DELL Studio 1555 User Review: 1YR UPDATE

NOTE: THE POST IS IMPORTED FROM BLOGGER, SO PLEASE PARDON ME FOR THE FORMATTING ERRORS

(Please bear with the image quality as all the pictures have been taken from a phone cam – SE W580i, to be precise)

Ok, so lets start with the numbers first,

Configuration

• PROCESSOR – Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T6400 (2GHz/ 800 FSB/ 2MB Cache)
• OS – Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 32 bit
• RAM – 3 GB (1X2GB, 1X1GB) DDR2 SDRAM Memory
• HD – 320GB SATA Hard Drive
• OPTICAL DRIVE – Slot Load 8X DVD+/-RW Drive with DVD+R double layer write capability
• GRAPHICS CARD – 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570
• WIRELESS CARD – Intel® WiFi Link 5100 (802.11a/g/n) Half Mini-card
• BLUETOOTH MODULE – Dell™ Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module
• Integrated 2MP webcam with mic
• FINISH – Midnight Blue with black U-trim
• ETC
  • Dell™ Backlit Keyboard with Touchpad
  • Dell™ Laser Mouse
  • 6 cell Li-I Battery
  • Integrated Fast Ethernet 10/100/1000
  • 34mm ExpressCard Slot
  • Windows Live Software
  • Noise Isolation Ear Buds – Creative™ EP-630

Deal

The base price was 42.9k INR. Add-ons were, Backlit keyboard and the ATI Redeon graphics card. If the payment is made by credit card, Dell offers a discount of 4% upfront. Apart from the discount another regular practice is to offer the Laser mouse as a complimentary gift.

In all, the laptop cost me about 48k INR, at my doorstep (New Delhi)

Delivery was prompt and within 7 days of placing the order.

Box contains

• Studio 15
• Noise Isolation Ear Buds – Creative EP630
• Dell™ Laser Mouse
• AC adapter and charger – 90W
• Documents
  • Important Information: Before using your Dell™ computer
  • Setup Guide
  • Dell™ Software license agreement
  • Safety, Environmental and Regulatory Information
  • Dell™ Laser mouse – functions, features and safety instructions
  • Invoice for the purchase
• DVDs
  • OS – Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 32-bit (Eng)
  • OS Interface pack – Hindi Pack for Windows Vista®
  • Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2007 Microsoft® Works 9.0
  • Drivers and Utilities
  • Application – FastAccess Facial Recognition Software
  • Application – Roxio Creator® DE 10.2
  • Application – Cyberlink™ PowerDVD™
  • Application – Dell™ Webcam central software

Initial Impressions

A lot depends on the colour you choose. While regular colours(like Black, Midnight Blue, etc.)might not look so special, some off-beat and uncommon colours(like spring green, orange) give it an eye catching appearance. The advantage with regular darker shades is, you can go on longer without needing to clean ‘em up. Also bear in mind, the colours other than black and blue will set you back by approx 800INR

The midnight blue colour looks good in the matt finish (personal choice). The chrome Dell logo shines in the middle giving it a sophisticated yet youthful appeal. Neither too subtle nor too loud is the message. U-trim colours were earlier provided as an option with the Graphite gray colour. That option, however, is no longer available and now they are standard black across all colours.

On the inside, keyboard is all black while the sides are finished in shiny silver. Just above the keyboard are the speakers. The touchpad is placed perfectly at the bottom between the areas where your palms rest. It is not exactly in the centre but is slightly left aligned.

On the whole, seems solid. Even while picking up, you won’t feel its flimsy. Haven’t actually measured it but, must weigh about 2.5 Kgs.

Ports

Left Side

The left features the following ports,

1. Security cable slot
2. HDMI connector
3. VGA connector
4. Network connector
5. eSATA connector
6. USB 2.0 connector
7. IEEE 1394 connector
8. Audio In/Microphone connector
9. Audio out/Headphone connector – 2

Right Side

The right side features the following ports,

1. Express card slot
2. 8-in-1 Media card reader
   • Cards supported –
     • SD
     • SDIO
     • MMC
     • Memory Stick
     • Memory Stick Pro
     • xD Picture (M&H)
     • Hi-Speed SD
     • Hi-Density SD
3. Optical drive (Slot Loading)
4. USB 2.0 connector
5. AC adapter connector
6. Power switch
7. Battery Status Light

The glowing blue LED on the charger/adaptor indicates the power supply is on. Prevents one from leaving the charger on accidentally after removing it from the laptop. Nice touch!

Using the Laptop

This is my first Vista machine and I have mixed feelings about the OS. The most annoying thing is the User access control, that keeps popping up for almost everything and anything you do. Among the things that I liked is the new refreshed interface. A welcome change from that of the XP. I am just about an average user and not that much into the technical stuff.

While XP used to do the job for me, Vista not only does the job but also feels nicer to work on.

The most RAM intensive work I do is using the CAD softwares like AUTOCAD, Solid Works. And to my pleasure, both these work flawlessly even with some other programs running in the background. Credit goes to Core2Duo and RAM, I think.

The biggest complaint I have with this laptop is that there are no indication LEDs, neither for the processor or the HD activity. Also, theres no LED to show the status of caps lock, on or off! Pressing the key flashes a message on the bottom right corner of the screen, whether its on or off.

Office 2007 with it completely new interface feels fresh and takes a little getting used to. Once familiar with, its a breeze to work upon. One negative aspect is that the default file types are not backward compatible with Office’03 etc. Though, it provides you with an option to save in compatibility mode, I feel backward compatibility should have been present even for the default file types.

The keyboard feels nice to type upon. Not too loud clicks. There is some amount of flex around the centre of the keyboard. The backlit keyboard looks amazing and gives the laptop a whole new dimension, superficially only, ofcourse. See for yourself.

Touchpad is sensitive, but not very precise. Due to the built in scroll functionality around the edges, it does tend to act funny at times. One reason could be my relative inexperience of working with touchpads.

One thing I would strongly RECOMMEND to all prospective Dell customers is to format their systems as soon as the shipment arrives. Removes all the bloatware that Dell ships its systems with and thus makes them faster. I can vouch for the fact.

Studio is pitted as the cross between Inspirion and the XPS, so is expected to perform on the work as well as the multimedia front. The multimedia keys, on the earlier models, were dedicated, touch sensitive and placed on the left side just above the keyboard. On this model however, they have been integrated with the function keys. The eject button for the slot loading optical drive, however gets a dedicated key. One of the biggest flaws of this arrangement is that you can no longer use the keyboard shortcuts which employ the function keys. For example, you cannot use Alt+F4 to close down a program. You will need to press down, Fn+Alt+F4. The remedy as provided by Dell is to reverse the order of preference. That is, if the function keys are pressed directly, they would behave as normal function keys. If, used in combination with the Fn key they would behave as multimedia keys.

The dedicated eject button for the optical drive

F1+External display, F2+WiFi&Bluetooth F3+Battery meter

F4+Brightness decrease, F5+Brightness increase, F6+Keyboard backlight intensity

F7+Mute, F8+Volume Increase, F9+Volume decrease

F10+Previous, F11+Play/Pause, F12+Next

Being LED backlit, the screen is bright and crisp. Legible even under direct sunlight. You would enjoy the widescreen movies a lot on this machine. The two headphone jacks means you don’t have to share your earplugs with anyone anymore. The stock speakers of the laptop are just about average. They do the job, nothing less, nothing more.

A shot of the desktop(Clicked by phone cam)

Screenshot of the desktop

Gaming is also quite fun with the bundled graphics card. I have been playing Hitman Bloodmoney, Cricket’07, Brothers In Arms and The Godfather since the laptop arrived and am seeing things, I had never noticed on my earlier machine!! Amazing is the word, for the experience. I am not an avid gamer though. I feel with the RAM and dedicated graphics card, it can take on a decent amount of games, if not all.

The webcam is decent and produces good images if the subject is lit up well. Mics are quite sensitive and pick up the voice well. You don’t need to lean over them or anything.

Now(June’09 onwards) the Studio comes standard with 4GB RAM and the ATI graphics card. Even sweeter deal IMO. Great laptop at a decent price.

My overall experience has been good so far, will keep updating. Will upload more random shots of the machine in the coming weeks.

1 YEAR UPDATE:

Having used this for over a year now, I can safely say, my desicion to invest in DELL was not a bad one at all. It had a ‘failure’ but was promptly recitified by DELL. Issue was with the optical drive which suddenly stopped working. Everytime I inserted a dvd/cd it would just hang! I called up DELL customer care and from there on the experience was good. Here is how they work.

1. You call them up, report the issue.
2. The on-call assistant will try to troubleshoot, if solved, there you have it! If not, it is escalated to the more technical sorta deptt.
3. Someone from technical deptt will understand your problem and will work with you to identify the cause and correct it. One point to mention though, they need a high-speed broadband connection to do a net meeting with you. You have to handover the control while they check your system out remotely. Not sure what they do incase internet connectivity is not there.
4. In my case, faulty hardware was identified as the cause, so a technician was sent to my place who replaced the part. Before sending the technician, they contacted me again to fish out the details of any other problems I might be having with the system. I had none.
5. Follow up in 7 days about the problem – solved or not, feedback etc.

Overall a very good service experience.

Now things have changed quite a bit. DELL inspirion offers superb bang for your buck. Studio seems to be aging, sure needs a shot in the arm by DELL and soon!

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