1520 Reality

My 1520 is being shipped and for the past two weeks I've been reading all the reviews, problems, and less so, the praise.
I've started to notice the same users bringing up the same problem about the 1520 on multiple threads. It's really been blurring my perception of the 1520 because I cannot tell if the complaints are coming from MANY people or just from those few who keep repeating it.
So..
Are there any people who'd like to speak about their satisfaction with the 1520? And are there really that many people who are having problems?

 

I think it's quite natural that the most vocal will be the people having the problems. I too have noticed a select few people starting several threads regarding their dissatisfaction, less with the 1520 specifically but with Dell's customer service and in general. I think the noise over the issues has really gotten out of scope.

I'm sure some will pipe up about their satisfaction, now that you've explicitly asked for it.

 

Tooz, I've been wondering the same thing. Though I'm excited about the laptop, everytime I read one of those threads I feel more regret for have ordering the 1520, especially the threads on the grainyness (word?) of the WSXGA+ screen. I've come close to canceling a couple times this week (mine is scheduled to ship Monday). I think I'll wait it out and decide for myself when (if) it comes next week.

 

When people are satisfied with their laptop or have no complaints I think they are less likely to post about it, or even log onto forums like these in the first place, because they're busy using it lol. The issues of grainy screen and headphone jack seem to be affecting alot of users, but its hard to tell whether they represent a majority of 1520 user experiences or just a select minority. A year ago when I bought my E1705 I heard horror stories about its screen as well, but after I received it I didn't see what the big deal was.

 

I will be the first to admit, that I am a little frustrated with Dell, but.... I am VERY looking forward to getting the laptop, 1520 which should be at my house before 3pm. Out for delivery now. With that said, I am not "nitpicky" which means I don't complain about every little creak or grey vs white.

Why is everyone so mad a Dell, cause their is so much demand and not enough supply. This means they must be doing something right, cause they are getting so many orders they can't keep up with the. And you wouldn't get that many orders if you have a bad product. Dell makes good stuff. I am excited as anyone to try mine out today. I don't have all the benchmark tools and stuff, and I will try to dig up some games to try out. The bottom line, try not to have buyers remorse. Get the laptop, try it for yourself, and make a good educated decision on whether you like it or not.

Best Wishes,

SXO792

 

Yea honestly, people have complained ENDLESSLY about the m1210 screen, and I think I got the bad one and don't even notice! Its a laptop, i'm not expecting it to be on par with my 20" ultrasharp I do my photography work on.

I think a lot of people on these forums have a little education in computers, but don't know what to do with it. They want to use the paltry amount of geek knowledge they have, but can only exercise it by complaining.

 

Reality is more than ten people complainted about the screen, and about 5 people complainted about the headphone jack. It is work-able laptop but would you keep it if you spent more than 1 grand?

 

I cannot talk about someone else's headphone jack, but mine was terrible. The whole "6bit screen" "GDDR2" thing might be some kind of panic, since most of laptops use them. But still, LCD I saw sub-par.

Yep. I think ultimately 1520 was made to compete with likes of sub 1000$ Acers. However, since it allows some performance configurations - 8600GT, 7200RPM HDD, 2.2ghz C2D - many people, including myself bought it as an alternative to, say, G1S. Now, while 1520 is cheaper than likes of G1S, FZ, or MBP, it still is an expensive laptop when ordered with such configuration. And for something expensive, I found the quality to be unaaceptable. I don't think it generated such complaints if it was Acer Celeron laptop, but it isn't.

 

hey tooz.
I recieved my 1520 3 days back and when i opened it, first thing I did was check my headphone jack. And there it was the noise. SO the same day I shipped it back to get it repaired. I am not quite sure if there is any other problem since I only got to use it for 10 mins max. but I am hoping it can be fixed. if not well sucks to be me.

 

I'm starting to get bummed out about these negative posts...

Being that this Laptop is my first laptop in over 15 years of using computers... I'm really being put off by the entire idea of it all

I have never had problems with any of my desktops, with the exception of one stick of ram... if so many are having problems with a single computer - what should I be looking forward to?

 

What kinda noise are oyu guys hearing, is this your first experience with SigmaTel audio and are you using crappy earbuds? I mean, as far back as I remmeber, if you didn't have good headphones that shielded out the electric interference spectrum (senheiser, HK, Bose) then you would hear a ton of static on ever dell laptop produced. And the same for apple, gateway, etc etc.

 

Dont go crazy. The hardware itself I like. I can just do without dells horrible customer service.

Put it this way . I was able to take my whole dead 1520 apart and get it working my self and put it back togther with everything working but the camera (I think this was dead from the start) . So the notebook can't be that bad.

I am still waiting for the replacement. After getting no answers from customer service as to when my replacement would arrive I asked tech support if I could take the notebook apart and fix it myself until the replacement came and they said yes and that my warranty would not be void.


So dont worry. I think the notebook itself is a greap value for the price.

 

I guess you just have to wait and see...the inspirons havn't been out long at all, which means there aren't that many out there to judge by. I think everyone posting their second thoughts on ordering/canceling makes it seem like it's more of a widespread problem than it could be.

Possibly it could be like cars too...most of the recalls and bugs happen with the cars coming first off the assembly line. The next group of cars generally have fewer problems. Hard to say...I'm no expert on computer assembly but just trying to think from a different angle.

 

My main PC headphone ATM is AKG K26P, which, while not very expensive, is well regarded headphone and is definitely not cheap. My old KOSS, again not cheap, picked up equivalent noises. Neither has much static on the jack on my old FS, unless I raise volume too much. Besides, I've read somewhere that someone is having issue with higher-end Sen as well. Actually, of all headphones/earbuds I tried, 15$ Audio-technica(they make great headphones, but this one is cheap) fared best (least noise, I mean) as apparently it is made for cheap electric like this. Too bad, as it is not very good-sounding headphone, and it was still noisy.

Besides, not only static, but also there's several "whining" present, which makes it on headphone and very, very loud. Too bad I cannot make you listen to K26P on 1520 jack and see how terrible it is for yourself, and also how nice K26P can sound on my iAudio.

That is possible, as some companies do fix problems in later variations of the same model, such as Apple with MBP. However, in that case, it is better to wait until hearing reports of problems being gone.

 

Alright, i know, its disappointing... it seems like the quality of a lot of laptops is going downhill. When I listened to the first powerbook (even tho i dislike macs) I had to admit, it had the cleanest audio of any laptop I had ever heard. As of late, theirs are as bad as dells. I suppose I was lucky, my old Inspiron 5200 has a good bit of background static, but the m1210 is pretty much crystal clear except for the occasional pop (bose headphones filter it out). As far as I can tell, there is no "xps premium" on the SigmaTel audio, except it has an HD affixed to it... think its the same sound card tho. Most of this has to do with how closer they positioned the processor and hard driver to the line running from the soundcard to the jack.

 

I was one of the people that complained about the grainy screen BUT, I think it was only really noticeable to me because I have my Dell 1505 sitting right next to it that has a beautiful looking screen.

Anyway, I'm really happy with the 1520 as far as build quality, performance, etc. Also, with the 9 cell battery I'm getting 4:45 mins with a full charge which is great! I didn't get the ear buds but with my full size headphones I'm not hearing any noise.

 

I can put up with poor customer service (Nothing will compare to the horrible experience I have with Bell Canada), but I don't want hardware problems.

 

A friend's 1520 arrived today, and I played around with it for a while.. my first impression was that it's heavy. Exceedingly so. And that was with a 6 cell. I am used to pretty heavy 15.4 inchers(Had a Asus F3Jp), but this one was bigger by quite some bit, and heavier too. It certainly looks a little better than the older 1505, but that's not saying much.
Didn't test out any games since I was rather pressed for time, but the overall feel wasn't great... Perhaps it's just me..

Thought I'd share a non-buyer's experience.

 

It's better to just wait and see; you can always return it if you don't like it. There are some really wonderful things about the computer.

 

Of course I'm waiting to see mine. Hopefully I don't have the same problems as some of the people I've read about. It just gets a little weary when people are constantly describing all their problems. Hopefully things turn out alright.

 

ok... can someone post a picture of the "grainy" screen? or are there pictures already posted? I am getting a vostro 1500, i hope its no thte same thing?

 

There is a lot of truth in this... whether it is cars, software, or hardware. I also build desktop PCs and my experience is new motherboards usually have more teething problems, requiring more BIOS updates (to work around the bugs) than more mature ones.

 

I'm still curious what exactly a grainy screen is. Grain such as like the grain in wood (lines), or grain as in noise in digital images or the grain in film? I've gone ahead & ordered a 1520 with the 1440x900 screen, and kind of want to know what to expect.

 

viewing angles are also horrific. btw, i was wondering, how do I check if my monitor is samsung or LG? it just says generic pnp monitor.

 

Well, I have the 1440x900 screen, and I have the graniness Doing a side by side comparison with the T61 screen, it's obvious to my eyes that there's more noise on the 1520 screen. It just looks fuzzier and less sharp. It's very easy to tell when looking at text or at a plain white screen.

 

You have to look up your service tag on dell.com and it tells you all the hardware specifics.

To explain the graininess, I would say it looks like a shimmery coating over the screen. I took side by side pics of my 1505 and the 1520 but the pic didn't show the shimmer effect.