About to jump on a Studio XPS 16, have some final questions

Hey all, well originally I settled upon Lenovo, either the T500 or W500, but after finding some not so favorable reviews on the quality of the screen among other things, I went looking around some more and now *I think* I've settled upon the Studio XPS 16. I have a few general questions/concerns however if people would be willing to answer.

1. How much of a performance increase would I see if I went with the T9800 instead of the T9550? Would getting the 9800 severely impact battery life, and is it generally worth the extra money? I am looking for the best possible CPU performance, however if I could save 275 bucks and a lot of battery life, I'm willing to sacrifice it if it isn't much better.

2. How much bloatware is on this, and how easy is it to remove?

3. How is the overheating on this particular model? A friend of mine has a studio 13 who claims it throws a lot of heat and sometimes shuts down on him for it.

4. If I had an external monitor that was 1920x1200, and i connected the XPS to it, would it display at the monitors resolution, or only at 1080p?

And finally, is this a good price for the setup/features? I'm using the instant savings plus a 7 percent educational discount. I'm not too sure if I could save even more with a coupon, but I looked and couldn't find anything.

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9800 (6MB cache/2.93GHz/1066Mhz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition 32-bit
3 yr In-home Service after remote diagnosis + Complete Care+LoJack
Edge-to-Edge FullHD Widescreen 16.0 inch RGBLED LCD (1920x1080) W/2.0 MP
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1067MHz (2 Dimms)
500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
BluRay Disc Combo (DVD/CD read/write + BD read) Slot Load Drive
Intel 5300 Ultimate-N Half Mini Card (3x3) with MyWiFi
6-cell Battery with additional 9-cell Battery

subtotal before tax and shipping is $1,877.67. Good price? Can I do any better?

I appreciate any feedback

 

1. You won't notice the performance increase, stick to the T9550 and save some money.
2. Not a whole lot of bloatware surprisingly.
3. It gets very hot. It depends on how you use the laptop though. If you push it during gaming and don't use a 9 cell battery or very flat surface, it will almost certainly overheat and throttle the GPU (video card). The front of the laptop gets uncomfortably hot as well as the track pad.
4. The ATi card will display at 1900x1200. You can add custom resolutions.

Looks good, go for it. You should also consider looking at dell outlet, the laptops are a fraction of that price with similar specs.

 

Well i agree with the above answers apart from #3 i wouls say it can get hot...depending on the situation.....if you are going to use this machine for some heavy gaming id seriously concider a notebook cooler....this machine respnds very well to them and i can game for any length of time and not experience CPU or GPU temps over 70degrees....in my case for general use (ie web, movies word etc) this machine doesnt run hot at all....
Good luck on your purchase

 

Thanks for your responses.

In regards to number 1, I should have mentioned I'm going to be using very CPU heavy applications, such as ProTools, Cubase, and other audio editing software. So while I would like to save the money, if the 9800 would perform better, I would spring for it.

And with regard to gaming, I will be doing very little gaming on it. Maybe some Steam powered games if I'm bored in class, but nothing crazy. I have a PS3/tv rig I do all of my gaming on.

 

You might want the 64-bit OS to use all 4 gb of ram.

edit: I think? Might be wrong on this.

 

I would love to, but ProTools is not compatible with any 64-bit OS. It will actually refuse to boot (my last pc had XP 64)

 

All of that is hearsay. None of that is true, don't listen to it.

 

Hearsay? What a bunch of b.s. Go read teh SXPS 16 thread, a ton of people have the problem. I really don't get why some of you are in denial about this. I had the laptop myself, IT THROTTLED DURING HEAVY LOAD! I posted up screenshots of the temperatures before undervolting it and it was HOT! This laptop runs much hotter than competing laptops on the market, that is a fact. Don't try to mislead people just because you own the laptop.

 

I am not sure what you have against this laptop but it does not overheat. I do extensive gaming with the 6 cell and 9 cell batteries and never had the gpu or CPU throttle on me.

Reading through the 1640 thread yes there were some heat issues. But percentages wise not bad at all. Heck look on other forums HPs, Apples, Asus, etc... of a similar size all have some sort of heat dissipation issue. It comes with trying to jam all these high tech power guzzling electronics in a small space.

I do believe the heat issue is a real issue for some folks but it’s not conclusive for all folks. I personally now have purchased 5 1640's for myself and family and none of them have heat issues. Only one mentioned (not complained) that the track pad area can get warm. It’s all personally subjective when it comes to heat that is not overheating a system.

Yes you had a bad computer, and you dealt with it. Your personal experience is a fact for you personally, but not a fact for all 1640s out there.

In my opinion there is no overheating or throttling problem.

 

Don't try to shrug this off as some anecdotal experience of mine. Lots and lots of people have documented this laptop running too hot and/or overheating. Hell reviews have even pointed out the fact that it runs hot. The 1640 I had was not defective in any way, it was running at spec perfectly. The way the cooling system on the SXPS 16 is designed, it cannot adequately cool the GPU during heavy loads unless propped up with a 9 cell battery or used with a laptop cooler. During normal use it will run warm but sufficiently for the average person but for anyone that taxes both the CPU/GPU at the same time, IT WILL get extremely hot and possibly throttle. This is a fact, the few of you guys living in denial can continue to do so and blame others for a defective cooling design. BTW to give you hard numbers, the HP DV7 I have never gets above 64 C during an orthos torture test run at priority 9. Good luck getting those temps with an SXPS 16, it would probably burn your house to the ground.

 

You are living in denial. I don't have an overheating issue, which part of that is so hard to understand?

 

Yes lots and lots of people have had heat issues. Much different than overheating, throttling or burning the house down. Its still anecdotal, there are many forums with many happy customers. Are they all delusional? Or are they not as hardcore as you? Do you see that its all subjective, you had a personal experience that was bad others have had the same. So that makes a problem with the system? It couldn't be just a bad system? Heatsinks not seated right, thermal paste not applied correctly god it could be numberous things.

I am currently in Baghdad Iraq, its 115 degrees outside and its 95 ambient where I am at now. Oh and my system is not over heating and I have been playing Fallout 3, demigod and other games at high res. I guess I got the golden computer then and its just a one off thing. Or maybe there are good and bad computers out there. Just just like cars of the same model and year, some are bad others run with no problems.

I would suggest to just relax, you take it as a personal affront that others have no problems. You have an HP dv7, thats a great machine. My roommate has one and loves it. Though he has wireless issues with it and some video display problems, and has read others having those issues too. Does that mean all DV7's have those problems. No of course not.

Oh and Orthos running the CPU stress test at priority nine for 30mins, gets my cpu's up to 61c. Whoa I am so glad it didn't burn my TENT down.

Please just relax.

 

i have to agree.......getting hot and overheating are two very very different situations..........my sxps has never over heated....and as i said in a earlier post, when heavy gaming noticed the pc getting hot.......that's playing for well over an hour and by hot i mean CPU's and GPU in the high 70's (which in actuality isn't even dangerous for the machine) so i decided to buy a cooler and now the pc never gets above 71 degrees.
so some have had bad experiences with heating but a lot...maybe even most haven't had a issue...
i personally dont believe the SXPS have any overheating issues at all.

 

Seriously, i thought i was a Dell fanboy , but people here are totally over the top.

You CANNOT seriously tell me that with the 6 cell battery, and on a flat surface , the studio xps 16 does not overheat... hum what is overheating?

overheating is the fact that when i gamed under the stated conditions it got scalding hot to the point that i couldnt even touch the touchpad. The fps on final fantasy xi.. a VERY OLD game went down to 5 - 6 fps until i turned it off and let it cool down. Once i followed 5150joker's advice of propping it up , allowing the vents in the bottom to actually blow the hot air out i didnt have any sort of temperature problem.

but the bottom line is this:

I shouldnt have to plop the laptop on top of something in order for the temperatures to be normal.

Why, oh why are people here getting so mad at a fact that so many people have actually mentioned? I can only guess they get defensive because they own it.

I'm sorry. If your laptop is not getting unbearably hot, its because either:

1. youre not a gamer
2. you have a 9 cell
3. you plopped ur laptop on top of something to let the vents blow out air.

period. unless you follow the stated advice, you'll have a scalding hot laptop on your hands (or lap, whatever).

and for the record, i love Dell. and still love this laptop. Stop misleading people. this is supposed to be an informative forum.

 

I don't undestand how the XPS can get so hot everwhere with its current air vent setup, and the Macbook Pro doesn't get as hot on top (bottom as hot, if not more so than the 1640), with absolutely no air vents!!

How in gods name is that possible!?

 

magic......

 

The vents are designed differently. Go take a close look at both sometime.

 

Tbh, I think that most of the overheating stuff is a load of hype. When you get a laptop you're going to notice it getting hot a lot faster than noticing it not getting hot. So I think it's rather biased seeing as most people who have a cool running computer wouldn't feel the need to say "OMG, MAI COMPUTAH IS TEH FRYING!!!!". I'm basicly saying that fair enough, there are some bad ones in the bunch but chances are you won't get one

 

its not a few bad ones in the bunch.

its a design flaw. once again. if youre gaming and using the laptop on a flat surface with the 6 cell battery it will overheat and performance will drop drastically. if you're gaming and the laptop has a 9 cell battery or lifted enough to allow some space for the vents, it wont overheat and will perform beautifully.

simple as that.

if ure not gaming, chances are youll never notice it.

if you have a 9 cell, youll never notice it either.

i still love this pc btw.

 

yeah... thats a load of crap. I have the 6 cell and game for hours at a time with no performance drops whatsoever. Yes the laptop does get hot, but no more so than any other laptop really.

 

I regularly game with my 6 cell battery with it on my lap or on my bed and have no problems. So the games I have loaded up now, fallout 3, crysis, GTA IV, left 4 dead, sins of a solar empire, demigod, CoD and a few others. Okay , hmmm yep I am a gamer. And my 1640 is not over heating. Does it get hot some times, sure I am in iraq its hot here. Is it more than other laptops of this size...nope.

Personal experiences don't make things a fact. I wish people would understand this. The people that have the most trouble with their computers come to forums to find fixes or complain. You never see the people that are satisfied with their computer. So anybody reading a thread like this starts to think oh my god there is a problem. When there really isn't a larger problem than the one thats affecting their system.

I am actually an HP fanboy. I like whatever system is the best quality for the price. I got an incredible deal for my 1640 and jumped on it.

 

Tiduspr -- you may want to return your laptop or call to get it fixed. Its obviously got problems if its getting that hot while gaming with the 6 cell.

 

Wow, I'm totally sorry that my thread turned out to be a bunch of bickering and some name calling...that wasn't my intention, so I apologize.

Moving forward, I did end up ordering it last night. My final config was:

- The base XPS 16 model that had all of the extras with an instant savings of 419 off from the educational site, plus the 7 percent discount. In addition, I opted for:

The T9800
Extra 9-cell battery
500 GB 7200 rpm hard drive (it was 50 dollars extra than the 320, so to me it was worth it, even though it delayed shipping by one week, and plus it has the free-fall sensor which i don't believe the 320 has)

This includes the nice screen, the blu ray combo drive, 4 gb of mem, vista premium 32, no bluetooth, no addit. software, and 3 years of in home service, completecare, and lojack. Final price with tax and shipping, just a hair under 2k.

I went with the more expensive processor because ultimately I wanted this thing to last me as long as possible, and wanted the best possible performance using audio recording software. I know the hard drives they are using are great, because I have a Glyph portagig external 320 firewire drive that uses the same exact drive, and I love it.

If it gets hot, it gets hot. Not much I can do about that. It may be a design flaw, but I'm not too concerned. I'll be primarily using the 9-cell and will be using a notebook cooler to offset. The way I see it, I was getting so consumed in this entire laptop selection process that I couldn't make up my mind, and no matter what I buy, I'm going to be disappointed in some aspect of the machine. With the Lenovo I was looking at, it was the price for the featureset, the declining quality of the Thinkpad line since IBM sold it, and the subpar brightness of the screen. With the Dell, it was the heat issue and not being able to get 1920x1200 (wanted the extra res for desktop real estate, ProTools is a huge program window-size wise).

I pulled the trigger on the Dell and I'm satisfied with my choice.

 

Can you tell me where you bought your cooler for your XPSS16? Thnx

 

im in India and i brought it at a computer shop...im sure you could do the same whereever you are, if you in the states newegg or amazon would have a good selection....
I went with the notepal infinity but ive heard that the zalman 2000 is a very good cooler as well.
Goodluck

 

no, really, pray tell what benefit could i ever get from bs people here? like ive said in my previous posts, i love the laptop and yeah i can play hour and hours and hours and it will not get hotter than normal *if* the pc is lifted @ the back so that the air may come out of the vents.

anybody (and thats a lot of people) who comes into these forums to discuss the very serious and real cooling design flaws that this laptop has will get flamed by a couple of people who really cant accept criticism to a product they own i guess?

@ rebellion:

Personal experiences do not make things a fact? Well I dont know about that. When you keep reading post after post about personal experiences with temperatures on this laptop, and not only that, you get PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS stating the same, yeah i dont know.

You try to brush this off by saying that :

really? Because, honestly, I see a lot of satisfied people as well in these forums...even some that, while acknowledging that the computer does get too hot, still love the product and stand by it... no really why do people come to these forums? To discuss the product. Its good points and bad points.

yeah, i can also play crysis and whatever game...so long as it has some breathing room.

oh, come on are you for real?

Really, its pretty disappointing that open discussion is frowned upon by a couple of people here.

Luckily, its not most.

As for my laptop, I reckon its totally not defective other than the vents design... unless my laptop has a particular need to be diagonally propped up on something. like i said. so long as theres some breathing room under it, the kind that the bigger 9 cell battery gives it, then it performs perfectly. I have been pretty specific about it.

The only intentions people should have in posting here should be helping others out, not bs'ing. The info is out there, take it or leave it.

In any case, the OP made what is imho the right decision by getting the 9 cell. Hence , it is likely he will not experience out of the ordinary high temperatures. Congratulations on a wise choice and a great buy.

 

How exactly am I bs'ing? I just played Fallout 3 for 4 hours straight without the laptop lifted (no cooler either, laptop is just sitting on my table) and the laptop isn't any hotter than any other laptop after a long gaming session (so yes it is warm, but it is by no means uncomfortably hot and the internal temps are nowhere near overheating)

If you are experiencing slowdowns due to overheating you should call dell and have them replace the motherboard as you obviously have a faulty system.

Nobody in this thread is trying to flame you. I was just trying to make sure the OP didn't think that every single Studio XPS 16 overheats unless you are using the 9 cell battery. You can't assume that just because you have overheating issues everyone else does too, as this obviously isn't the case.

 

I've been wondering if the difference between the people saying "it gets warm" vs. "it burns my hands" is the proc. The P-series is 25W while the T-series is 35W. Maybe? Not sure, but I was wondering if that correlation had any merit.

 

lolololol hey guys, it's a FLAME war hehehe.

get it. heat. flame. flaming. insult.

 

Everyone should chill before a Mod steps in
Being considerate and respectful of your fellow forum members, it's just good etiquette.

OP..If you want that SXPS 16...I say go for it! If that is what works for you!
It's a sweet lappy!

Cin

 

I was wondering that as well actually. I have owned more than a few MacBooks.. and it wasn't till the latest (okay, mid/late 08') White plastic and Aluminum Uni bodies, that the amount of heat they put off was reduced. Which was mainly the switch over to the lower watt procs and the smaller NM procs.

Oh well, I have one on order, and I will see for myself what this heat issue really is. Mine has the P8600 in it... so I am hoping that it will run slightly cooler than the older (and faster) T series.

One other thing... not to keep a flame war going... heat is subjective. 60 degrees could feel really hot to someone, or only warm to someone else. I have a friend who thinks 75 (F) is COLD... while I think 75 (F) is about perfect. We never can ride in the same car together.

 

Man, all you "gamers" think you know it all about hardware, game coding and how that affects each system. PLEASE, heat has been as issue since the PC has been around. The operative word here would be "fans". Everyone who clocks, games and builds knows about how to cool any system. This sxps 16 is actually a great laptop for the money. Barebones you couldn't do much better, and its portable. What you should be using is a fan control program like smc FanControl. I've used it on every system ive owned, Ive never had any heat issues. Why do you think those fans are there? What do you do when you need to cool off? You turn on a fan, right?
Well, electronics are not much different, you just need to TURN UP THE FANS. Heres the link for smc fancontrol:
http://www.eidac.de/?p=134 and yes, it works in Vista.

 

^ It looks like that is for macs? I'm sure there's something similar for the XPS though. I know there are programs for the inspirons and such, but I haven't heard anything about a fan control program on the XPS.

Oh and I agree btw. Heat/noise has never been an issue for me. I've always just taken it as the price I pay for performance. Which it pretty much always has been.

 

i think you misunderstood my post zitchdog, i didn't say you were bsing. I was responding to the comment where you stated that what i said "was a load of crap" . never been anyone's intention here, i think, to bs people, certainly not mine. I am aware everyone's comments stem from personal experience.

The issue obviously happens to more than me, an immediate example that comes to mind is 5150joker, and i felt the need to point out the hostility (i.e. the "that's a load of crap" comment) that has recently been shown towards people that comment on the high temperatures on their machines. (check out responses to 5150joker as well).

I still dont think theres anything wrong with the pc, like i said, so long as theres a bit of space between the vents and the surface where the pc is i can play all day long, problems only surface if its laying totally flat on a table and i start gaming.

I haven't undervolted it, maybe that would help and maybe that's the difference. But in any case, I'm sending the pc back as i'm still on my 21 day period and they just released the laptop with a blu-ray burner, which i definitely want. might as well wait a bit more to see if they release a new video card configuration.

i apologize if i took an offensive tone, must admit i did get frustrated when i read the reactions to 5150jokers posts and then someone pointing out that my computer getting hot was "a load of crap". I really enjoy these forums and appreciate the fact that we can read and make informed purchases and decisions.

I still think this sxps16 is a beautiful computer, which paired with dells extended warranty service, is a winner.

 

Guys enough......going around and around in circles isnt going to help.....only pee people off......we have made our points and argued and counter-argued....now its just going arguing for the hell of it......
OP has got the point....

 

G'day gang,

This might seem like a dumb question... but can someone please explain to me how being elevated by the incline of the 9-cell battery gives more ventilation?

I've already placed my order for a 6 cell and i'm not 'attacking' anyone but...

to me, the laptop was designed with ventilation holes - intake, exhaust speeds won't change unless there is a pressure applied ie fan or a considerable 'drag force' like it being smothered by something.

I've seen this thing on youtube vid and the rubble feet look pretty big and tall. I'm sure no laptop sits flat on ur desk - there's always a few mm's of breathing space which is will allow much more air than is required?

Sorry my post is getting a little long now but i'm kinda just typing out my thoughts. It just doesn't makes sense to me.

 

Wow! how about actually helping the OP with his original questions..instead of going back and forth????

Create you own thread if you have other issues!

Don't hijack his thread.....

Cin.

 

I'm not saying that your story about how YOUR computer got hot was a load of crap... Your insinuation that ALL studio XPS 16's have poor ventilation and thus overheat (i.e. underclock or shutdown due to internal heat) was crap. Myself and many others on this forum have no overheating issues whatsoever (The internals of the machine actually run fairly cool).

As I said before, if your computer overheats (even if it only happens when it isn't propped up with the 9 cell battery) you should call dell and have them replace the motherboard as you obviously have a defective system (myself and many others have already told you that we can play games w/ the 6 cell battery in for hours with no performance decreases whatsoever, this should make it fairly obvious that your system is defective).

I apologize if you took my post as a personal attack, as it was not meant to be one. I just wanted to make sure that the OP knew that although a few vocal people on these forums have overheating issues, a lot of people on here have no issues at all.

 

For those of you claiming your system doesn't overheat, prove it. Put up a youtube video of you gaming (using a game that taxes the system) and then alt tab and bring up HW monitor to show your temps. Here's the criteria:

1. Place the laptop with a 6 cell battery on a table
2. Put up a game like left 4 dead or fallout 3 with max settings and native resolution
3. Set the laptop to high performance
4. Play the game for at least 10 minutes while filming, alt-tab and show your temperatures.

If you can do all that and prove the laptop isn't getting hot (many of you claim a max of 60ish C) then we'll acknowledge that mine, tiduspr and the many others that have had throttling/overheating issues were isolated incidents. I'm betting that if you guys do the test honestly, you will find the laptop overheats and/or throttles when pushed.

Here's some examples of user feedback on the Dell SXPS 16:

Etc etc. The laptop runs too hot and in many cases the GPU overheats/throttles.

 

The sxps 16 OVERHEATS. All of you stop being fanboys and stop pretending that you dont have an issue with your sxps just because you flushed your money. Post HWmonitor images while gaming, I just see claimings of low temps but I want a SOLID PROOF. PERIOD.

 

OK, OK, we get it, the thing runs hot/too hot/doesn't have proper ventilation/overheats/bangs your mom/etc. Jeez. Why is starting a proper discussion so hard in this place?

Bottom line is I ordered it regardless. There was no need to come into my thread with all of your petty bickering and name calling. I had a few questions/concerns, and some people were very helpful, so thank you so much to them, but the others gave me more than what I was bargaining for.

Please take your e-manliness elsewhere, as there is no need for this thread to exist any longer. I bought it. I made my decision.

Would a mod please close?

 

We aren't fanboys... we just aren't experiencing the overheating issues that a few of you here are. Why would I (or anyone) lie about that? The laptop isn't even a year old, so EVERYONE still has some type of warranty on their system (I have 3 years of at home service). If my system was overheating I would call up Dell and have it replaced or get a refund... I wouldn't come to some forums and claim to not have any issues.

Here are my temps after playing left for dead at 1080p on medium settings for about 10 minutes. (I can post a temps after playing a little longer later if you would like, my GPU temp goes up to around 68 during longer sessions)

 

congratulations on your order.....im sure you will love it...its a fantastic multimedia machine enjoy.....
What specs did you go with?

 

Congrat's on your order! I know you will really like it....!!!
When is your ESD?? And, do you feel like sharing your specs??
(If you do, you may want to start a fresh thread...one that hasn't been...*sigh*)

(It is too bad what happened with your thread..generally there is a good deal of respect amongst other fellow forum peeps.)..

Whenever you want to report a post or a thread or have something taken care of..just hit the little report icon on the bottom of your post...It will be triangular, in red..next to the Give Rep' icon!

Grat's again.

Cin

 

Thread closed as requested by the OP.