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

I'm realizing how small these are, does anybody want higher resolution (as if resolution could help crappy pics). My "smart" camera is too smart for its own good, and I can't get a decent pic of the backlight. My camera goes up to like 3888x2944 or something, just it'll take longer to load. This is 1280x800

 

I was aware of this, however, like someone else stated here, I've had very bad experience with it. Usually results in unreadable text or text that makes your eyes hurt because it's not very crisp at all.

Thanks for the heads up though

Don't get me wrong, it's fine for me. I'm extremely happy with this laptop and I'm one stubborn $)$)*@(*$)# to try to please

BTW, battery is still going strong. Unbelievable almost lol.

 

Vid contains backlit keyboard, tried showing the sound when I tapped the area around the touchpad...then some keyboard flex.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVBiPOW4MCg

More keyboard flex:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVvYrVOiCdQ

More tapping:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO_WoWy-xlY

Video quality's not that great, sorry.

By the way, I got windows 7 64-bit running perfectly fine now .

 

Thanks for the pictures, krap101. The Black Chainlink looks awesome. I have the same background. Yay for Halo ODST! Can't wait.

And thanks for the videos, mangakjd! The backlit keyboard looks sweet, I'm glad I decided to call and get that problem fixed!

Just wanted to add, the screen hinge is great. Opening and closing it feels satisfying. And I just can't stop stressing how amazing the screen itself is!

 

Fingerprint magnet doesn't do this computer justice.. maybe fingerprint amplifier?

Anyways, the videos get the job done, and put my ridiculously failed attempts to get the backlight pics to rest

I guess these two weren't as bad as I thought.. but I had to take like 30 loll..

 

So I just received my 14z. Does the backlit keyboard have a light sensor? I'm thinking that Dell screwed up and didn't put it in, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

I'm pretty sure it doesn't. That was one of the "perks" of the mbp

 

Those two are perfect. Can't wait to see it for myself.

 

just got my shipping number and the 2 day shipping did take =) est. delivery date is thursday. i went to best buy today and i was able to look at the laptop, i was impressed
the ruberized top is awsome and not really "rubbery" like i was afraid it was going to be.

 

No light sensor. You turn it on/off and adjust brightness with the F6 key.

 

My touchpad really sucks. I hope it's just my laptop.

 

Could you elaborate on "sucks"?

 

Randomly, the cursor won't move to where I'm trying to get it to move to. It creates like an invisible wall and then when I release it, it'll go the opposite direction. It can last from 10 seconds up to a couple minutes. One time it got so bad I could watch the cursor twitch without me even touching it. It's not something I'd like to deal with for the next couple of years, that's why I'm hoping this isn't happening to everyone. I know Alps isn't as good as Synaptics, but seriously? This is crazy.

 

Have you tried updating drivers? Otherwise you might have a faulty touchpad.

 

Nope, I will try that right now. Update it from Dell's site or elsewhere?

 

Personally I downloaded the drivers from dell, but i had to uninstall the alps driver because it made the mouse freeze when you put something in a bar (search login etc) but that might have just been me, and sounds like even if, it'd still be better than what you have now. If it fixes those problems, then the next driver should fix the freezing.

 

Well I'll try it and see how it goes, thanks.

 

I just booted up for the first time, played around in windows a little, and am now installing W7 and a clean version of vista. I really like it, but the fan is a little louder than I had anticipated

 

Really? The fan is virtually silent for me. If you're in a silent room, its a high enough pitch and soft enough to be easily ignored. Maybe it just needs to run a little? Or maybe your expectations were too high .

 

yeah my expectations were probably too high. I'm used to a watercooled desktop :/ I guess it's the high pitched nature of it that bugs me. It's really not that bad; I guess I'm just a stickler.

 

How do I uninstall the driver? It's still happening, in addition to the problem you mentioned with the update.

 

To uninstall the driver: right-click Computer > Properties > Device Manager > Mice and other pointing devices > right-click Dell Touchpad > Uninstall

I was kind of having the same problem as you. My touchpad acted funky and would go crazy if I closed and opened the lid, the left and right click buttons would get mixed up, and it would lag when playing games.

I tried reinstalling the drivers and even tried custom ones, but it still acted up. Finally I decided to reformat and install a fresh copy of Vista and everything worked perfectly.

 

Oh sorry that I didn't mention that both problems could stack.. :'(

 

for those who are concerned with DPI.

For the most part, most of the problems with DPI have been fixed with win7 and vista.

I've been running a high dpi setup all the time (120) and the only application thats given me any problem is like lancraft.exe. everything else works the way it should. it seems like if theres a problem with the display, it just displays the 90dpi version of the software for the most part.

720p + 120dpi = easy on my eyes. I like things huge and not blurry too.

 

Quick question: how do you install a 'clean' version of Vista without any additional software?

And by doing so, will it remove the so-called "software-enabled audio" that I ordered and cost me $25?

 

You can likely download that from the website. Check the support site first and confirm this before anything else though.

 

Well over the first day and a half that I've had my 14z I am very pleased. It's been said before but I'll say it again, the screen is just awesome. During that first day and a half I had already experience a couple of glitchy things on vista so I created a partition for Windows 7 and now have a dual boot system going. One thing that I have noticed is that my 14z runs cooler in 7. The fan would constantly run in visa--sometimes pretty loud. But the fan is not running nearly as hard in 7, and is very quiet or off most of the time. CPU usage drops quite a bit too in 7.

 

How does your battery life fare? Mine did decrease as others mentioned on the forum, but as long as it's more than 4 i'm okay with it.

 

I have not completely run the battery down yet to truely see, but when I first unplug it the battery meter says 4hr. 50min of battery left. Thats with the screen brightness all the way down, in the 'Dell Recommended' power setting, and not really doing anything on it, so I that estimate is over shooting it a bit. I'll have to really test it here sometime soon.

 

According to RMClock, my light usage core temps are around 35c, but the fan is on pretty loud most of the time, and occassionally goes off. I'm going to try undervolting, but is there any other way you guys know of that we can control the fan? I tried installing i8kfangui but no dice (in W7)

 

Not sure what your specs are, MrC22. I'm a P8600 with the 900p screen and I tend to get 4h18 when first unplugged.

I posted in the undervolting thread this morning that last night I got 4 hours in a real-use test with a shut down at 7% power left, which would have been good for another 20 minutes or so. The test included 22 minutes of full-screen video with sound. The keyboard was lit for most of the time and brightness was 2 or 3 levels from the bottom, using the Power Saver setting tweaked to not allow the screen to turn off. This was pretty much constant, if light, use, with wireless N networking on. So I think 5 hours or so in real-life might be attainable.

Right now I'm running a video playback test using 720p .mkv files running full screen in VLC media player. I'll update on that later. I also ran a test playing the Sims3 on the weekend, where I got only 2 hours life, but of course that stresses the CPU and graphics to the max.

 

This is why I haven't done a clean install yet as well. I also don't want to lose the Dell Webcam Central, I actually like that.

 

Webcam Central can definitely be downloaded freely, since they don't charge for it. The audio application should be on the back-up discs that shipped with the system if you ordered it.

 

UPDATE:

Received my 14z this morning - less than 24 hours after shipping!

I've only been playing it with for about an hour now, but here are my initial thoughts.

The good news:

My config was exactly as ordered.

Overall aesthetics are good, with the chainlink keyboard frame being particularly nice (also see aesthetics under bad news below).

Slimmer/smaller/lighter than I was expecting. The width (or front to back depth) is almost exactly the same as my 13.3 Sharp and Macbook, the height of the screen at a 90 deg angle is almost exactly the same as my Macbook and actually lower than my Sharp and the length (i.e. side to side) is only half an inch more than either. It's noticeably lighter than my Macbook and about as slim, although its wedge shape makes it look a bit slimmer with the display open. Overall, it basically looks and feels like a 13.3" notebook with an unusually wide screen.

The 900p display is fantastic just as everyone else has said.

Keyboard has great feel and responsiveness.

The power brick is slim - about half as thick as my Sharp and about 2/3rds the thickness of my Macbook.

The Bad News:

I have the dreaded wobble, although it's not actually all that bad. The front left rubber pad on the bottom sits about half a millimeter off the surface, so when I put my hands on the keyboard, the base rocks down ever so slightly.

The display, while great, is actually a 1/4 inch shorter than the displays on my 13" Sharp and Macbook. It's obviously quite a bit wider, but still this came as a bit of a surprise. The result is that while intellectually I know the screen does have more overall real estate, my perception is that it's about the same, just in a different aspect ratio.

While the overall aesthetics are good, the glossy black display bezel and the gloss black plastic around and above the keyboard look cheap. The bezel in particular looks really bad in my opinion, particularly in comparison to notebooks with edge to edge glass displays.

The touchpad is fine as long as you don't enable scrolling. As soon as I enabled scrolling, I started experiencing the same problems noted by others here. As soon as I turned scrolling off, it went back to normal. Since I use a separate mouse 99% of the time, this isn't really an issue for me, but I have to say that if I were a heavy touchpad user, this would be a deal killer for me. The lack of multi-touch is weak enough, but to not be able to scroll without causing glitches is unacceptable.

The lighting for the backlit keyboard leaks out in front of and behind the function keys. While this doesn't diminish the effectiveness of the backlighting, it does destroy the coolness factor as it makes it look cheaply/poorly done, particularly in comparison to MBPs.

Overall Impression:

This may sound odd, but I was actually expecting to be disappointed and to want to return this notebook. I've been having serious buyer's remorse for being cheap and not ordering a MBP and had already mentally prepared myself for the possibility that I'd be sending the 14z right back and buying the MBP. Instead however, and notwithstanding my initial criticisms as noted above, I'm pretty impressed and will be keeping it (barring any further problems). My main issues are with aesthetics and build quality, and in all honesty, those issues aren't significant enough for me to be able to justify forking over the extra $500 that it would take to comparably outfit a MBP. My only remaining reservation is that maybe I should have waited until the Lenovo U450P came out, but there are so few concrete specs available on the Lenovo that I'm not really bothered by that either (although if it gets launch in the next month with equal or better specs I might be).

I'll continue to report as I install W7 and have some further time under the belt.

 

The only driver I have installed so far is the Nvidia driver for windows 7. Everything works fine so far and nothing has been severely impacted. Windows feels spiffy and fast.

I stick by the less I install, the better.

I can confirm the cheap backlight problem but I wasn't expecting magic either. The wobble is unfortunate though. It might be the cause of poor construction due to overtorque of a screw you can try to fix that though. On the flip side, the color lids definitely gives the 14z a much more solid and refined feel so if $40 or black isn't a major concern, i recommend going for it.

I especially like how theres nothing fancy about this laptop. The sound on it is great btw. Muchos better than every laptop I've heard with this price range.

 

Can someone run crystaldiskmark and show their results? For my 320gb 5400rpm drive, im getting

SEQ- 45 read, 45 write
512k- 28 read, 35 write
4k, .5read, 1.65write

 

Ya I have the P8600 and 900p screen as well. I unplugged it again and it gave me 4hr 39min. Thats with the backlit keyboard off too, but I'm sure once I start doing things it would drop some to about what you were getting. Overall your battery test sounds about right. I might try to really test mine tonight.

 

about that fan noise issue I was talking about... Apparently the audio control process was constantly using 50% cpu so that's why the fan was going crazy at all times. Trying to resolve the problem...

 

My 720p video test finished up at 3 hours of full-screen playback. Might get more with DVD-quality. But I guess all in all my experience represents a good range. Drive it as hard as possible and you get 2 hours. Normal hard use gets 3 and use it as a work/internet PC and you get 4+.

The power supply is pretty portable so really the only issue is being away from a power source for more than four hours.

 

@krick

Great overview about the system. Sorry about your wobble though, I guess it's more common that I originally thought..

Would it be possible to upload pictures comparing the 14z to your Macbook and Sharp? There aren't many comparison pictures up yet and I think everyone would really appreciate it. I'm pretty curious myself!

I had the scrolling issue too. If you reformat it, everything should work fine. Dell probably screwed up somewhere when installing the OS and drivers.. Since you're installing Windows 7 anyways, you should be able to enable scrolling and use the touchpad without any frets.

 

So after about 2.5 hours of phone calls with tech support, customer care, both of there managers I finally got escalated to tier 3 tech (which just so happens to be in the US) and they're going to send me out a whole new computer because they left the back-lit keyboard out of mine.

I had 7 people tell me that sending just the keyboard for me to install was "not an option."

I hate that I have to get super frustrated before I can get anything done with Dell support. I think this might be the last Dell I buy.

 

I'll try to although I may not get to it today. Also, thanks about the reformatting/touchpad advice - I'll see how it goes after I install W7.

I've also just received the Dell external eSATA DVD drive (which was supposed to come a full week ahead of the 14z but because my 14z came so early it ended up trailing by half a day). Haven't used it yet but from a fit/finish/design perspective - it's great. Not only does it perfectly match the 14z (albeit sans chainlink), but the fit and finish are great (better than the 14z) and the integrated retracting cable is a huge plus. It also comes with a nice neoprene sleeve and a short extension cable.

In my earlier post I forgot to mention the shipping packaging, for which I think Dell should be applauded. I'm so used to getting hugely oversized boxes containing tiny electronic items that I was downright shocked when FedEx delivered the 14z in a box about the size of a home theater receiver. Aside from it being less wasteful, it also made unboxing and will make trash disposal much easier.

In stark contrast, however, I also need to mention the shipping packaging for the DVD drive, for which I think Dell should be derided. The DVD drive is roughly 1/5 to 1/4 the size of the 14z with no separate power cord or transformer. The only accessories that come with it are the neoprene sleeve and a 1ft extension cable. Yet the shipping box it came in is twice the size of the 14z box. When UPS delivered it, my first thought was that maybe Dell had sent me two 14z's by accident, except I couldn't figure out why the second one would come in such a larger box. But then I lifted the box, felt it's negligble weight, and realized that it was just the drive.

 

For those having problems with the "wobble", every single case that I've come across (mine, the digital home review guy, and a couple others) was due to a non-flat table. My 14z wobbles on this plastic table I have beside me, and on my "mousepad (oven pan thing) but is totally fine on my table (cheapy ikea table) and on my kitchen table (glass top), oh and the kitchen island.

Also, for people getting 4+ hours, is this without wireless etc? I can only break 4 hours if I disable wireless, turn off audio (not sure if this is a big deal)

 

I get around 6 hours after undervolting with wireless on and screen brightness on the lowest setting. Of course, it depends on your configuration and what OS you're running.

 

I don't doubt your experiences, but I have place my 14z on various surfaces throughout my house, each of which resulted in a wobble. For comparison sake, I then placed my Sharp and MB on each of the same surfaces, and had no wobble on any of those surfaces. While I suppose it is theoretically possible that each of those surfaces was uneven in exactly the same fashion not only as each other but as the bottom of each of my other notebooks and that my 14z is actually perfectly even, I think you would have to agree that's highly unlikely.

 

I spent the same amount of time on the phone, and got the same result. The idiot kept trying to activate the backlit keyboard. He constantly told me to press F6, install this, install that. OBVIOUSLY THERE'S NO BACKLIGHT. I kept my cool though..surprisingly.

 

Sometimes you get a muppet, sometimes you get a good tech rep. I recently had a problem with my DVD / Blu-ray drive being unable to read discs that I could read in an external drive connected to the same computer. Techie was trying to install codecs first, then a new media player, and only then did they check the drivers. The first two steps were completely pointless, and I did tell them that.

Still, I tried again a couple of days later, and the tech rep I got was pretty good to be fair. I know my way around a computer or two, having built my first one before many of you were probably born, back when you didn't have hard disks, but instead you had 5 1/4" floppy disks that were genuinely floppy, and 640K base memory was maximum. The tech rep I spoke to last of all sounded like he knew as much as me or more to be honest.

If only they were all that good.

 

Hmm, would the 900p vs 720p and the t6500 make that much of a difference?

 

I didn't expect it to be that big of a difference. I'm running Vista, though. If you're using Windows 7 you probably read about people having lesser battery life.

Did you enable "Dell Extended Battery Life"? If not, press F3 and do so. I found that it helps a lot!