---> OFFICIAL: Dell STUDIO 14z Owner's Lounge <---

There should be a small button to press on the battery, which illuminates a certain number of white or green LED lamps on the battery. One is almost empty, five is fully charged.

 

I've never used any of these before, but from what I read around here, these protectors look tacky when put on. Air bubbles are hard to take out and you have to be extremely careful to get it on perfectly without dust and bubbles. I also considered getting a matte screen protector from buyviewguard.com but now that I look at my 14z screen, I like it the way it is. If you put it down a little and adjust the brightness down, there isn't a lot of glare...maybe it's just my room but I don't notice the glare unless my screen is black.

 

For some reason I had no problem registering it the day I got it, but others have since reported problems. They said they were able to do it by phoning Dell. Raises the question, which is worse - paying for Windows 7 or speaking to a Dell rep?

 

Thanks, that's exactly what I was afraid of. I guess I won't waste money on those.

 

I think the problem is that Dell enters the computer's service tag into that Windows 7 upgrade web site database at some later day, that's why some users have to wait 2-4 days or longer after they receive the computer. If you want it right away, then sure, call Dell.

 

I do not like the touchpad. It's (not exactly) unresponsive sometimes. I'll try to move the cursor, and it won't move while I'm touching it, but as soon as I take my hand off it will move in the opposite direction. It doesn't happen 90% of the time, but it's still fairly annoying when it happens.

 

That's a pretty common glitch with Alps touchpads. My old Studio 1535 had one, and it did the same thing. My new 1555's Synaptics touchpad doesn't do that.

 

I'm pretty stoked that you guys are finally starting to receive your laptops!

I hope all of you love it as much as me. The 14z is personally one of the best laptops I've seen.

 

It completely has a mind of it's own sometimes. Is there any fix for this?

 

I laughed at this. I would have lost the delivery pool for my 14z which started out at 7/25 when ordered on 7/10, then went to 7/31, then 8/1, then 8/4, then 8/6. It was attempted for delivery at my dad's house today (he's home all day working, yet somehow missed it *argh*).

On the other hand, I ninja ordered a 2209WA LCD through a cached page (go go google!) and the original delivery estimate was 10/6, but it's already on its way here lol.

edit-

BTW I'm considering ordering a backlit keyboard for mine. I was initially against adding it because I figured if I had the screen up I wouldn't have any problems seeing the keyboard anyways, and I figured it was just another thing to drain the battery. If I order, I'll post backlit/no-backlit figures for battery life with the 8-cell. Probably insignificant, but some might want to know.

 

Not really. It's just a result of manufacturing laptops with low-quality Alps touchpads.

 

Ditto. The left clicker isn't as responsive as it should be, which is sort of annoying me. I want to click something but it doesn't click until 2-3 times...or a rough click.

@Interitus,
You should get it, it's sexy

 

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=803606

maybe this will help? not sure if this is the problem your having exactly but it's worth a shot

 

Hm, it's not that though, but thanks anyway. I got used to it a little, not hating it so much now. I'm not using the left click, instead I'm clicking with the touchpad.

Anyone notice a flicker whenever you click on something like a program? Is that studio 14z related or Vista retarded?

 

I wasn't a big fan of the touchpad either. Something didn't feel right after switching from a Synaptics. I got used to it after using it for awhile, though. It might just be me, but it seems to be a lot more responsive when the Dell Touchpad settings are set to default.

 

LG Screen related.

I don't think it's just you; I changed the setting last night by activating the chiral scrolling. After I did that, the thing went nuts.

 

If changing software settings from factory default to your own and then having problems...wouldn't this be able to be fixed with an updated driver or basic software update?

 

Yes, but the main question is will it be updated.

 

Here is the world's only (or so it seems from this thread) purple 14z.

It's sitting on a Studio 17's lap

 

If we make enough hype about it they might

 

Nice, how do you like it so far?

 

I installed Windows 7 RC on my Studio 14z and I can't seem to get the 5 hours and 30 minutes of battery life anymore. Anyone know a solution?

It's also freezing up once in a while. Or runs poorly/slow.
It froze when I was downloading drivers on Dell's download manager. It eventually gets itself out of the frozen state but takes a long time.

 

I tried out PCSX2 and couldn't get the video to work. I created an ISO of GGX2 and it worked fine on my computer with the automatic plugins/settings, but for some reason the screen stays black when I try to run it on the 14z.

I think I'm loading the ISO incorrectly... I tried all of the plugins and none of them worked. An interesting speculation though; I was able to get to the PS2 loading/home screen and I got around 50FPS. Hopefully this FPS sticks when playing games.

Can anybody link me to a guide that can help me run it on this notebook?

 

@nilosays

What are your settings in PCSX2?

YARR!
}:^)~
GoodManCorrupt

 

Good news!

It seems that there is another ubuntu linux 14z success story:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1194751&page=2 post#20


YARR!
}:^)~
Corrupt Linux

 

I'm running it as well (32-bit) and haven't had the freezing, but can confirm the low reported battery life. I've never actually tried to run it down on battery power though. Have you? It may be an issue of poor estimates, rather than poor battery life. Can anyone recommend a testing app?

 

Damn. I'm running 64-bit...i thought it would be a good idea to do 64-bit since the original OS for the studio 14z is 64-bit... It's freezing up frequently. Especially that Dell Driver Download Manager + taking off some features in Windows Features + Installing Windows Updates. It's doing a poor job multitasking =\ or is it just not possible to do all that? I have a P8600 Processor...

Ok. This is frustrating the hell out of me. I cancelled the updates after it froze up the other stuff (Dell Driver Download Manager & Windows Features settings), then shut it down. It applied the updates and now it shows "Shutting down..." for 10+ minutes but it's not shutting down =_= so I'm just waiting.

Would installing 32-bit make it better?

 

Normally one would run 64-bit. I have a specific work-related need to run 32-bit. I'm pretty sure there are others here running 64-bit without problems.

Did you do Windows 7 as an upgrade or a clean install? Mine was a clean install.

 

No, but not using 3rd party software would Usually, those download managers, etc. are poorly written and I recommend getting rid of them completely. You can accomplish the same with built-in Windows tools.

 

Has anyone purchased a nice sleeve-type case for the 14z yet? I wasn't particularly fond of the ones on the Dell site. I'd prefer something navy blue as well to match my 14z's midnight blue color if possible.

Also decided not to purchase at Dell because I found a Built-NY sleeve for my girlfriend's Inspiron 1521 when she bought it for half the price Dell was asking for it.

 

I haven't received it yet, but I've heard good reviews for the zeroshock III, which seems alot more "protective" than the neoprene cases, but if you just want like scratch protection, neoprene should be okay. (well that's what other people say.. I haven't made up my mind yet) You can get a neoprene sleeve of ebay for like 5$ shipped, while the zeroshock is around $30-35

 

woot woot, just ordered mine after months and months of looking for a laptop.

Anyone know which size is the right fit for the zeroshock sleeves?
edit: nvm shipping to Canada cost $23!!!

 

Well, i'm getting the 14/14.1 (not sure which) off ebay. The seller gives the inner dimensions, and it checks out with what I've found online (haven't actually measured the laptop yet.. Once again I haven't gotten it yet, but it seems like an almost perfect fit.

 

I thought the laptop is 14.4", but I know that those bags/sleeves are usually a bit larger, so it should fit nicely.

 

So in spite of my request for them to delay delivery until monday, the delivery guy showed up early saturday morning, luckily before we left, and gave it to us. I have it now, but i haven't really had time to play around with it.

I haven't started to set it up yet because i wanted to put win 7 on it, but apparently a bunch of people have had trouble with it. Are those isolated incidents, or should I hold off on installing?

That being said, it's gorgeous. I'm not regretting the green at all. the backlit keyboard makes me envious, and I own the thing. I love the long battery life, and everything for me is in working order - no screen flicker, sits firmly on table, no OS woes.

The problem now is switching full time to this machine. There's so much to be done it makes my head spin. will post some pics soon - probably tomorrow evening.

 

I attached a JPEG of my configuration page.

I installed Windows 7 and didn't have any major issues. One problem I can attest to, though, is the decreased battery life -- I was getting 4-4.5hrs in 7, which is about an hour less than in Vista.

 

Would someone be kind enough to post a picture with the backlit keyboard on? After that last post by Karan it kind of makes me want to have it..

 

Wow that zeroshock looks nice! I had shopped around on eBags for a bit and came up with 2 others I might like:

The Sumdex Aircube - Call me a dork but this would just make me lol a bit every time I pulled out the lappy

http://www.ebags.com/sumdex/aircube_14_1_checkpoint_friendly_notebook_sleeve/product_detail/index.cfm?modelid=138541

And then I liked the fact that this Case Logic bag was blue and had a small compartment for the AC adapter and even a USB stick/dongle

http://www.ebags.com/case_logic/14_1_laptop_sleeve/product_detail/index.cfm?modelid=120365

 

Just realized that newegg has both of these cheaper.

$19.99 and $17.99 respectively and about $5 shipping.

EBags had free shipping on both of the sleeves when I looked a few hours ago but it seems to have disappeared, making them both around $37 shipped

 

I messed around with the settings and was able to get 25-30FPS in Guilty Gear X2. I'm a newb when it comes to emulation.. Are there any ways to make it run more smoothly?

 

A friend of mine has been using a Zeroshock case for his 13" Dell XPS for years. It is by far one of the best laptop cases I have seen and used, and really does provide more impact protection than neoprene would. It is basically padded with memory foam that is denser than, say, what you'd find in a tempur-pedic bed. It has also held up quite well and shows no signs of wear and tear.

 

I've been looking at that caselogic also

 

any notice any issue with 3 GB of ddr3 ram? I'm used to my macbook pro's 4 gb ddr 3 and previosu laptop's 4GB DDR 2 ram.....anyone been in the same shoe and can tell me how much if any difference/slowness having 3 GB instead of 4 causes...?

 

It totally depends on what you do. I'm sure rendering images/video would chug ram, and you might see a difference. Generally most people don't really notice, since they usually don't max out. It might also be slower in really graphically intense games.

 

I was also wondering if you guys could post your idle wattages? my idle is 15-17w, and surfing the web is 17-23w.

 

@nilosays,

One way to get higher game speeds is with 'frame skipping'. Of course this will not make the game run smoother, but closer to native speed which certainly makes it more playable. In general, it may require very fast hardware in order to make the game run at full 60fps with no skipping. I don't suspect the 14z to be capable of this, but I could be wrong.

The best advice I can offer to is to play around with different combinations of configurations to get better speeds.

Let us know how it goes!


YARR!
}:^)~
60cps (capt'n-per-second)

 

It was the Dell Driver Download Manager. I had to run that, otherwise I can't get my dell drivers. And it doesn't download, just a one-time run thing. I don't have an external optical drive... It's a clean install, there are no junk programs and I'm really clean about those things.
Anyway, it's not only that problem. It takes several minutes for my dell to shut down and start up and I did a clean install. Am I suppose to format the recovery drive too? I only partitioned the OS hard drive...

I have some pictures of my Dell Studio 14z with the Zeroshock III 14.1" case. In my opinion, it is too big...

Midnight Blue :]
http://yfrog.com/86hpim2329j

http://yfrog.com/9fhpim2335j

http://yfrog.com/9fhpim2345j

http://yfrog.com/0ihpim2346bj

 

I believe the 16:9 screen ratio is a bit of a boutique size for the moment, so we'll have to wait until it gets more popular for laptops.

 

It's only bigger in height, and perfect in width.

 

I wouldn't want it sliding around inside the skin. I'd want it to fit perfectly.