Dell Studio 14z First Look

by Jerry Jackson

It has been quite some time since Dell released their last 14-inch consumer notebook, but Dell is back with a vengeance with the all new Dell Studio 14z laptop. The Studio 14z is the thinnest and lightest 14-inch notebook Dell has ever produced, promising more than 6 hours of battery life, powerful video performance, and available in more than 120 different designs just in time for back-to-school season.

I recently spent some hands-on time with a pre-production unit of the Dell Studio 14z so that I can give you a first look at what makes this laptop special before we get our hands on a final review unit. Without spoiling the surprise too much, Dell might have just made the most popular laptop for college students this year.

Overview of specs and features:

Sure, the Studio 14z might have a new thin design inspired by the Studio 15 and Studio 17 laptops, but despite the thinner profile this notebook still packs a HD (720p/900p resolution) screen, impressive speakers, and up to 500GB worth of hard drive storage. Here's a quick look at the highlights:

• New thin (0.79–1.2-inches) design for students who want a combination of power and mobility (Dimensions: 0.79"-1.2" x 13.2" x 9.0")
• Energy-efficient, mercury-free, 14.0-inch 16:9 WLED display with HD resolution (1366x768 or 1600x900)
• Intel Pentium Dual Core or Intel Core 2 Duo standard voltage processors up to T9550 (2.66GHz, 1066Mhz FSB, 6MB Cache)
• Integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
• Digital Video/Audio via HDMI and DisplayPort
• Standard 1.3MP webcam with dual digital array mics
• Starting weight of 4.3 pounds
• Standard FastAccess Facial Recognition Software to help prevent unauthorized access to your computer
• Optional Phoenix Failsafe Theft Protection to help protect laptop and data in event of theft
• Gesture-based touchpad controls to help improve productivity
• 4W, SRS 2.0 Audio with discrete tweeters and dual headphone jacks
• Up to 500GB HDD capacity
• Optional 8-in-1 Media Card Reader via 34mm Express Card slot
• Six-cell battery standard, optional slim design 8-cell battery for up to 6:46 hours of battery life
• Standard Wi-Fi, optional Bluetooth and mobile broadband to connect anywhere
• eSATA connectivity for high speed data transfer rate (up to 6X USB 2.0)
• PowerShare - Charge your USB-connected cell phone and other mobile devices via the USB 2.0/eSATA combo port even when you’re unplugged from a power outlet
• Optional external optical drive options (DVD+/-RW, Blu-ray Disc read-only and read-write drives)

Build and Design

The design of the Studio 14z looks extremely similar to the Studio 15, but Dell managed to make this notebook much thinner and lighter ... thanks in no small part to the removal of the optical drive. At first glance, the lack of a built-in optical drive might seem to be a disadvantage, but most students and mobile users will confess that they rarely use an optical drive for anything. You can, of course, purchase a matching external optical drive (DVD burner or DVD burner/Blu-ray player) ... just in case you need it.

The notebook chassis is constructed from a combination of plastics and magnesium alloy for a balance of light weight and durability, and I have no doubt the Studio 14z can survive several years of use and abuse by college students based on the pre-production sample I spent time with.

The keyboard in the pre-production unit felt quite firm with good key spacing and a good depth to the key throw. Each key has a textured black finish and a relatively flat surface. More importantly, the keyboard is available with optional backlighting for easy typing in a dark classroom or dorm room. The multi-touch, gesture-based touchpad is reasonably large for a thin and light 14-inch notebook and the dual touchpad buttons have deep feedback with quiet clicks.

At the time of launch the Dell Studio 14z is available with your choice of colors including, Black Chain Link, Midnight Blue, Promise Pink, Spring Green, Plum Purple, and Ruby Red. Dell will also donate $5 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure from the purchase of each Promise Pink laptop. Starting in September the Dell Design Studio will offer the Studio 14z in your choice of more than 120 different designs, so you won't have to worry about owning a laptop that looks identical to a classmate's notebook.

Performance and Features

We didn't have an opportunity to benchmark the pre-production unit of the Studio 14z, but it's obvious that Dell wants to deliver a full-featured notebook that strikes a good balance between mobility, performance, style, and affordability. Dell is fully aware that netbook sales have exploded over the past year and that consumers want thin and light laptops at a low price. However, Dell also realizes that students and general users need more performance than what a $400 netbook can provide for multimedia entertainment and software than requires a powerful processor.

This is where the $649 starting price of the Studio 14z starts to look even better. Unlike netbooks that usually feature no more than a 160GB hard drive, the Studio 14z is available with up to a 500GB hard drive that can store a full music library of up to 125,000 songs, 142,000 photos or 133 DVD quality movies.

The port layout also strikes a good balance, providing most of what you need in a thin form factor without making too many sacrifices or making the chassis too thick. The Studio 14z packs three USB 2.0 ports including one port that is a USB/eSATA combo port, FireWire (1394a), an RJ-45 Ethernet jack, Display Port, HDMI, dual headphone jacks, a microphone jack and an ExpressCard/34 expansion slot. If Dell made any obvious mistakes in terms of the ports it has to be the lack of a built-in media card reader for digital cameras and other mobile devices. Yes, Dell offers an optional 8-in-1 media card reader that fits into the ExpressCard slot, but this shouldn't be an "option" since media card readers are pretty much considered standard equipment now.

In terms of additional features, the Studio 14z is the first consumer laptop available with FailSafe theft prevention. This option helps protect your personal data in the event that your laptop is missing or stolen. With Failsafe engaged, you can track network information and the ISP location of your laptop when it connects to the Internet, and you can remotely erase selected files and render the laptop unusable until the rightful owner unlocks it.

Optional built-in mobile broadband wireless cards allow you to stay connected to the Internet even when you're away from a Wi-Fi connection. Dell offers your choice of either a Dell Wireless 5600 EV-DO Rev A mobile broadband mini-card or a Dell Wireless 5530 HSPA 7.2 mobile broadband mini-card based on your wireless provider.

The Studio 14z also comes with Dell Remote Access; the optional premium version of which allows people to access content via their home network of personal computing devices including desktops, laptops, ultra-mobile devices, smart phones and web cameras.

We will have a detailed review of the Dell Studio 14z coming soon, so stay tuned to NotebookReview.com for an in-depth review of this notebook.

Pricing and Availability:

The Dell Studio 14z has a starting price of $649 U.S. and is available now online and over the phone in the U.S. and Canada. For more information on the available custom options, be sure to visit www.dell.com/studio

Related Articles:

• Dell Studio 15 Review
• Dell Studio 17 Review

 

The link for the 14z is here.

 

I love it!

 

decent computer and good review

 

So glad i waited, seems to be my dream computer. I have been waiting for a nice 14" with 1600x900 for a long time now!

 

2 kg for a 14" is very good, even at the expense of an optical drive, and the base T4200 seems to perform very well. If it has a good battery life with the standard battery, it's a winner!

 

Nah, that's just the "first look." We'll have much more impressive coverage of this laptop in the full review once we get our hands on a production-level unit.

I like the fact that Dell includes the Nvidia 9400M graphics even in the entry-level $649 configuration. Dell usually includes Intel integrated graphics in the lowest-priced configurations of their notebooks ... so this is a step in the right direction.

It's not as thin as I'd like it to be, particularly since Dell removed the built-in optical drive, but it is pretty thin and light compared to the old Inspiron 1420.

Overall, considering the form factor, base features, available extras, and price, I suspect this will be a popular notebook for Dell.

 

well any way you look at it , its still better then what i could do

 

Wow, this looks like an awesome unit. No SSD option, yet.

 

Contemplating selling my aluminum macbook for this! This laptop smokes my macbook with ports; usb/esata, hdmi and displayport are pure win. Does this laptop have a docking port? Dell seems to have a real winner here, thin and light 14 inch laptop with decent graphics (thank god they didn't include craptastic Intel integrated graphics). I'm hoping they offer more graphic options; maybe the Geforce 9500 that the Studio XPS 13 has? Funny how the specs are better than the Dell Adamo, which costs so much more.

 

Although I like the high res screen option, I have to say thumbs down for 16:9 screens. If it had 1650x1080 res it would be alot more appealing imho.

 

This looks really good- but which students were you talking to that said they don't use an optical drive? The vast majority of students I know use their laptops to watch movies at college. I guess, though, that if they want movies, then they can either rip them on another computer and transfer them, or they can buy the external DVD drive and watch/rip them. I know that i usually rip my DVDs for primary watching, but it's not something most people know how to do, and Dell should include software and instructions on how to do it, if they're going to advertise that the hard drive can hold 133 DVD movies.

 

No docking station connector on the Studio 14z ... Dell only has those on the Latitude and Precision lines.

Dell might eventually offer other GPU options, but there are no plans for any other GPUs at this time.

The Adamo costs so much because (like the MacBook Air) it's made from precision-cut aluminum ... actually laser cut (at least for the air vents in the Adamo chassis). If Dell put the Adamo's hardware into a thicker/heavier chassis made from plastic and magnesium alloy they could sell it for a fraction of the cost.

 

Agreed, but everyone (including notebook manufacturers) is at the mercy of display panel OEMs who have switched almost exclusively to manufacturing 16:9 ratio screens.

Unless the vast majority of consumers are willing to pay several hundred dollars more per laptop just to get a 16:10 ratio screen we won't be seeing 16:10 ratio screens in consumer laptops (or business laptops) anymore.

The LCD OEMs are able to cut their production costs by making 100% of their panels 16:9 ratio panels ... so if anyone wants a panel that isn't 16:9 they have to pay much more for it now.

 

Wow, those macbooks have met their match. Looks and performance.

 

Is it just me or are the lids of Dell's laptops always super-thick? It always seems to take up just as much of the laptop's thickness as the bottom toward the front of the laptop.

 

looks promising

 

Personally I would pay extra money for the screen real-estate. I hope that lenovo keeps 16:10 like they did with 4:3.

My vostro screen is as solid as the base, yet only half the size.

 

The S14 look's like it could be a nice lappy, from what has been shown above.

Looking forward to the full review!


Cin

 

Umm, why does this thing have an eject button if there's no optical drive on board?

 

A lot of the other makers cheat by tapering the lid, making it look thinner than it actually is in practice. The studio line doesnt do the tapering on the side anyways. Also, in this case, the lower base part is already thin to begin with.. making the lid look thicker than it is.

 

The screen does look a little thick for an LED. And the lower base isn't really that thin. It's also been tapered from the front which I hate unless done right (MB). Imo, it looks like a 14" netbook.

 

Because Dell sells a matching external optical drive that works with the shortcut media keys on the keyboard so that you can eject a disc from the external drive.

 

The laptop looks thicker in this picture, because this picture is squashed from the side. Look at this pic compared to real life pics from the side. Also, you can tell because the HDMI port in this picture is squashed.

 

Looks like excellent competition for the Macbooks, assuming of course, that the price is right.

 

i liked the design for this laptop untill i saw the new 'chain-link' imprint design for the inside palm rest. kind of a killer for me.
specs are not to impressive for the price too i think..
still waiting for the asus u80 to come out now.

 

It the same image from the OPs article but scaled down. Still don't like the tapered edge on this & the port arrangements.

Anyone heard anything about a SXPS 13 refresh on the horizon?

 

For those interested in this Studio 14, this may also be interesting:
Samsung X460, P7350, Nvidia 9200GS, $899 at Newegg

It's a bit lighter than the Studio 14 and includes a DVD drive.

 

I noticed on Dell's site the only memory options are 3 gb and 5 gb of RAM. The 5 gb option is very expensive. It made me wonder what's the RAM slot config in this system... is there 1 gb soldered on the mobo + 1 SODIMM? If so, is there an option in BIOS to disable the on-board RAM? Otherwise I'd worry about if it goes bad...

As far as the lack of optical drive... I say it's about time. Now if only software vendors would start selling their software on a USB flash drive or SD card instead of CD/DVD...
...Well, I guess you can download most software... but MS still doesn't officially support installing Windows from a USB drive... and neither does Ubuntu... although there are workarounds for both, I'd still like to see them make it easier and offer official support for that.

 

Screen matte or glossy?

 

IM really impressed by this notebook i was expecting something cheap but this looks really solid for the money.

 

Ubuntu does support installing from USB, they even have a program to do make a bootable usb drive built in!

 

i recently was going to install the latest ubuntu and they showed that you can install from a usb drive.

 

It would be rather peculiar if it wasn't. Most, if not all, consumer laptop screens are glossy.

As for 14" 1600x900, it would be (kind of) a step forward compared to current 14,1" 1440x900.

 

Why Dell designer couldn't make the lid tapered in shape? If this is a cheat, I would rather they cheat me by tapering the lid's edges. The side profile is just too thick in my opinion. The whole Studio line is just too thick.

For a 14", I would like to have a built-in optical drive. XPS 13" has it.

 

I have a friend that may like this... looking good Dell!!!

 

Definitely buying this, been waiting for a thin and light 13-14" laptop with mainstream consumer level pricing.

Was contemplating a macbook but I'd prefer something cheaper as I abuse my tech quite a bit.

 

So since there's no DVD drive, how well would DVDs play from a USB external drive? I've never used an external cd/dvd drive so what would I have to look for in terms of specs to get seemless, bufferless(?), non-blocky playback?

How good is the one recommended by Dell?
http://accessories.dell.com/sna/PopupProductDetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=A1970927&price=90

 

I look forward to see a head-to-head comparison of this and MSI X410. It seems to me that X410 is a step ahead in almost everyway.

 

If you think about it, a tapered body makes sense as that allows the front of the laptop to be closest to the desk, and slant slightly upward at the optimum angle for typing (which is why so many keyboards have rear legs to prop it up at an angle).

Glad Dell finally decided to release a 14" model of their Studio line.

 

^ Huh? I thought that was to do with the design (thicker at the hinge).

Imo, tapering (?) it is just a way to make it look thinner to consumers when marketing the product. Dell should focus on actually reducing the thickness. Tapered edges should be kept to a minimum and within a small margin (MB/MBP).

 

I was an "early adopter" of the Studio 15 (1535) and, after three warranty repairs, I had written off the Studio line. Until now, that is...

Unlike the Studio 15/17, the 14z should have much greater structural rigidity thanks to the magnesium alloy construction. The inclusion of both HDMI and DisplayPort is also very cool. Without the optical drive, there's more space for ports, I suppose!

I also find the 14.0" (900p) 1600x900 display upgrade very appealing...even better than the 1400x900 LED on my Latitude E6400! The nVIDIA 9400M G is much more capable than the Intel GMA 4500MHD, too.

For $900, you can get one with the P8600 & 1600x900 display....can't beat that!

What's up with the "z" designation, though?

 

Dell's explanation (for what it's worth) is here: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...op-great-option-for-school-and-elsewhere.aspx

 

It looks great! For 1K you can almost max it out...nice review as well!

 

Its unfortunately for the 14z to get compared to the M1330. First off, as much as I would like a really lightweight 14.1" with decent resolution screen, the weight and bulk does not make up for the loss of the optical drive.

I have/had a D420 and XT so I know what a hassle to bring along the external drive (worst if you have the media bases - which fortunately I leave at home/office.)


Perhaps the M1330 replacement will be much better. Of cause saying this will open me getting flamed for comparing a notebook twice the 14z's price. But if you disregard price and take bulk/weight, the 14z isn't lighter nor thinner than the Optical equipped M1330. I realise its a 14" but then again, the M1330 has so much screen bezel they could have shoved in a 14 and not one would notice.

My only other beef is it looks a little too much like the cheaper netbooks although admitedly they do look quite good.

 

Excellent mainstream consumer notebook, and a great choice for those who want macbok style but not the price. My sister is actually in the market for a lapop soon for PA school, and I think this is what I'd recommend to her.

+LED screens with 1600 x 900 option in a 14"!
+very thin and light, especially for a 14"
+Core 2 Duo, great performance as always
+Nvidia 9400M for good battery life and decent low-end GPU performance
+Plenty of colors
+Impressive battery life!
+Above average speakers, especially for a 14"
+Nice starting price!

So what's not to like? I suppose it doesn't make breakfast for you... oh and the lack of an internal disk drive is kind of a bummer, but external is ok

 

I wish more notebooks took the route of cutting out the optical drive and instead adding more ports or cooling ducts. I rarely use the optical drive, and it's convenient only to install miscellaneous software or boot from disk.

The high-res 16:9 screen in the 14" is a rare option on the current market, and it's a very big plus indeed.

 

It's pretty nice, overall quite a generous specification for what you're paying for.

 

I'm just the opposite, I have a Latitude E6400 and I rarely use the optical drive. I actually have a second hard drive in the optical bay slot almost all the time. There are obviously users who still need/want an optical drive, but many more who apparently don't.

Hasn't the M1330 already been replaced by the Studio XPS 13 (1340)?- LINK

 

I haven't seen any other 14.0" (16:9) models with the option for 900p (1600x900). Actually, the Studio 15 (1555) is the only 15.6" with the 1600x900 resolution option that I'm aware of, too....