Got a great price on a Studio XPS 1640! ...what to expect?

Ok, so I won a Studio XPS 16 with a 2.4 C2D, 4GB RAM, DVD Burner, 500GB HDD, 1600x900 screen, Radeon 3670 etc. for $440 shipped on eBay! The only catch is one little dent on the right palmrest corner ( )

I must say that I'm very excited to receive it! I just want to know if I got a good deal, and if it was worth it? It still has a year of warranty! How is the screen quality? It's a great resolution for a 15". Any comments/advice?

 

$440 seems pretty decent to me since a netbook would cost $200+ these days. Does that come with a warranty?

 

yeah! A whole year

 

the price is very apt. just remember to check about every hardware and the performance. also you should get all the ownership documents.

 

The ding on the corner is probably from when the frustrated user picked it up and slammed it against the corner of his desk because the damn thing was throttling like crazy and performing at about 20% of its rated abilities.

Here's a link to the 117 page thread about the severe throttling that the XPS 1640 has with no known fix.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/458668-1640-throttling-post-here-117.html

Maybe you'll get lucky and Dell will upgrade this laptop to a newer model for free. Some users dump these on ebay for whatever they can get just to end the nightmare of ownership. I hope your experience turns out better than this. At least you got it for a good price so it shouldn't be a loss no matter what happens.

 

a great deal indeed, gratz!
the prices of dell laptops are falling as fast as dell stock, no1 hates dell more than Michael Dell.

 

I don't want to scare you, but you wanted our opinions, so imagine this plausible scenario:

You receive your laptop with 1 year of warranty left. You use the laptop for a month, and the motherboard fails. You call up Dell, and they agree to fix it since it is under warranty. Dell looks at the laptop, and then tells you your warranty is void because it received physical damage (due to the likely drop). You become upset with Dell, but realize that the warranty doesn't cover physical damage caused by the (previous) owner. You then ask Dell how much it costs to replace the motherboard, and they quote you at $450.

 

has anyone upgraded their motherboard from core 2 to core i series?

i mean if my motherboard failed thats what i would do. its probably not a whole lot more than 200 on ebay.

 

:/ does it really look that bad??

 

Not possible from core 2 to I series there was a chases redesign the way the stuff fits.

 

He exaggerated. They will service your laptop as long as you have some warranty left.

 

It doesn't look bad, but someone servicing the laptop would certainly notice the ding. It's obvious this laptop was dropped, bumped into something, something bumped into it, or something similar. If the laptop has a problem and Dell thinks it's related to physical user-caused damage, they won't service it under a normal warranty.

 

...well, it's scheduled to be delivered on Monday, according to the UPS tracking info. My main concern now is cooling. Anyone recommend a cooling pad for it? I'm looking at the Cooler Master Notepal U2, but not sure yet. Any suggestions?

 

got a bid in on a cooling pad! I should be getting the laptop tomorrow, I'm excited! I'd like to see how the Dell works without a cooling pad before it comes, otherwise I'd just use it with the pad all the time. Hopefully next time I reply to this thread, it'll be on that computer! And hopefully I'm still excited about it!

 

well if you are so worried about warrenty then you can upgare the warrenty to compleate care
as you saved a lot of money on laptop you can always invest some back on it, i for one wouldd recommend you to do that.
i have seen many people get a replaced laptop 2 years after they bought the laptop as they are in compleate care with 3 year warrenty
the bigger problen with SXPS is the heating issue which i am facing. I hope with C2D processor that wont be a issue

and yess that a good deal!!!

 

Ok, so I did a fresh install of Vista, and it's running great for now, so I'm going to go ahead and hold off of 7 for now. I'm very happy with it. It's very responsive and fairly well-built. It's not as well-built as my previous laptop (Apple PowerBook G4 17" 1GHz, which I got for free) but it's faster, and the keyboard/trackpad work (Messed up ribbon cable on PB disabled it)! My favorite feature is the sound quality from the speakers. For a laptop, the sound is amazing. Glad to have bought it so far! Besides that dent, it seems almost brand new!

 

I also forgot to mention that it came with Office 2007 discs, and I know it's outdated now, but it's still a nice plus that wasn't mentioned!

 

Update: So far, I love it so much! It's the best pc laptop I've ever used. Only problem: Windows. Best part: $440!
After I got a Cooler Master Notepal U2, heat was no problem whatsoever.

It's a very well-built and responsive laptop that looks great, and has all the features I could ask for. Very happy with it, even though I'd have preferred a Mac, but I wasn't going to wait that long.
Thanks for the suggestions and everything else!

 

Motherboard x2, AC Adapter, bottom case, vent, and fan/heatsink, and it runs like brand new, no overheating! Not even on GTA. Love this thing!