD player.
Anyway need 1558 users advice as I would like to make the decision on this laptop if I want to keep it. I got it as refurb so the price is quite good for the specs but I do not want it to die after a year and a half.
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Aug 16, 2009
Ordered a Vostro 1320 from the Dell outlet last week and it arrived in 3 days
Having previously owned its older and bigger brother, the 1510, I decided to order the 1320 because I got a good deal on it on the Outlet .....
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Jun 25, 2009
This is a hands on discussion of the new videocard which include benchmarks, screenshots and video links to demonstrations.
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Jan 19, 2008
Im writing this so that others who are curious about these types of cards can decide if the upgrade is right for them. This installation required me opening the laptop and breaking off a small piece of plastic, which was very easy. I also updated the system BIOS to A09 and acquired the 130 W PSU as this baby draws about 45W of power itself compared to the 20 the GS requires.
When I originally bought the GS I knew it was a good card. It still is. I got this card because I felt the upgrade would be more cost effective then rebuilding my old desktop PC. All I can say is that where the GTX shines is where the GS shows its weak spots. The GTX can really handle higher resolutions really well as well as keep the frame rate fairly smooth.
For my temps, since I AS5'd it, runs at about 45 idle and 75 peak which is fairly good considering all thats going on.
The biggest jump was in STALKER which quite honestly the GS really had trouble with. Im happy to report the GTX can max out this engine fairly well with little to no choppiness.
Well shoot, what are we waiting for lets see some pics and results.
7900GS specs
7900GTX specs
Bioshock- All Mazed out- no Vsync- 1920x1200 20-30FPS
Gears of War- All Maxed out- No Vsync- 20-30FPS
Stalker- All Maxed out- 1600x1200- Smooth 30-45FPS
In conclusion, the GTX stomps all over the GS in higher resolutions and with the extra clock and memory speed it can easily outperform the GS in almost every aspect. It should be noted these are stock speeds and OC'ing would result in hopefully even better performance.
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Sep 28, 2008
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Order Date: 18/09/2008
Estimated Delivery Date (on or before this date): 20/10/2008
Actual Shipment Date: 25/09/2008
Cost: 1461.68 euro (2135.08 usd)
Config:
QTY Item Description
1 Latitude E4300 : BLACK Intel Core 2 DuoSP9300(2.26GHz,1066MHz,6MB) Latitude ON Reader
1 Standard Touchpad 214-10064
1 Display : Black -No Camera, Latitude On Reader, WWAN- 13.3inWXGA(1280x800)
1 Documentation : English Shipping Docs
1 Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
1 Hard Drive : 80GB Serial ATA (5400RPM)
1 Optical Drive : Roxio Creator 9.0 Software (XP & VistaCompatible) with Recovery CD
1 Optical Drive : Power DVD 8.0
1 Optical Drive : BLACK 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
1 Power Cord : UK/Ireland 90W AC Adaptor 3-pin
1 Battery : Primary 6-cell 60W/HR LI-ION
1 No Carry Case
1 Wireless : Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/b/g/n 1X2) 1/2 MiniCard with Centrino label
1 Keyboard : Internal UK/IR Qwerty Standard Keyboard
1 Software Driver : Latitude E4300
1 Software Driver : Recovery DVD
1 Operating System : English Windows Vista Business SP1 to XP Pro SP3 Downgrade
1 Windows Vista Business SP1 Os media
1 Client Systems Management Disabled
1 AntiVirus : Not Included
1 Base Warranty
1 3Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day - Minimum Warranty
1 No Warranty Upgrade
1 Declined CompleteCare
1 Latitude Order - Ireland
1 Road Freight Charge Per Unit 1-10 unit
Collected my dell latitude e4300 saturday morning (27/09) from my local depot instead of waiting for it to be delivered and been giving it a whirl for the last day or so.
First some quick figures. On my kitchen scales the e4300 with the 6 cell battery weighs about 1.8kg (4lbs). The charger and power cord weigh another 500 grams (1lb) making for a total travel weight (notebook + 6 cell battery + charger) of about 2.3 kgs (roughly 5 lbs).
The e4300 feels sturdy enough although the 6 cell battery that sticks out at the back feels a little loose when given a tug. The keyboard (uk layout) as far I can tell is almost same the size/layout as its bigger brother the e6400 except for the page up and down which are full size and placed beside the arrow keys.
When first powered up the machine spends a little over 2 minutes in some kind of bios initialization mode before booting into a windows xp setup screen - subsequent power ons are a lot faster taking about 50 seconds to a bring up a full xp desktop.
The matte display (device manager says LCD2207) is brighter and has better viewing angles than the Latitude D630 I used some months ago but I was expecting a lot more from a LED screen.
Heat wise the notebook gets a little warm under the chassis top left near the air vent where the cpu is located but was still comfortable enough to place on my lap while wearing jeans.
Noise is a problem with this notebook. The cpu fan although not loud is audible if you're in a quiet room. The latitude D630 was almost whisper quiet in comparison. There's also a slight electronic buzz which sounds like someone sending morse code coming from the top left of the notebook which becomes extremely irritating after a while.
The battery meter claims over 6 hours when fully charged but I've gotten nearer 5 with wifi and some web browsing - will do more formal tests later.
The default software install on this machine is a mess - see attached screenshots taken from task manager and process explorer.
On booting into Windows xp over 354 mb of ram is already being used up by running processes all seemingly related to the proper functioning of this laptop. I though vista memory usage was excessive but for an xp install this is ridiculous - if only 512Meg ram was installed this machine would not be usable as a business notebook.
In general use the touchpad becomes intermittingly laggy with the mouse pointer pausing to change shape (2 black arrows,twirl) no doubt due to some value add cruft running in the background and the touchpad has twice stopped responding to finger input necessitating a windows reboot.
The bottom right of the keyboard doesn't seem to fit snuggly with the notebooks chassis leading to a noticeable flex everytime you press the page down or right arrow key.
Theres an ambient light sensor that adjusts the screen brightness on the fly depending on lighting conditions but anytime I enable it the display brightness seem to jump about a lot (even indoors at night) so I left it off.
With wireless configuration there also appears to be some kind of bun fight between windows xp,dells control point and Intel PROSet software with the apparent winner being Intel.
Not sure if there's also a problem with whatever tracks hard disk usage on this notebook as the hard disk light on the bezel is constantly flashing even when filemon.exe utility reports no file activity.
I'm going do some more tests and try and find out if I can do something about the buzzing noise, hard disk light and keyboard flex but as it stands for the price I paid this notebook is failing to impress.
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Dec 25, 2008
Very brief note (I supposed to be cooking Christmas dinner...)- I've got my M6400 and it is great.
I stuck an extra hard disk in (the 2nd caddy and interposer was in there) and installed Vista 64bit as RAID0. All seems well. I patched it to all the latest patches and no audio problems (but then I only play MP3s on it - no audio work), no BSODs etc.
I've put in the 5505 WWLAN card from my D820 - and it works, but I need some drivers - the Dell drivers detect the system type and refuse to install - which is a pain in the to be honest - but I'm confident of getting around that. More on that later - after Christmas!
The system is blindingly fast (QX9300, 8GB RAM) . Battery life is about 1hr20mins. By far the fastest computer that I've ever owned.
Only fly in the ointment is to do with the hard disk system - in there I have a 250GB and a 320GB - and it only let me setup a 500GB RAID0 setup - and won't let me do anything with the spare 70GB. Never mind - it isn't like I'm short of disk space!
There was some pretty major keyboard flex when I got it - but I fixed that by reseating the keyboard and all is well now.
There are some drivers that I seem to be missing but I don't know what they are (looking at device manager - some devices without a driver) - but the system is running ok. This is my fault for not saving the original vista configuration first before wiping and re-installing! So any suggestions there would be great (they are the Broadcom USH and 2 devices called "Data Interface" - I downloaded the Broadcom USH drviers from Dell, but they didn't work on the 64bit vista. I'll phone dell support between Christmas and New Year and see what they say)
So - specs are:
Non-Covet, 1920x1200 FX2700, 8GB RAM (it shipped with 4GB), disk as described above, and vista 64bit. No webcam or fingerprint reader. And I've also got a E-Port plus docking station.
Happy Christmas!
the PSUs - even after being warned - the size came as a real shock! I must try the system with my 90W PSUs from the D820 - I'll let you know how that goes.
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Apr 29, 2008
I have ownwed a 1730 [purchased from Leee73 here] for 12 hours now, I spent a few hours downloading all the necessary drivers from Dell and installing them as it had a fresh install of Home Premium. I loaded 3D Mark 2006 and ran it with slightly underwheling results [12000 marks] But I do know that Vista and some drivers dont do well in that benchmark. I loaded Crysis, R6 Vegas2, GRAW2 and UT3 and I must say that this machine totally rocks. Every game is maxed out in screen resolution and still pulls playable framerates. The image quality is mind blowing. The Logitech LCD is fun in a bunch of ways. Ya this is a desktop replacement, but definatly ultra portable compared to lugging a tower to a lan party or on a camping trip. The I/O ports are all laid out well. THe one thing thays missing is a fingerprint scanner. Imagine going to the toilet at a lanparty, you could simply lock your computer with the swipr of a finger so jealous competitors cant go mess with your regidstry. The webcam is a must along with the microphones [although I have no use for them at the moment] The speakers sound crisp and clear and I hear sounds in games that I previously have never heard on my Quad core 3870 Xfired 1066ram raid powered desktop. I also own a 1710 and anyone who compares these machines simply has no idea what there talking about. I really like my 7900GTX powered 1710, but its no 1730 when it comes to flat out image quality and overall performance.
The 1730 could use some beefed up ram as thats the only thing holding back the Windows experience index to a 5.0. I got a great deal on my 1730, I would buy one new from Dell if a smokin deal came along like when I bought my 1710, but I am too cheap to pay full retail. If you were thing on buying a 1730 but had read others complain, dont listen to them, Its an awesome gaming rig, and even though guys with single 8800s in their laptops can brag of simular 3D Amrk scores, you can rest assured that they would have bought a SLI if they could have. And they secretly deep down inside will forever remain envious.
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