Purchasing and upgrading a Dell Studio XPS (1645)

Hello all,

I've been waiting patiently to purchase a notebook over the last year and now that the mobile i7 has been made available, I've been debating which laptop to get. Admittedly I've been a bit torn over whether I should simply spend less on a Core 2 Duo, but I'll leave that conversation aside for now.

Basically, I'm looking at purchasing a Studio XPS 1645 over the next couple of weeks (probably after I see a few reviews pop up here from early buyers) and I've got a few questions. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

• Does anyone use a Studio XPS 16 for regular software development? I'll likely be using an external mouse, so I'm not very concerned about heat under the touchpad, but what about the keyboard? Would a cooling platform be required if the laptop is running (with the battery removed) for 8 or so hours a day?
  
  
• I think that I'm going to stick with the default 4 GB of RAM, but I think I may want to add an additional 4 GB in the future; I plan to run Windows 7 natively, but do a lot of development in Windows XP under a VM. Is it difficult to locate compatible RAM and install it myself? Or will compatibility prove difficult and I'll wind up having to replace the existing 4 GB as well?
  
  
• As an aside, does anyone have any thoughts on whether it's worth spending an extra $350 on an i7 820QM? I haven't had much experience with developing on machines newer than a few years ago, so I'm not sure how much of a benefit I'll get from the upgrade. Any developers care to chime in?
  
  
• Is anyone developing with the 16" screen at 1920x1080? How are your eyes? (I don't wear glasses .. yet, heh)
  
  
• Does anyone have any experience with Dell and the teacher discount? Does that only apply to certain items and would she be able to buy the item using my credit card or Dell card?
  
  
• Lastly, why does it seem that every other day Dell adjusts the prices on the 1645? I've gotten three completely different prices so far on the same configurations, each time a bit higher than the last. You figure they'd stabilize.
  
  

Thanks for your feedback!

 

1. From what I've read from people who actually own a 1640, they say that the heat issue is a bit overblown, and you shouldn't have any problems typing on the keyboard.

2. The RAM Dell puts in this laptop is DDR3 @ 1333MHz. I don't know if that's the only kind you can put in your laptop though (maybe DDR2 will work?). But what's important is that the 4GB you get when you buy the laptop is actually 2x2GB dimm. So if you planned on upgrading to 8GB of RAM, you'd have to replace the existing RAM with 2x4GB dimm, since the 1640 has two slots for memory.

3. I originally ordered the 820 but changed my mind and switched to the 720. I would probably hardly see the benefit of the higher clock speed (though the extra cache is nice), so $350 was a lot to spend on something I may not take advantage of often.

4. I have a 17" laptop with 1920x1200 resolution, and at first everything looks really small. But shortly you adapt to it. Lowering the resolution to something like 1440x900 now looks too big and fuzzy. Of course after viewing that resolution for a while, you adapt to that so it doesn't look as bad. But I manage just fine with 1920x1200.

5. No clue. I get a student discount through my university which may be similar. 7% discount which I think is just the regular EPP discount. The XPS laptops are eligible for the discount. I bought my laptop with a debit card so no trouble there. The discount just happened to be the same as sales tax, so I could see the actual cost including tax while configuring the laptop (discount isn't applied till the item is in your cart).

6. I know! Practically every day the price would change. Which was part of the reason I waited as long as I did to order. I was afraid that the next day the price would drop and I'd kick myself.

I've waited several months to order the laptop also. What mainly got me was the mobile i7's coming out, and then the prices settled on something I was comfortable with.

 

to be really truthful, i think the ordinary P8700, P8600, T9xxx CPU is faaaaaaaaaaaaaar enough. (i guess you not going to use this laptop for hardcore 3D-rendering or Maya, etc.)

if you just going to use your laptop to games & ordinary applications you dont need any i7 CPU, (you have no need for that extra speed)

the RGB 1920x1080 does not hurts your eyes. it take some days to get used to it, then its just fun. (if you think Firefox looks to small, just use "Ctrl+Scroll" to enlarge the text)

if you going to use a 64.bit OS (win7, vista) use 4gb Ram, otherwise use 3gb...no need for more Ram if you use 32.bit OS, (and yes, Studio xps support Intel flex memory which means you run 1+2gb Ram in dual channel)

a quick look with Everest tells about Intel flex memory:___1GB DDR3 1066Mhz + 2gb DDR3 1066Mhz in Dual channel:

 

I ordered my XPS 16 with i7 720 on Sept. 25th. I ordered mine with the 4GB of memory for now. Aftermarket prices of DDR 1333 for notebooks are still pretty high. A 8GB kit cost around 600+ dollars. You will see prices come down over time. So 4GB or memory should hold me through. I have other machines with 8GB+ of memory, so if more ram is needed I can switch over to them. One of the main reasons I went with the XPS 16 is the screen and the resolution that it offers. I do programming for my work and I have a macbook 13inch. When I took that on travel a few weeks ago, it was painful to program on due to the small resolution. I do most of my work on dual 24inch monitors. So I have been spoiled with having lots of screen real estate. I am very much looking forward to getting this laptop. The quad cores will come in handy as I use virtual machines all the time. Most of my programming is in linux.

- Garrett