Dell :: M6400 Scratch & Dent

Mar 25, 2009

I've finally bought my first dell, for awhile now i've been an apple fan. I've own a powerbook, macbook, and then a macbook pro.

My latest macbook pro got stolen, so my insurance is buying me a new one.

I decided to cash out and buy a M6400. I do alot of 3d modelling so this particular laptop is very appealing to me,

I was turned onto the m6400 through my younger brother who owns an m6300.

The specs on this baby is :

--Intel Core 2 Quad QX9300 (2.53GHz, 12M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate

-- 17 inch UltraSharp WUXGA (1920x1200) LCD Display

-- NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M, 1.0GB Discrete

-- Intel WiFi Link 5300 802.11a/g/n Draft Mini Card

-- 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz (2 DIMMs)

-- 8X DVD ROM Drive

-- 160 GB Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive (7200RPM) 2nd Drive

-- 160 GB Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive (7200RPM)

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Dell :: Scratch And Dent And Outlet

May 30, 2008

Just ordered a S&D M1710 from the Dell Outlet with a 7600G chip (woo) and 7950GTX to replace my "ailing" off-warranty Gen2. I also ordered a three year warranty with CompleteCare, something I *didn't* get on the Gen2.

I'm expecting the scratches and/or dents will be superficial at best, and I can deal with that. If the notebook was heavily damaged I'd assume Dell would just junk it and sell the salvageable parts as "refurbished." Should they *not* be, however...

1) Does CompleteCare "cover" damage that was already done to the notebook at point of sale? If the notebook is damaged beyond my level of comfort, does CompleteCare cover its repair, since I'm assuming it'll be a lid or chassis problem. Or is this a case of "someone else broke it, and *you* bought it?" I would think the logic of the situation would be that (and please do not read into this as I'm not this type of person) if I damaged the notebook myself accidentally, I assume they wouldn't just fix the dents *I* put in it. =/

2) If the "damages" are severe, does the Outlet have the same 21 day return policy (or *any* return policy) regardless of whether an item is refurbished, off-lease, or S&D? EDIT: Found the answer to this one myself, it's the same return policy with a possible 15% restocking fee.

3) Could anyone with *past buying experience* (or knows someone and can recount their experience) with the Outlet please tell me what to expect and how your refurb or S&D part arrived?

4) Not a question, but yes I'm aware I bought an "older" and therefore "non-1337" model. I don't much care about DX10 at the moment, and also didn't feel like spending 2500 for a new notebook that is *slower* graphically than my 7800GTX was or 3500+ on a SLI 8800GTX setup and gives me more pain in driver support. Sufficed to say, the difference between 1900 dollars and 2500-3500+ dollars is not "slight." So if you're going to post in here and say something to the effect of "why didn't you buy a 1730," please don't bother and keep the discussion on topic.

And before anyone asks:
T7600G / 2GB (upgrading to 4GB despite the chipset limitation) / DD DVD-R/W / 7950GTX / Vista Ultimate ("downgrading" to XP with my Gen2's disc) / Intel N-Band Card ("downgrading" to a Gigabyte PCIe SuperG to take advantage of my existing network)

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Dell :: Review Of Scratch And Dent Studio XPS 13

Apr 25, 2009

I had an Inspiron 1420 and I installed Windows 7, I could not get the wifi working with the dell drivers, so I had to reformat my entire computer. I was able to sell my 1 year old Inspiron 1420 for $525 on ebay. Then I found notebookreview.com and the fourms, now I am happier than ever that I did!

Received my scratch and dent studio xps 13 from Dell
Ordered on Tuesday 4/21/09 at midnight. Arrived 4/24/09 7:55pm Friday
Shipped from Tennessee to Pennsylvania

Specs: Studio XPS 13
P8600 2.4ghz
4gb ddr3
320gb 7200rpm
WLED screen
Wifi 1515 n
Bluetooth

Cost: $729 dell outlet + 15% off coupon (expires 5/1/09)
With tax and shipping $656

Time on Dell Outlet website hitting the refresh button: 3 hours to find the studio xps 13 outlet pc for $729 with WLED screen
Most had LCD.. so I had to keep checking every 5 minutes for a couple of hours

Looks:
Looked almost brand new when I opened it up

one word.. awesome.. design is very sharp looking, blacklit keys are really nice
Small surface scratches hardly noticeable on the top of the laptop..have to look at it in the light at a certain angle to notice the scratches. When I opened it up it looked really nice, keyboard is brand new, no scratches of any kind on the inside.

Design: Very good, I have no wobbling problems, on a flat table now.. no issues. When you open this up the keyboard seems pretty big.. It definitely does not feel like a 13 inch laptop.. the keyboard looks like it could be on a 15 inch laptop. Lots of extra space for your palms etc

Weight: not a problem at all even if you had to carry it with you

Keyboard: Typing on it now.. Definitely there is a learning curve to it as I am used to smaller keyboard with the keys closer. I watched that video of the other person showing keyboard keys were loose.. I noticed that some keys are looser than others but as I am typing on it now I have no problems whatsoever. After 20 minutes I noticed the oil from my fingers showing as smudges on every single key (again only in certain light can you see this) but it does not bother me at all. The sound buttons and eject button works great on the keyboard

Trackpad: Very small, learning curve here also but its not a deal breaker. Very responsive

Monitor: LED screen is beautiful and totally kills my old Inspiron 14 inch LCD. So clear and bright
I would not trade it for anything, also looks brand new. I did notice that the monitor hardly blocks the fan on the bottom.. not a problem. The heat on the left of the monitor is slightly warm but not hot. The 1200x800 display is the perfect size for the monitor

Heat: I received the laptop, put in my 64bit windows cd and reinstalled, then upgraded the bios to A06 Both cores run between 41 and 45 C , Have noticed this creeping up to 50 C sometimes but never over 50
A little warmer than other laptops I have used but not a problem at all. The laptop feels warm (but I would not say it is hot.. Even if I put my hand under the laptop it is only warm. The palm rests are comfortable and slightly warm but nothing bad. When I was doing the windows reinstall from the cd, when I put my hand under it, it was very hot.. the A06 bios update really helped cool it down!

Performance: Fastest laptop I have ever used and now owned.
Add/Remove programs loads in less than second.
Word, Excel, Powerpoint load in 2 seconds
If I hit the power button and put this into sleep mode.. walk away and then open up the lid again, it comes back up in less than 3-5 seconds.
Windows vista 64 loads very quickly

Sound: Good and loud, same as any other laptop

Fan: Bios A06 update seems to have the fan running all the time now.. I do not have any problem with it. It is very quiet and it does not run 100% of the time either

Battery Life: Regular 6 cell battery.. not sure how old this battery is but I think with wifi on, Screen brightness on max, giving me 2 1/2 hours
Might need to upgrade to the 9 cell in the future, but it works fine for now

HDMI: Plugged it into the tv.. looks really nice but I cannot get sound to work yet.. I was trying to play a tv show from fox.com through Internet Explorer.. Video worked very good, but sound was not working.. still need to look into this more............