Dell :: Studio XPS 13 Heat Issues .. Build Quality?
Apr 8, 2009
Heard...a LOT of negative regaurding this laptop...heat issues....build quality...etc What do you think? It would fit me perfectly as a secondary backup however I have heard nothing good yet.
I received my Studio XPS 1645 this Monday. My Specs:
-I7 820 -8G Ram -128g SSD -RGB Screen -Blue-Ray
The machine runs beautifully and the screen is amazing but I am having what seems to be an incredible amount of build quality issues. I wanted to know if others have had the same issues and how they resolved them...
-The tech is coming for a second time to fix my screen. It came out of the box with a large scratch. The second screen has several dead pixels.
-Above the keyboard, in front of the screen, the batter (9-cell) doesn't fit flush
-The Sound is uneven. It is FAR louder coming out of the right side than the left. The settings in the control panel seem fine.
BUILD QUALITY How's the build quality on E6410 compared to Thinkpad T410? Creaks, flexing, etc? I'm almost sure this month my next purchase won't be a Thinkpad and Latitude seems to be a good choice. Our office use them.
I currently have a 6-year old T41 and 2-year old T61. I'll miss the keyboard and trackpoint but i can live with that.
OPTICAL DRIVE BAY I have an utrabay HDD adaptor on my T42 does E6410 have the same? I can only see a travel lite module.
Im thinking seriously about buying a M6400 How is the build quality?
Are there many problems, because im not sure if i will be in a region where dell has decent represantatives, i need it to be stable and reliable, no repairs needed.
I am in the markey for either an E6400 or an M4400. I like the power of the M4400 and the looks but I have heard some stuff about the lid not being as sturdy as it looks.
I'm looking to buy a laptop for programming, gaming, and everyday tasks. Right now I'm debating between the VPCCW27FX and a 15" MBP. The price difference is huge (almost $1000 more for roughly the same machine) but there are two things that are making me consider getting the Apple.
1. The ability to do iPhone/iPad programming. Hard to put a price on this. I'm not positive I will have the time to do this but it is nice to have the option. 2. Build quality - everyone raves about how well Apples are made and my general experience observing friends makes me think they are decently made as well.
how well put together their VPCCW27FX is? Have any components needed replacing/how timely was the repair work? Any more general nagging complaints about the machine (wobbly screens, bad keys, loud drives, etc)?
Also, if people have more general thoughts on comparing the 15" MBP vs the VPCCW27FX that would be great. It's pretty amazing the price difference between the two but if the MBP is must better made and will be supported more quickly then that's something I'll have to take into serious consideration.
I received my HP Envy 15 today (I was excited). As I proceeded to open the contents of the box I was impressed with the presentation and packaging of the system. After I got the laptop completely out of the soft-cloth cover case, I sat it down and began to inspect around the system. Looking around the laptop, before opening the screen lid, I start to notice black marks, scratches, and smudges on the case.
Some of these were production dust but some were actually scratches. Next, I open the lid to inspect the screen and noticed more smudges and a few hair-liner scratches on the lower part of the screen. At this point I am like ?!?! Upon further inspection of the screen, I noticed that the rubber screen spacers were peeling off. How did these issues pass the final Q&A check? Lastly, the bottom part of the plastic shell covering the screen was warped, as it was rubber-banding out instead of sitting flush against the screen.
I am disgusted, to say the least, to receive a $2000+ laptop in this condition . Since this is HP's high-end model I expected near perfection. So, after trying the Dell XPS 16 and now the HP Envy, I have to say that I am not impressed with the build quality of either system. I guess Apple or another PC brand will get my money. So long to Dell and HP!
I was just wondering if there were any differences in build quality with the CTO models and the preconfigured ones.
I think someone posted that CTO had better build quality. And also, if the majority of people posting about barrel issues have CTO or preconfigured model
Been looking at getting a mid range media / gaming laptop and it seems that Acer with the 6920/6930/6935 range seem to have the best range of affordability and good specs in the laptops.
But I was wondering about build quality, I had a shot with one of them in Carphone Warehouse and it seems very cheap and breakable is this the case or are the good quality built laptops?
Are Acer laptops one's that I could rely on for 3-4 years to come?
I've been planning on buying a new laptop this month or at the beginning of December. I was considering Dell's new XPS, when they come out, but so far no luck on that front.
The Acer Aspire 6935 has caught my eye, but it seems dangerously cheap for the specs. (T9400 CPU, 9600GT GPU, Blu Ray, FullHD screen etc - and that for only 1299.- euros).
If users who have the 6935 could post their opinions (I realise that it won't be after a year or so of usage, but still) and maybe some benchmarks, or gaming results?
So all in all - is the quality up for it, is it up for 3-4 years, with out me going to the warranty service every now and then after a year or so?
In addition to having a bad hard disk (after less than a year of ownership it totally failed, corrupted data, bla bla bla), the welds on the palm rest screw posts (see picture attachment) have come undone. I have been able to fix this for the time being with krazy glue, but it's not perfect. Furthermore, because of this, the plastic piece on the CD drive side broke at the incredibly flimsy joint with the main carbon chassis. Also fixed for the time being with krazy glue.
The touchpad comes on reversed from time to time, there's a ton of bloatware installed by default, no official 64bit support (although I was able to get it working with help from this forum), bla bla bla. My friends think all of this is hillarious, as I "overpayed" for a Sony that has been a real bear in terms of quality.
I can't complain about the design, weight, battery life, gorgeous screen, or performance however... but the quality issues are canceling out the positives, I'd say overall it's impossible to give the SZ6 a better grade than a B: it's a pleasure to lug around (I'm moving around every day) but the poor quality means you can never relax.
I talked to the guy who repaired my laptop about what brands he thought lasted the longest and needed the least repairs (he's been fixing computers all his life pretty much). And he said hp/compaq were the best.
I bought a brand-new VAIO sz-220 made in Japan back in 2006 for around $1400. Since then, I've experienced the following problems:
optical drive broken speaker hissing fan has unusual whizzing sound fingerprint scanner broken trackpad randomly fails to work (buttons/trackpad sticks, I've never spilled liquid, always have clean hands when handling the computer) ac adapter broke windows randomly goes into restart/shutdown sequence and freezes midway laptop runs at 94C when placed on a desk and freshly internally dusted laptop does not reliably turn off after initiating shutdown sequence (sometimes it freezes midway)..........
I'm looking to buy a M1530 with the 8600M GT. I'm concerned about heat issues as the machine will be mostly used in Thailand in a non airconditioned room, often 90-100 fahrenheit. I don't do much gaming at all, so the vid card won't be running maxxed out or overclocked at all, i just want a decent 3D card for CAD and modeling. I also intend to use it with the 9-cell all the time which will help to keep it elevated a bit.
I was disturbed to hear the the GPUs can't be swapped out like some of the 17" Dells, so i'm not to keen on purchasing a laptop with known heat issues and taking it too a hot climate, especially since Dell will not be able to later swap out the video if they get a cooler running card. The 7800 go died in my E1705 just 14 months after use. Am i heading down a foolish path by considering this laptop for a hot climate?
Also, i'm a bit torn between the non-LED WUXGA screen and the 1440x900 LED screen. I loved the WUXGA screen on my E1705, but it later developed some fugly dark areas. Also the idea of LED seems nice. OTOH, I don't mind the ultra high DPI that will be an outcome of using WUXGA at just 15.4", i'm happy bumping up the font sizes to compensate.
Has anyone been able to compare the screens side-by-side? Why can't dell just give me LED lighting and WUXGA resolution...
I'm looking to buy a M1530 with the 8600M GT. I'm concerned about heat issues as the machine will be mostly used in Thailand in a non airconditioned room, often 90-100 fahrenheit. I don't do much gaming at all, so the vid card won't be running maxxed out or overclocked at all, i just want a decent 3D card for CAD and modeling. I also intend to use it with the 9-cell all the time which will help to keep it elevated a bit.
I was disturbed to hear the the GPUs can't be swapped out like some of the 17" Dells, so i'm not to keen on purchasing a laptop with known heat issues and taking it too a hot climate, especially since Dell will not be able to later swap out the video if they get a cooler running card. The 7800 go died in my E1705 just 14 months after use. Am i heading down a foolish path by considering this laptop for a hot climate?
Also, i'm a bit torn between the non-LED WUXGA screen and the 1440x900 LED screen. I loved the WUXGA screen on my E1705, but it later developed some fugly dark areas. Also the idea of LED seems nice. OTOH, I don't mind the ultra high DPI that will be an outcome of using WUXGA at just 15.4", i'm happy bumping up the font sizes to compensate.
Has anyone been able to compare the screens side-by-side? Why can't dell just give me LED lighting and WUXGA resolution...
I will be using this mainly for 3D Cad work, presentations and some gaming and I have a few questions before ordering regarding the processor and then the optical drive.
1. Is it worth it to go to the t9550 over the p8700 for the processing power and dealing with increased heat issues and power consuption?
2. I won't do much blu-ray so is it better to stay with the 8x DVD since is faster at reading and writing in general?
3 I ask because of the wonderful dell-hell I'm in. I have to order with one of these upgrades to keep my price up (over 1504)and get the restocking fee back from a previous order. (Processer +$125 and blu-ray +$150) Which one would you choose if you had to?
Config as of now is (cost $1554): Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9550 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1067MHz FullHD Widescreen 16.0 inch RGBLED LCD ATI Mobility RADEON™ HD 4670 – 1GB 320GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive 8X DVD+/- RW(DVD/CD read/write) Intel® 5300 WLAN Wireless-N Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth 9-cell Battery .....
Studio XPS 16 Notebook Intel CoreTM i7-820QM 8GB, DDR3, 1333MHz 2 Dimm 16.0 inch Wide Screen 16:9 1080p Full HD RGBLED LCD w/2.0 MP, XPS 1645 ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4670 1GB 256GB Dell High Performance Solid State Hard Drive 2.5MM Merlot Red High Gloss Finish with Leather XPS 1645 Genuine Windows 7 Professional, 64bit, English Integrated 10/100 Network Card 8X DVD+/-RW Slot Load Drive (Dell mistake, BluRay was ordered, its enroute) Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi MB Intel WiFi Link 5300 802.11AGN Half Mini Card 9-cell Battery
Programs and Features:
Device Manager:
Disk Management:
Autoruns:
Running Processes (All 80 of them!!):
(Windows) Startup items:
Control Panel:
System Tray:
Windows Experience Index:
Startup time (From power-on to logon, no peripherals attached, power connected): 28.0 seconds
ATTO Disk Benchmark: (Transfer size 0.5 to 8192 KB, Total length: 256MB, Direct I/O enabled, Overlapped I/O, Queue Depth: 4)
Assuming a vostro, inspiron and studio have the same processor + gfx card, what is the difference between all three? any upgradable components like RAM, HDD, DVDRW, mini-pci, etc doesnt count.
Is there a build difference - I am really liking the new Inspiron 1464 and its brushed metal look, but I want to figure out whether the build is better on a vostro/studio?
I was looking through some Studio XPS 16 reviews and one of the biggest complaints is heat. I don't really want to deal with heat that badly (I wish the fan was louder to compensate for the Heat).
But I am comparing a Studio XPS 16 to a Sony Vaio F series, and I was wondering how would the heat generated be with 8 GB of Ram, i7 720 QM processor, ATI 5730 and a 128 GB Solid State Drive? The Solid State Drive is supposed to generate 0 heat, so I figured that would mean that I would not have to deal with the heat problems. Also I would get the RGBLED screen.
On a less important note....with a 128 GB SSD and a 9 cell 85 whr battery what kind of battery life am I looking at with those stats at 20% brightness and only word documents?
I would like to grab a dell as I found out I may have a 15% discount there, but I don't want to have to deal with a hot/throttled computer.
I'm about to buy the XPS Studio 13 notebook and was hoping someone could make some clarifications for me about it. I've read a lot about the apparent design flaw in it that makes the monitor block the exhaust and thus the computer gets hot. I also know that the new BIOS version addresses this issue somewhat, but I'm a bit skeptical about it because a BIOS can only make the fans run more. The BIOS fix cannot correct the actual physical problem. Therefore, I'm a bit jittery about getting this computer, even though it's the one that best meets my spec requirements.
I would like to hear from those who have owned the XPS Studio 13 for at least 3-4 months and have used it for powerful stuff. What has your experience been like regarding the heat issue?
I've been warned that heat issues are not good for LED displays. This seems to me to be confirmed by the XPS 13 review posted at [url] where it is claimed that the heat issued damaged the bottom part of the guy's screen.
I have a Studio 1537 with a 3450 graphics card, 500GB HDD, 4GB Ram and a T9400 CPU. After around 20 mintues of the laptop being on the area surounding the touchpad gets quite warm