Review of Scratch and Dent Studio XPS 13

I had an Inspiron 1420 and I installed Windows 7, I could not get the wifi working with the dell drivers, so I had to reformat my entire computer. I was able to sell my 1 year old Inspiron 1420 for $525 on ebay. Then I found notebookreview.com and the fourms, now I am happier than ever that I did!

Received my scratch and dent studio xps 13 from Dell
Ordered on Tuesday 4/21/09 at midnight. Arrived 4/24/09 7:55pm Friday
Shipped from Tennessee to Pennsylvania

Specs: Studio XPS 13
P8600 2.4ghz
4gb ddr3
320gb 7200rpm
WLED screen
Wifi 1515 n
Bluetooth

Cost: $729 dell outlet + 15% off coupon (expires 5/1/09)
With tax and shipping $656

Time on Dell Outlet website hitting the refresh button: 3 hours to find the studio xps 13 outlet pc for $729 with WLED screen
Most had LCD.. so I had to keep checking every 5 minutes for a couple of hours

Looks:
Looked almost brand new when I opened it up

one word.. awesome.. design is very sharp looking, blacklit keys are really nice
Small surface scratches hardly noticeable on the top of the laptop..have to look at it in the light at a certain angle to notice the scratches. When I opened it up it looked really nice, keyboard is brand new, no scratches of any kind on the inside.

Design: Very good, I have no wobbling problems, on a flat table now.. no issues. When you open this up the keyboard seems pretty big.. It definitely does not feel like a 13 inch laptop.. the keyboard looks like it could be on a 15 inch laptop. Lots of extra space for your palms etc

Weight: not a problem at all even if you had to carry it with you

Keyboard: Typing on it now.. Definitely there is a learning curve to it as I am used to smaller keyboard with the keys closer. I watched that video of the other person showing keyboard keys were loose.. I noticed that some keys are looser than others but as I am typing on it now I have no problems whatsoever. After 20 minutes I noticed the oil from my fingers showing as smudges on every single key (again only in certain light can you see this) but it does not bother me at all. The sound buttons and eject button works great on the keyboard

Trackpad: Very small, learning curve here also but its not a deal breaker. Very responsive

Monitor: LED screen is beautiful and totally kills my old Inspiron 14 inch LCD. So clear and bright
I would not trade it for anything, also looks brand new. I did notice that the monitor hardly blocks the fan on the bottom.. not a problem. The heat on the left of the monitor is slightly warm but not hot. The 1200x800 display is the perfect size for the monitor

Heat: I received the laptop, put in my 64bit windows cd and reinstalled, then upgraded the bios to A06 Both cores run between 41 and 45 C , Have noticed this creeping up to 50 C sometimes but never over 50
A little warmer than other laptops I have used but not a problem at all. The laptop feels warm (but I would not say it is hot.. Even if I put my hand under the laptop it is only warm. The palm rests are comfortable and slightly warm but nothing bad. When I was doing the windows reinstall from the cd, when I put my hand under it, it was very hot.. the A06 bios update really helped cool it down!

Performance: Fastest laptop I have ever used and now owned.
Add/Remove programs loads in less than second.
Word, Excel, Powerpoint load in 2 seconds
If I hit the power button and put this into sleep mode.. walk away and then open up the lid again, it comes back up in less than 3-5 seconds.
Windows vista 64 loads very quickly

Sound: Good and loud, same as any other laptop

Fan: Bios A06 update seems to have the fan running all the time now.. I do not have any problem with it. It is very quiet and it does not run 100% of the time either

Battery Life: Regular 6 cell battery.. not sure how old this battery is but I think with wifi on, Screen brightness on max, giving me 2 1/2 hours
Might need to upgrade to the 9 cell in the future, but it works fine for now

HDMI: Plugged it into the tv.. looks really nice but I cannot get sound to work yet.. I was trying to play a tv show from fox.com through Internet Explorer.. Video worked very good, but sound was not working.. still need to look into this more

Games: Only played on Miniclip.com..nothing intensive

Cdrom: Works ok, makes some strange sounds.. I need to test burning some dual layer dvd's before I decide to keep this to make sure it works properly.

Any other questions let me know

Pictures Below. Pictures were taken after about 4 hours of use
Keyboard looked brand new when I bought it, but the pictures of the keyboard are there showing the use.

Pictures are here:

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Thanks

Daniel

 

awesome, your camera is a 24 megapixel one/!!!
huge pix size!

 

Nah, looks more like a 8-10MP one. Anyways, congrats on the purchase.

 

i have a scratch & dent studio 1340 still sealed in box.

mine is cheap for its specs(has a samsung 128gb ssd),
but magichat definitely beats me out on the price.

thats a great deal.

 

I forgot to mention.. it has the standard on board video.. I was not able to get the upgraded video card for that price, but I have no need to play games so it is fine for me.. But the one with the video card I think on the outlet runs $700-775

7.2 megapixels Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3

It is a fingerprint magnet.. I still don't mind though =D

 

On your trouble with sound over HDMI, right click on the volume icon in the taskbar, and ensure that the default playback device is set to HDMI. The easiest way to do this is to right click speakers and disable it.

Hope this helps

 

neither does mine has upgraded gpu. infact, buying a 13.3" for gaming is a common mistake with pc novices, there is no way pc makers can cool down overheated components in a thin 13.3 chassis.

 

I connected it to my tv.. but now my laptop shows fine
but the tv just shows my background of the laptop and I see no icons or start button or anything.. just the background

 

I think I screwed up the setup in my display settings.. not sure how to fix this

 

That's how it's supposed to work. Your TV is just an extension of your display. So in effect you have a 3840x1080 (or 2756x768) desktop. To understand what I'm saying, move your mouse to the most right or most left side. You should see your mouse move from one screen to the next.

 

I will give it a try.. I also noticed today that the laptop gets really really hot depending on what surface you have it on.. I had it sitting on the couch and I had a feeling the fan vent would be blocked.. It felt really hot yet the cpu readings were only 40/40.. Still not a deal breaker because I love this laptop.. Would not trade it for anything else on the market for $650

 

If you don't want the extended display option, you can also change the setting under ATI Catalyst Control Center if I'm not mistaken. So that you see the same thing on your screen and external monitor/TV.

 

Nice review & pics you provided there! You got a great deal, also!

Cin

 

I received my system and there's only two small scratches on the cover. Not noticeable unless you look very closely. I got it with 15% coupon, comes out to about ~$720. No stuck or dead pixel. I immediately updated the bios A06 and burner firmware. Fresh installed Windows 7 x64 (RC 7100) on it with the new drivers from dell except I keep default nvidia (newer). So far running great with no issue. Laptop is warm, I guessed due to 5400rpm hd and 9400m, and I can certainly use on my lap. I can get about 2.75 hrs from normal use out of the 6cell battery.

Studio XPS 13 (1340) Laptop: Intel Core 2 Duo P9600 (6MB cache/2.66GHz/1066Mhz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
System Price : $809.00
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Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
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Memory
4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz (2 DIMMs)
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Hard Disk Drive
250 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
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Video
nVidia GeForce MCP79MX
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Network Interface Card
Dell Wireless 1515 802.11a/g/n WLAN half Mini Card
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Hardware Upgrade
6 Cell Primary Battery
125V Power Cord
65W AC Adapter
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Software Upgrade
Windows Live
Microsoft Works 9.0
Facial Recognition Version 2.3
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Web Camera
Integrated 1.3M Pixel Webcam
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Scratch & Dent
Scratch & Dent
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Laptop Screen
13.3 inch HD WXGA Edge-to-Edge Slim Laptop screen W/LED with 1.3 Megapixel Camera
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Media Bay
8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
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Base
Studio XPS 13 (1340) Laptop: Intel Core 2 Duo P9600 (6MB cache/2.66GHz/1066Mhz FSB)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bluetooth Wireless
Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module
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System Color
Obsidian Black with Leather Accent

 

I guess you got an ok deal compared to my deal
You got a smaller, slower hard drive
but a faster processor

2.4 vs 2.66 and you spent $150 more.. but jumping from the 2.4 to 2.66 I think really is a $150 difference.. You can always upgrade and get a 7200 hard drive if you wanted to

 

Okay I've been using my new laptop for about a week now.. The battery life totally sucks.. getting like 2 hours
I really need a 9 cell battery...

 

Yep it sucks. Other laptops around the 13.3" size I know of have a much better battery life and don't get nowhere near as hot as this thing.

 

I was using it last night on my lap and I did not have a problem at all.. How much is the 9 cell battery run me? in usa?

 

I was using it last night on my lap and I did not have a problem at all (until the battery drained after 2 hrs).. How much is the 9 cell battery ? in teh usa?

 

thank for suggest!!