Precision 7730,5530,7530 (Coffee Lake) pre-release

Could you elaborate what kind of issues are you running into? Might be useful for others who are thinking about similar purchase. Thanks

 

Externally (and internally), the 5530 looks to be the same as my 5510 or the 5520 so potential purchasers should be aware of their absence. I have to assume that the lack of indicator lights is to save a few cents in the manufacturing cost but it's someone the user quickly gets accustomed to. I use the notifications on the Task Bar which I have stacked vertically on the left side of the display to use some of the excess width.

For me, the design omission which I'm surprised that Dell hasn't rectified is the lack of dedicated PgUp and PgDn keys which could be put in the gaps above the cursor left and right keys (Dell has done this on some of the other keyboards). In my experience the key advantages are the excellent display (I have the Sharp SHP1453 LQ156M1 panel) and good sized battery in a thin and light package.

John

 

Eh, some of the missing notification lights you never get used to. There are still some people arguing that NVMe drive are fast enough to not need HDD activity indicators. That being said, the XPS13 already has the extra PgUp and PgDn keys, I do not know why the XPS15/5530 are missing out on them. My best guess is the 9370 was the first modern XPS to get in line with the Latitude layout. The 9570, being a rehash of the 9560, missed out on the newer KB layout.

 

If you are worried about watching the storage drive activity then you can get a software activity indicator such as this to put in the notification area.

My Latitude 7370 (now two generations out-of-date) also has those elusive PgUp / PgDn keys. The 9370 has a very similar keyboard except that the touchpad is now centred on the palmrest rather than centred on the space bar. Perhaps Dell has a load of unused 9570 / 5530 keyboards and palmrests in the inventory to use before we'll see an improved keyboard.

John

 

Wow, I haven't seen taskbar HDD indicators since my home rackmount server days, lol. Coppermine and K6. That is an okay idea, though I also remember those old taskbar HDD indicators being quite unreliable (at least they were when Win2k Adv Server was still in its prime).

I don't know why they centered the touchpad, either. It basically forces your right palm to hover a bit high, otherwise the palm rejection has to work overtime to ensure nothing triggers the touchpad. The KB isn't centered, otherwise the "G and H" keys would be right under the Dell logo, instead of being offset to the left.

 

My 7530's screen suddenly blacked and could not be turned on since last night. An engineer is coming tomorrow for a motherboard replacement. Don't know what caused that but I hope a motherboard replacement can fix my machine.

 

Yes, I can't seriously rely on anything Windows software-based!

However, I am also wondering why the 5530 didn't come with the battery wear (reducing) software that my Precision 7510 has - in order not to keep overcharging the battery while docked...

It seems this unit is just an afterthought for Dell.

 

Haven't you got Dell Power Manager? I have my 5510 set to start charging at 75% charge and stop charging at 85%. If I know that I will be spending a long time away from a power outlet then I will increase those values.

John

 

Hi John - thanks for the heads-up - I just configured the 5530 as required!

Have not been accessing Power Manager, so was not sure where I could manage this - your guidance was appreciated.

 

Most of the time, if the option to control battery charge level is there in a Dell, you can also do it via the BIOS. This sticks, and works across all OSes. The only reason I bring this up is my Sony Vaio has a similar feature, but only within windows. When I installed Ubuntu 14.04(?) on it, the battery charge limiter was wiped as well. Meanwhile, on my Dell Latitude E5450, it sticks throughout any OS (when set in the BIOS). This feature, more than any other, really is what keeps me from moving to other vendors.