I was going to take pics and submit a review but notebookreview is no longer accepting 1520 reviews.
Reasons for buying:
I purchased the Inspiron 1520 for a number of reasons, the main being that my old Sony FE 590 hadnt held up to well to the ravages of time and I desperately needed to replace it before the new semester of University started. I was looking for a 15.4 Santa Rosa notebook with the 8600GT around the $2000 AU amount. I also seriously considered the Asus V1S but as it wont be released until halfway through the semester in Australia and to import it will cost around the $3000 AU mark it wasnt feasible in the end. I liked the fact that Dell had a lot of third party support and configurability as well as having replacement parts and service easily available having learnt from my experiences with Sony and their $200 AC adaptor and $600 battery.
Ordering and Configuration and Delivery:
Well the ordering process was somewhat convoluted with deals shifting and changing daily, Unlike the US, the AU Dell focuses more on free extras rather than coupons for discounts, After managing to find a link in one section of the Dell site I managed to find a configuration that was unavailable anywhere else on the site that included free Bluetooth, Bluetooth Headset, and Screen upgrade.
I processed my order easily enough but I decided to change my method of payment from bank deposit to Credit Card, This took 8 calls, I was transferred 14 times and hung up on 3 times. Finally I demanded to speak to a senior person who was very helpful and did solve the problem easily enough.
When my notebook arrived I was somewhat angry, the composite cable for Spdif sound was missing as was the Intel 4965AGN wireless card along with my Bluetooth module, and headset. I called the supervisor who sent me to Customer Care who then put me back to the Supervisor who stated adamantly that Dell had never sold parts separately and the only way I could fix this would be to return my order and start from the beginning or they could sell me an external Bluetooth module. I was less than impressed with this and asked if she could refund me the value of the goods which she agreed to but needed to check with the Customer Care Rep I had spoken with earlier. Three hours later I got sick of waiting and called the Dell Spare parts line and sourced the missing components quite easily, I then called the Customer Care rep who agreed to send me the missing parts but the Intel chip had a 4 week wait so she refunded me $82 to buy it else ware and I would have to install all this myself. I asked for some form of compensation and Im still waiting to hear back on this.
I was told it would be here between 8am-12pm, it arrived at 12:05pm, No biggie. In the box was the Media Direct DVD, Vista DVD, and Vista Drivers DVD. There was also the 90w AC adaptor, an extremely large Manual and of course the notebook itself. I was very pleased with this as it was well packaged, My Sony was poorly packaged, had no discs with it and the manual was a whopping 10 pages.
My configuration:
Micro satin Finish in Espresso Brown
Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 (2.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 4MB Cache)
2GB RAM at 667MHz
160GB 5400 RPM HD
256MB Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT
8X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive
Intel 4965AGN Wireless MiniCard
15.4 WXGA+ Display with TrueLife
Integrated 2.0 MP Webcam
9 Cell Battery
Windows Vista Home Premium
2 Year Complete Cover Warranty with Next Day onsite repair
Dell 355 Bluetooth Module
Composite out Module with Spdif
The total configuration came to $2047.11 after applying a 5% EPP student Discount.
Keyboard and Touchpad:
The keyboard reminds me a lot of a typical desktop keyboard with raised keys, personally I dont really like this, I also find they are rather spongy and soft; they just dont have a nice click to them. On the bright side the keys are far enough apart that even with large hands it is very easy to type on for extended periods. The keyboard also has a few other functions through the use of the fn key, you can change the brightness and change the LCD output config and put the notebook to sleep. These keys arent grouped together though making it rather annoying.
The Touchpad is quite small, Its nice and sensitive with a good scroll feature, The worst thing about it though is the keys are _very_ spongy and very deep, they dont click, they just kind of sink down and you have to push quite far.
Heat and Noise:
The noise output is very minimal, it is silent even with the fans up all the way at around 4ft away, and when directly in front of you there is a mild whir. When idling the noise is almost nonexistent.
The notebook gets warm when gaming but it dosent feel like its burning. When running a very stressful PS2 emulator (I own the game and a PS2) which uses HD, GPU, and CPU at max the CPU went up to 60C, and the HD to 36C.
Design and Build quality:
The Inspiron 1520 is a very large notebook, the bottom section is the same height as my old notebook including the bottom section and the screen. It is not as deep though, the 9cell battery sticks out about 1.5cm and is still not as deep as my old Sony.
The colored lid is really nice and IMO saves this laptop from just being plain ugly. It has a very odd feel to it, almost like rubber. It resists scratches really well but handprints are very obvious on it unfortunately. The Silver Keyboard and Silver trim are to tacky in my opinion and make it look a bit cheap.
On the Front of the notebook you have the Dell MediaDirect buttons which are your typical media buttons, Mute, Volume up, Volume Down, Play/Pause, Back, Forwards, Stop the speakers are also located on the front slightly under the notebook.
The build quality is decent, it feels very solid and there is no flex on the keyboard and only mild flex on the screen, it is solidly built. The palm rest area feels quite plastic but not in a bad way, the underside has more of a metallic feel.
Ports:
(4) USB 2.0 Ports
Integrated 10/100 LAN and 56K Modem
IEEE 1394a
8-in-1 Card Reader
VGA Video Output and S-Video with Spdif
Stereo In (mic), Headphone/Speaker Out
ExpressCard 54mm Slot
On the left side there is the ExpressCard/54, Mic, Audio out, Wi-Fi Switch and the Exhaust ports.
On the right there is 2 USB ports, 10/100 port, VGA, FireWire 400, DVD burner, and Media reader.
On the rear we have the battery slot, Phone Jack, DC port, and S-video/Spdif port.
On the bottom there is one Ram Slot, the intake for the fan, And the Mini PCI-E slots, three in total. (For Flash module, Wireless, And WWAN)
The port placement is good, I would have preferred to have both network ports on the same side, also the lack of Gigabit Ethernet really annoys me as its a fairly standard feature these days and its no more expensive to include.
DVD burner:
Well I burnt 5 DVDs and one CD using Nero, Roxio and Vistas inbuilt burning software. Three of the DVDs failed to read in my other laptop or desktop and only some folders would open when viewed on the dell. The other 2 refused to work on any machine.
Screen and Webcam:
The screens colors are very vibrant and nice, but its not as bright as my last notebook. The viewing angle is one of the best Ive ever seen and can be read from side on (180 degrees). There is very bad light leakage on the top and bottom of the screen though it is mostly only visible when viewing solid black. Unfortunately the screen is quite grainy it almost looks like it is covered in a thin film of dirt, Im not sure whether or not I just got unlucky or all the models are like this. I remember something like this happening to some of the Asus laptops and they fixed it with a BIOS update. I went with WXGA+ on my model as it was a free upgrade from WXGA and I have WSXGA+ on my desktop and I find that it just makes everything look to small. Im happy with WXGA+ it is not too small but at the same time gives me a little bit more screen real estate.
The webcam is pretty average unfortunately and doesnt even compare to the ones found on the Asus and Mac models. The picture is very grainy and its a fixed camera which makes it a bit limited in use. The Dell software that comes with it is quite good, it has a motion sensor which turns on the camera if it senses movement, and it has face tracking and takes Okaying stills.
Speakers and Sound:
The speakers are incredibly loud, even louder than the small pair I have for my desktop. The quality is above average and even manages to produce some bass. In terms of Sound output I found it odd that you have to buy an extra cable to use Spdif which plugs into the S-Video out port and gives you S-Video, Composite, and Spdif as its just one more thing you have to carry around.
Bloatware and Dell Driver support.
Well the biggest piece of Bloatware IMO was Vista, I had it on my old laptop for a few months and ended up going back to XP. As the 1520 has no Gigabit out I will probably end up using IP over Firewire, Which Vista has removed as a feature which annoys me a lot as its 4 times faster than 10/100 Ethernet.
It also came with MacAfee Anti Virus, Dell services (Which serve no real purpose to me) and a tonne of Roxio burning utilities, Google Desktop and search bar.
I wiped Vista after running a few benchmarks on it and upgraded to XP, Dell provides Drivers for XP but its a bit hit and misses with no drivers for Wireless, Bluetooth, Sound, and GPU. I should also note that Dell doesnt provide a GPU driver for vista either currently. It took a bit of hunting but I managed to find it all and get it running.
Performance:
I ran 3DMark06 in Vista at 1024x768, 1280x800 at stock with preinistalled drivers, and at 1024x768 overclocked to 680mhz Core, And 550mhz Memory. And then I ran it in XP at the same resolutions. Unfortunatly I have not been able to overclock in XP, Ive tried Ntune, AtiTool, And RivaTuner, Ntune and Riva let me change the settings but they dont actually do anything and if I reopen them the settings are back to default, AtiTool wont let me try and move the sliders. This is probally due to me using LaptopDriver2go.com drivers with the modded INF.
1280x800 Vista Stock
1024x768 Vista Stock
1024x768 Vista Overclocked 680/550
1280x800 XP Stock
1024x768 XP Stock
PCMark05 v1.2
Super Pi
HDTune
Battery Life:
Im looking forward to seeing if the intel 4965 chip saves more battery life than the 3965 wifi card. I performed several tests, Screen brightness minimum, Wifi off, Typing this review I managed to get 4 hours and 5 minutes with NHC reporting between 16 and 18 watts being used. With brightness at max and Wireless on while surfing I managed to get 2 hours and 40 minutes averaging around 24 watts. With Wireless on downloading a file, Screen brightness at max, volume up, GPU at full power, CPU at 100% I got 112 minutes using 30.5 Watts. With Wifi Off and Screen at max while playing a Xvid movie I only got 120 minutes.
Overall the battery life is a little disappointing considering my old Sony with the standard battery got 4 hours with light use and 3 with heavy.
The 9 Cell battery as reported by NHC is 86580mWh and is made by Sanyo (Guess Dell dumped Sony).
Santa Rosa is supposed to have a number of battery saving features and unfortunately different programs seem to be displaying different info when it comes to the CPU. NHC shows the CPU as being clocked at 2.2ghz even when idle, CPU-Z shows it at 800mhz (100mhz FSB 8x multiplier) when idle and 2.2ghz when under load (200mhz FSB 11x multiplier) Interestingly despite being 2.2ghz Ive seen it jump briefly several times to 12x multiplier giving me 2.4ghz though this usually only lasts for a few seconds. In the Dell Bios it states the Minimum CPU clock is 1.2ghz so the various reports are quite conflicting.
Conclusion:
Well the battery life isnt spectacular, the performance is good, but DDR3 in the GPU would have made a big difference. I think Dell really needs to work on their customer support and get their various departments to understand what the other departments actually do. I also think that they tried to pull a dirty on me with the wireless card, they were out of stock so they just substituted the older model in, Despite having paid $40 extra for the faster newer card. In conclusion the DELL Inspiron 1520 is a very solid well constructed and heavy Laptop at a brilliant price but at over 7lbs it really isnt aimed at mobile users.
Pros:
Durability
Price
Performance
Lid
Cons:
Poor Support
Grainy Screen
Weight
Fixed Low Quality Webcam
Poor Battery Life
10/100 Ethernet
Very poor quality DVD burner
Final notes and dealings with Dell.
Well as aforementioned a number of the wrong parts arrived, I was originally told dell did not sell spare parts and that I would have to refund my order and begin anew, While waiting for a call back I called dell spare parts and sourced the missing items, A number of the items I needed were a 4 week wait, So I assume Dell simply used other parts or ignored them all together when originally building my machine, without bothering to refund the extra paid.
I recieved my call back and explained I was correct and they could send me these parts which they agreed to do, even offering me free shipping on the parts I had already paid for, Was going to have to install myself, and wait four weeks to get. I asked for a warranty upgrade as compensation and was refused. The final straw for me is the grainy screen which after looking around the forums appears to be quite a common issue. I have called dell and organised for this hunk of junk to be taken back. I will wait for something better to be released (Asus V1S).
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Good review. You didn't mention about headphone jack, but I guess there's no point of it at this point. I didn't check about DVD burner - I see there's one more reason to return it. It did bother me that it was of brand that is absolutely unknown.
In addition, it appears the whole thing is very poorly shielded. While dealing with customer service, I had to keep away my portable phone from 1520, otherwise it becomes unusable. Something that didn't happen with my old, now nearly broken Vaio FS. -
Hehe How amusing Woodgypsy, Im using my Nearly broken Vaio FE, It didnt hold up well, but atleast when it arrived it was perfect, Still has the most Beautiful LCD Ive seen on a notebook yet. And I never used headphones hence why I didnt notice it.
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LCD on my FS is gorgeous too. Every bits as good as NEC/Mitsubishi desktop LCD I own, which was reckoned to be the best desktop LCD back then. I do have some gripes (faulty lite-on DVD burner, poor battery life), but it holds up fairly well considering all these drops and spills I inflicted.
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Yeah I'll agree vaio displays are tops.
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Sorry to hear you ran into so many problems with the notebook but also with the support. Which notebook are you looking to get now?
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Nice review Matt, you have the same specs as me pretty much . Except I only scored 3284 in 3DMARK06, beat me by 11 points!
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I'm looking at getting one of these around Christmas, when Dell add the 800MHz ram option. Good to know it'll perform decently.
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Unless you mean you want to wait until next Spring when Montevina comes out with DDR3-800 support.
Good review Matt. Sorry to hear about all your troubles. -
Im looking at getting the Asus V1s
V1S-A1
- Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2GHz
- Genuine Windows Vista Business
- 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) Color Shine
- NVIDIA 8600GT 512MB
- 160GB Hard Drive, 2GB DDR2 Memory
- 1.3 MP Camera, docking station(optional), spill proof keyboard, hot swappable module bay, fingerprint authentication and TPM, WLAN 802.11 A/B/G/N, Bluebooth V2.0+EDR, Super Multi DVD/RW Dual Lay with Light Scribe
$1899 when released in late July. -
Matt have you seen the new lenovo T61P? Everything your 1520 was but built like a tank. They also have the DDR3 graphics memory.
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First, battery life on the V1J was far from spectacular - 3 hours isn't guaranteed with some light load. I doubt the V1S will improve upon that significantly. Also, as far as I know, there's no guarantee that the 8600M GT will be GDDR3 either. -
Yeah Im going to wait until the Asus is released then look at some reviews. Their is also a large battery option in Australia that isnt available in the US. Between that and the modular battery that should give me heaps. Its a bit disapointing the 2.5 hours seems to be the new standard on 15.4" machines. Ill take a look at that Icemole, Thanks for the tip.
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According to Lenevo it has the Quadro FX 570M which I have no idea about.
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Besides, maybe there will be more choices late on. Zepto seems to be looking for dealer in US, and Toshiba is putting 2600 on there 15.4 model, although I wouldn't expect these to have the quality of ASUS V series. -
And Apple's GDDR3 version runs somewhere around 600MHz I believe, better than 400MHz of the GDDR2 version, but still not quite there. -
Mine is in boxing and I just canceled it. I'm not about to wait till monday and open it up just to return it for a bad screen.
I'm going lenovo T61P, built like a tank and gets 3800 in 3dmark06 stock drivers in vista right out of the box with DDR3. -
Great post, thanks Rep+
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3dmark06 isnt everything, what Res is that at though? Any reviews of it? From what I understand the FX cards are more for Digital rendering of 3d work, and not so much for gaming.
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Aye, 3dmark06 isn't everything, I only care about how it performs not how well it benchmarks, gimme real life results .
That sucks about your 1520 Matt, mine should be coming between now and the 8th and I'm starting to have some serious doubts... will see. -
It was at the default 1280x1024 set by 3dmark06. He ran it to show that the 570m is infact a 8600GT.
You're not going to find real life results on it yet as it's still brand new. -
Interesting, Any idea what the battery life is like with the 9 cell? or what the weight is? or if it has a international warranty?
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I just benchmarked my system . its a 1520 with the 1.5ghz core 2 duo, 1 gig of memory and the 8600m gt and i got 3175 stock at 1280 x 800 resolution.
This notebook is not bad. Considering I got it for $1300 all the other notebooks people are getting are more expensive so of course they will perform better. -
I believe the only guy at thinkpads.com that got his so far has a 6 cell and he reported 3hr 24min but hasn't done extensive battery tests. He also just reported 7700 in 3dmark05 but you don't care about benches.
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can any one define "a grainy screen" or post a screen shot?
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A screen shot won't show it because a screenshot shows what your computer sees, not what you see. The problem is in the coating, so it's not showing up well in pics.
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LG Philps LCD versus Samsung:
1) Grainy as you had mentioned (really annoying)
2) View angles are less than LG (mostly annoying)
3) White bleed-thru on dark images
4) Lower quality color reproduction
I have both E1505 and 1520 and the LG panel on the E1505 has superior image quality over the Samsung panel on the 1520.
In my opinion, Dell cut corners like crazy to get the cost down on the 1520, this meant using an inferior screen (sorry Samsung, but it's true), and those front panel multimedia buttons are horrible. If your a women with small fingers, then you probably can deal with it.
Pull apart the laptops and you will find that even the LCD panel mounts are molded plastic opposed to the sturdier metal frame-brackets in the E1505/6400. The laptop enclosure has really taken a hit.
I'm going to look at LG or Sony laptops next time around.
Sorry Dell, but my 1520's screen is a major disappointment and your staff is rotten and incompetent. I will most likely not ever buy another laptop from you ever again. Too bad Michael Dell put Rollins in charge, the company's quality has tanked since Dell passed the crown to Rollins.
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The Samsung LCD panel used in the 1520 is manufactured by Samsung. This is a downgrade from the LG Philips LCD units used in the E1505/6400 laptops.
The graininess is little imperfections in the LCD pixels and they cannot all display the same color. Even on an image that is all one color, each pixel has a slightly different color representation than the other causing the image to look "grainy". It looks like the screen is dirty with oil smears and I have an uncontrollable urge to wipe it clean even though it is already spotless. The LG Philips LCD panel has reduced this annoying artifact to very minimum levels and is hardly noticeable unless you are looking for it. The Samsung screen has very noticeable graininess. You mosty notice it on static/still screens (like the desktop or word editor), games are okay.
Look at my other post regarding Dell's stupid decision to drop the LG Philips LCD panel.
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atticman, do you know what panels are currently used in 1720 wuxga(1920x1200)? It seems that they're only one which don't suffer from grainyness, 4 people who own them are quite happy and say they have good color saturation, high contrast and can't see any grainyness at all.
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atticman, do you know what panels are currently used in 1720 wuxga(1920x1200)? It seems that they're only one which don't suffer from grainyness, 4 people from this forum who own them are quite happy and say they have good color saturation, contrast and can't see any grainyness at all.
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Depending on how sensitive you are to your grainy screen, it really isnt that bad. At least on the one i got, yea it is there but the screen as a whole looks fine. At ~1 foot away i don't even notice it. Again I am not sensitive to this issue, but i don't find it annoying at all. Considering the prices the 1520's are at, i am fine getting stuck with this grainy screen.
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Are the screens of only 1520 affected?
Are 1420's screens ok!?
And nice scores!
wow T7500 scores 56xx!!!
T7300 does only like 5000, it's there much of an apparent difference in everyday performance between the two? if anyone knows? -
Anyway as someone else said, the FX 570M is basically an 8600 GT optimized for designers, graphics work, CAD, etc. It's more of a workstation card. It WILL run games, just not as well as your standard 8600m GT with DDR3.
I've heard you can download 3rd party drivers which "sort of" re-optimize it for gaming, but I'm not sure how well they work, etc. -
The screen is very poor - at least the one I got. Unless I'm paying $200 for a laptop I'm not willing to put up with a brand new product in 2007 that has any sort of graininess, it's unacceptable.
I was pretty much set on never buying a Dell again but the rep I spoke with really went over the top in helping me out and I ended up ordering a Vostro with an Ultrasharp screen with a resolution that wasn't even offered on the site which was pretty cool. Either way I hope this one is really good or my Dell days are over. -
I was going to buy a Dell this month but I'm still apprehensive after trying to buy a 20" 2007wfp desktop monitor and finding out Dell switches the panels used. I bought the display because it used a Philips S-IPS when it came out. Every so often though, they swap in an inferior Samsung S-PVA. Dell buys low binned items and loads them in and out of products with ease. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if Dell was mixing good components in with junk where notebooks are concerned. All makers do this btw but Dell seems to be especially poor at it.
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The T61p looks good, The only thing stopping me from getting one is the WUXGA Theres no way I could use 1900x1200 on a 15.4" screen
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The LG Philips screen is nicer on the eyes, especially if you look at the screen a lot.
Again, sorry Dell, but people need to know that you are not as good as you once were. Cutting costs on the screen is a shame. Bad Dell! I hope you recover from the 1520 losses.
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HTH
Dell 1520 Review and subsequent Return.
Discussion in 'Dell' started by matt_h1, Jul 20, 2007.