Dell Announces New XPS Laptops Discussion

If Dell remade the XPS M1330 with updated specs, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

 

I like Dell's Latitude series laptops, they are beautiful and well built. Why can't they just put a decent gaming GPU (GT425M or GT435M seems nice) in one and sell it as an XPS? Probably heat and battery issues...

 

The 14" and larger Latitudes could definitely handle the 425 or 435.

 

Lol.. why would you buy that pile of crap?

I second the Latitudes. Thought that kind of laptop with a good graphics would probably cost too much for an average consumer.

 

Really? The only reason I didn't buy one was because of that whole 8600mGT thing. Right now, with smaller process CPU's and a decent 5650m or a GT425m... I'd buy an updated M1330!

 

Ugly! ugh...were they so scared of impeding on the AW lineup they made sure to make it as ugly and non agressive as possible?

 

I owned it for 2 years. It had a terrible design, every corner of that laptop had a heat source, from WiFi right beneath the touchpad (yeah it would get hot), overheating CPU, then GPU, not to mention the horrible tech support. It case with Vista and it would BSOD daily, even with fresh installs. My ex-boss would laugh every time I would be showing him the results of my simulation and the blue screen would pop out. It was an overpriced piece of garbage.

Few weeks ago I had a Dell tech repairing Alienware m11x and his Inspiron laptop had fans blasting loud. The guy, while using my WiFi to connect and browse the guide on how to take apart m11x, says "Uh its overheating again". I reply "I know, I owned Dell laptop. And that was the last one I'll ever buy again." Their AW lineup is built better, even though they still have few big kinks to work out (m11x hinge). It's not only that there are problems, but its the crap tech support as well that does nothing to help unless you spend numerous hours on the phone with different people.

Their business Latitude series is built much better (I have had a chance to try one out), however it still has few things that bug me like keyboard flex. Regardless, I stay away from them.

 

why does it have to be so thick? I know that Dell wanted to fix heating and vent issues but this is like 1.5'' thick!! The left side of the Dell XPS 15 is completely blank!!! Theres one small vent. If Dell is worried about heating then give it more vents at least! That way theres better air flow so you can make it thinner.

The rounded edges make them look like old cheap Acers. Acer is moving towards a new design which looks 10x better! The plain gray aluminum is hurting my eyes too.

 

Indeed. I'd prefer a HD+ -- good compromise between the insufficient 1366x768 and a full 1080. 900p for me is good enough and helps out on the framerate for gaming.

Personally, I like the new XPS line...I want a decent 15" gaming laptop but without the excessive paint jobs or lighting like the ASUS gamers.

 

thinking about it, for a 15" I'd prefer 1600x900 over the 1080p (1920x1080), i'm getting older and although i love the crisp look of a higher resolution, it gets harder to see stuff...my current 15" laptop is 1680x1050 and even with display set to 150% (windows 7), it's a little hard to see..so i'm wondering how 1920x1080 is going to be on my eyes...

 

The XPS 1530 was the one with the 8600M GT, the 1330 was an 8400M (GT I believe, maybe GS, I didn't own one myself). So you couldn't expect a 5650M on an updated 1330 model. A 5450 would be more in line with what it had before, maybe a 5550 model if you got lucky. Can't say what the equivalent nVIDIA would be today as I lost track of what their midrange was after they changed their naming scheme after the 9000 series. But yeah, the GeForce 8 series was a good one to avoid if you were in the market after that fiasco became well-known. Just this week someone I know had the 8600M GT in his MacBookPro give out. I've been lucky so far, but had I known about that back then (when no one did), I probably would have sought out ATI graphics.

The speakers are what really stand out to me here. 20W speakers - sounds like they'll have big sound, but I'd also be concerned that that will suck the battery life way down. I guess as long as you're plugged in while blasting tunes it'll work well enough.

I'm guessing the screen is glossy like most such notebooks today, and it's still 16x9 instead of 16x10, so those are two net -'s for me. Thickness I don't really mind as long as the components are powerful. The price is surprisingly low for XPS, though. The 1530 started at $1200 or $1300 (gradually falling as it aged, might have hit $1000 by the end), and now the 15-inch starts at $850? That might explain its lackluster aesthetics.

 

I agree, M1330/1530 were the best by a mile, I wouldn't buy one of these new ones on looks alone.
These look cheap, the actual price isn't, where I live anyway.

 

Ok I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of the high-resolution screen option for the 14 inch model, and the non "edge to edge" glass glossy cheap plastic bezel around the screen is unacceptable when Lenovo, and HP give you that feature. If it wasn't glossy and more of even a "thinkpad rubbery paint" matte it would make a huge difference.

 

Wouldn't be surprised if the name becomes 'Inspiron XPS'. Obviously after all their recent failures Dell didn't want to spend too much on money on design & engineering for the update.
It just reinforces my position of only buying Lenovo or HP (biz line, perhaps envy [rather than mac]) notebooks. No Dells - even latitude or precision - not worth it.
Will not recommend a Dell to anyone.
Dell is in the position of M$, a once successful company crumbling due to not keeping up with the competition.

 

My Latitude E6400 has been the toughest and arguably, the best notebook I've ever owned. Now I've never owned a Precision, but I know people that love theirs. But Microsoft is hardly a crumbling company. They have Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, all the Auto Industry Ties to Ford, Kia, and others. Dell was once in a precarious position but they made it through just fine. The Adamo was a fail from the get-go, but that's really the only outright failure they've had in a while. The SXPS's, Latitudes, Inspirons, and most of their other brands sold very well. It's just this recent decision to kill the Adamo, and reintroduce the XPS branding that has me confused. They already have the Studio XPS's, so the Adamo could have stayed dead without having to bring anything else to the table. These new XPS's are an odd design, just like the netbooks were when they were introduced. It's almost like they did absolutely no customer fielding of these design initiatives. I'd say 75% or so, have expressed disapproval so far.

 

dunno about you guys, but from certain angles, the new XPS looks like a thin flatbed scanner.

 

Same here.

Seeing this massive shift in looks in the xps line makes me hold my breath about the new aw models. I hope that the Nike guy who's been mentioned in this forum, isn't also head of the AW designers.

I used to whine because of the delay that Belgium had compared to the US regarding new models. But now that delay is practily 0, and I kind of wish it would exist again so I could still buy an older dell/aw model when it would turn out that the newer models would look like garbage.

 

i like the colors and the design but i think it should be smaller or thinner

 

Because the battery life is the (Greater Attention) for every XPS fans... indeed, I do like those new series of XPS..

However, I do have a question. Does NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 435M 2GB graphics which is hooked up with the new XPS 15' come with (OPTIMUS Technology*)??

Dells website doesn't recite whether GT 435 have an optimus technology or not, but anandtech team confirms that it has one.. I am getting confused guys!

can someone helps me out. i really do appreciate it.

Thanks in advance
Cheers..

 

I dont get why you guys think these are for gaming.

Inspiron = your parents or typical office use
XPS = media enthusiasts, VM users and designers
Alienware = Gamers

It's not hard to figure out.

 

Yes, they stated that all of these models come with Optimus except for i7 models.

 

Thanks for your great reply m8! now i can purchase this beast with no hesitation.

Peace

 

The XPS machines remain capable of gaming even if they weren't specifically marketed in that way. If I recall correctly, the XPS moniker was also used on Dell's in-house gaming rigs before they bought Alienware too.....

 

Yes, while you CAN game on them some people like to complain as if it should play Crysis full blast. The XPS line hasn't been the gaming line since they bought Alienware, but some seem to want to ignore that.

 

In that case... I should petition Dell until they decide my $1500 are worth it. (The Latitude e6400 is just about my favorite notebook I've ever used)

 

While it's nice to see a new line with decent specs, one thing bothers me. No 900p option on the 14" model. I'd love to see a viable replacement for the Studio 14z. Everything else is great though, Nvidia Optimus, decent sound, doesn't look that bad either. I just can't stand the 1366x768 resolution...

Kudos on the awesome specs for the 15" model though.

 

Yes, I have to agree. I feel like resolutions should be higher.

13-1366x768 or 1440x900
14-1440x900 or 1600x900
15 - 1600x900 or 1920x1080

 

hmm, I get a warning when I try to get the GT 435 with a i5 cpu, it says its only for the i7?!?!

 

What about Studios? Thought those guys were the "media" machines, hence the word "studio" in their name.

 

Studio and Studio XPS have officially gone away. They were redundant anyway with later Inspiron's no longer having the down market status that the Studio brand introduction caused them to have. Examples of these are the current R series and their short-lived predecessor the 15/1464 line that arguably remains the best looking of Dell's mainstream Inspiron line in a good while.

 

Agreed. I've been told that the Chi Mei screen that was used in the 14z (and for a short time in the Studio 14 - 1458) was discontinued, but there are at least a handful of Sony's, HP's and Toshiba's with a 900p 14" screen. One day..

I saw that as well. For the 14" and 15" versions you have to choose the 420m in order to equip the PC with an i5 processor and take advantage of Optimus. The 425m and 435m on those models require the i7.

On the 17" version you get the 435m as standard, Optimus enabled since you can choose an i5, but you must choose i7 if you upgrade to the 435m.

It looks like this is just a Dell thing, as I know the 435m at least does support Optimus. So, Dell, I must order with an i7 huh? How about a 640 then? Hmm? lol

 

Completely agree. If Sony can fit 1920x1080 into a 13.3" notebook... Dell can at least offer 1600x900 on a couple of models.

PS. The 1080p display option on the 15" is B+RGLED. It involves seperate blue LED's and combined Red/Green LED's. The end product is a cheaper panel than a full RGBLED panel, but it comes at the price of less color spectrum reproduction. 92% Adobe RGB for the B+RGLED vs 100% Adobe RGB for the FULL RGBLED.

Another words they're trying to trim the costs of the RGBLED panels down, at the sacrifice of a little performance. Dell's full RGBLED panels are well known for their AWESOME color reproduction on the Alienware's.

 

Because a lot of people want a powerful machine, for maybe graphic design or software development, and also the ability to play a bit of Starcraft 2 or Civ V.

Or anyone that's developing/demonstrating graphics-heavy applications.

These people probably want a 'sensible' laptop - I think the styling of the Alienware machines is quite a turn-off for those that aren't pure gamers.

 

Exactly! That's why I have not pulled the trigger on the m11x (the hinge problem also affects this decision). I believe that's why the m1530/m1330 were such a sucess. Bummer for the failing graphics (Did not buy an m1530 or T61p at the time because of this). If they offered the m11x in an elitebook/latitude case I would buy that immediatly (m11x R2 is a step in the right dierrection with the rubbery coating). The other day I saw a Sager np8660 (extremely rare here in Mexico) and I loved it, perfect mix between aesthetics and performance.

 

The poster who mentioned sensible laptops is correct. Alienware laptops are garish and, quite frankly, even juvenile in appearance. They are attractive, but they scream that you are a gamer. It's like a flashy, super-expensive car. It has its place, but it's place certainly isn't universal.

 

I think 16:10 resolutions aren't preferred anymore, unfortunately.

It should be more like this:

13-1366x768, optional 1600x900
14-1366x768, optional 1600x900
15-1600x900 or 1920x1080

unfortunately, HP stopped offering the 1600x900 screen on the Envy 14. So there's only the Vaio Z if you want 1600x900 (and 1920x1080) in a 13 inch laptop. Looks like no 14" laptops offer the HD+ screen.

 

The regular Inspiron 14 comes standard with the 1600x900 screen, but with the older Core 2 processors and GMA 4500 graphics.

 

is that model discontinued yet?

 

As of today, no. Apparently it's alive and well, but I noticed it can't be personalized via different casing colors anymore. It needs to get the axe or a refresh with the Core i3.

 

Getting aside from the design aspects, what interests me is the sound quality on these. According to Dell, the new XPS holds a 12W subwoofer, which is pretty impressive, at least spec wise. But the speaker placement on the 17" is strange. Didn't they think about people who type & listen to music?

 

The new XPS line looks like every other notebook on the shelves at Wal Mart. They're extremely plain and too heavy for travel. I'd never want to lug that big piece of plastic around anywhere! The XPS M1330 was perfect! I think Dell just doesn't get it and has given up on competing in the consumer market. I bought the XPS M1330 and that was the best laptop I ever had. I will not be buying another Dell anytime soon.

 

Hehe, looks like my G73 is part is copping a lot of abuse in terms of design...although I think the shape of the extruded part at the back of my machine looks better than these.

 

In that case, what's left to Envy? I looked at a Pavilion DM4, which I suspect is a little too similar to the Envy 14 and I wasn't feeling envious?

The real problem with the XPS M1330 is that it was a flop as a MacBook competitor. Apple literally owns the $1,000+ price category by a factor of 10 to 1, if not more. That means that Dell was fighting in a niche with just 1/10 the volume as Apple, and duking it out with every other notebook PC manufacturer.

It didn't help that the NVIDIA GPU issues really hurt Dell in this period. Sure it wasn't Dell's fault, but most consumers with GPU issues didn't understand that. Still, the old XPS line notebooks really couldn't compete against Apple. Dell put too much development money into the line.

Now the Studio nameplate is apparently dead and the XPS name has been slapped on some Inspiron R look-alikes. It's probably not a bad business move, considering how HP has cleaned up the Envy 14, which can easily be mistaken for a DM4.

 

"it wasn't Dell's fault" ? Then who's fault it has been?! DELL sold tons of malfunctioning laptops. I paid DELL for that laptop, not nVidia. XPS 1330 was a piece of junk, and the crap GPU was just 1 piece of it. Please enlighten me with your "amazing" logic.

 

Have any of you guys considered that this design choice (which actually started with the Adamo and evolved into this) was planned from the start to span the entire line (again, likely due to the Adamo)? You know, like HP with that touchpad and metal finishes. I think it's really just that they decided to start with the Inspiron line and that there actually are differences between them and they just look similar. (Though, I think there are more distinct differences than you guys give them credit for.) It just seems like them trying to create a universal "Dell" look.

Unfortunately, this does open the possibility of Alienware laptops having the back stick out like that in the future...

 

The now infamous NVIDIA GPU issues effected every brand that used NVIDIA GPUs during the same period. In other words, it was a NVIDIA problem, not a Dell problem.

Unsurprisingly, the XPS 1330 owners who went for the Intel integrated graphics didn't have any unusual motherboard issues. So, it really wasn't a Dell problem. Blame NVIDIA. I still do. Thanks NVIDA.

 

Again, I bought XPS m1330 from - Dell. nVidia sold the faulty graphic card to Dell. Dell used it to build a faulty computer. Dell could've just used something else. Or give replacements. I don't know in what other words to put it - I never bought anything directly from nVidia; based on what should I complain to nVidia? I never had any

It reminds me of a polling rate problem Alienware m17x had with their touchpad. Maybe all of us should, according to that logic, complain to Synaptics instead of Dell? So the only parts Dell could ever be responsive for, would be their WiFi.... and what keyboards and mice.

Or I can start selling broken iPhones claiming they work. If someone has a problem, call Apple.

 

This would not be a bad idea... if it looked good. As it is, they just made the XPS series look worse. And the way it sticks out is a mockery -- it's like saying "see, we could have put a taller screen here... but we didn't."

 

Choice? Sure you did. You could have bought one with Intel integrated graphics, although it seems most people went with dedicated NVIDIA graphics because they though of the M1330 as some sort of gaming notebook. Ummm....

Anyway, a lot of people got burnt by NVIDIA and the problems effected just about every brand at the time. There were even extended warranties provided by NVIDIA which covered multiple motherboard replacements.

They say the hinge design allows you open the screen to wide angle on an airline tray table. It probably does. It also allow the screen to be more stable with smaller, cheaper hinges. It probably does.

 

Last december I was waiting for Dell to refresh their SXPS 1340 with Core i series GPU, and some non SLI GPU.

Couldn't hold onto it - unfortunatelly?! - so I bought a 13" TimelineX.

Didn't expect anything like this.

Hope the new XPS line does better than the last, Studio XPS units.