Dell Studio 17 (1747) Review

The Studio 17 is a 17-inch multimedia and gaming desktop-replacement notebook from Dell. This system can be configured with Intel Core i7 processors as well as high-end ATI Mobility Radeon graphics cards to compete against powerhouse systems like the Acer Aspire 8940G or Asus G51J. Dell has one trick up its sleeve with the Studio 17: it's the first large consumer notebook to offer an optional multitouch display.

Attentive readers might notice that we already reviewed the Dell Studio 17 last year. However, this isn't the same Studio 17. The system we're reviewing here is the new Studio 17 (1747) which uses a completely new chassis with 16:9 ratio widescreen display, new speakers, and support for the latest processors.

Dell Studio 17 (1747) Specifications:

• 17.3" HD+ (1600 x 900) TrueLife WLED
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Intel Core i7 720QM processor (1.6GHz, 6MB L3 cache)
• ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 1GB
• 4GB DDR3 RAM (2x 2GB)
• 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200RPM Hard Drive
• Dell Wireless 1397 802.11g
• 8X DVD burner
• Three-year limited warranty
• 9-cell battery (85Wh)
• Weight: Starting weight of 7.87 lbs
• Dimensions: 16.28 x 11.04 x 1.1-1.54"
• MSRP: $1,164

Build and Design
The Dell Studio 17 has a sleek wedge-shaped side profile that helps mask its large footprint. The sloped design reduces the thickness of the notebook, and if you don't count the bulging 9-cell battery, it is basically as tall as my ThinkPad T60 when closed. The red screen cover looks very nice and is also available in other colors if you custom configure the notebook. The painted cover has a great rubbery texture that gives the notebook a soft feel and helps to increase grip for your fingers. The inside of the Studio 17 is glossy plastic and a flush-mount color-matched touchpad. The palmrest trim is painted with a silver metallic finish with the trim directly surrounding the keyboard being glossy painted black plastic. Both finishes appear to resist light scratches, which is a godsend for glossy notebooks that need to be wiped down constantly to look clean and smudge-free.

The one Dell-specific design element that really bugs me is the battery design. I greatly prefer the method of extended-life batteries that extend out the back of the notebook. The lower-mounted method used with the Studio 17's battery prevents the notebook from sitting perfectly flush on your desk surface. The only problem with using a battery that extend out the back with this notebook is the hinge design which would interfere with extended batteries.

The chassis feels very strong and when the notebook is closed it feels stiff enough to stand on (though we don't recommend standing on it). Dell did an excellent job perfecting the solid frame and really nailed it with the precise fit of the body panels. Every panel is securely held in place with even gaps around mating surfaces. The panels themselves feel durable and resist flexing under moderate pressure. The only surface on the notebook that seems to have any flex is the keyboard tray that flexes slightly under strong pressure.

The bottom of the notebook has a clean appearance with a single access hatch to user-replaceable components. Users looking to upgrade the Studio 17 will find two hard drive bays, three mini-PCIe slots, two memory slots, and the BIOS battery. Our configuration left one hard drive bay open, as well as slots for a WWAN card and TV tuner card. The graphics card and processor were not accessible through the main access panel, so to change either of those would require further dismantling of the notebook. No "warranty void if removed" stickers were found anywhere inside or outside the computer.

Screen and Speakers
The 17.3-inch display on the Studio 17 looks above average with good color saturation and excellent contrast. Dell picked an in-between resolution of 1600x900 in this model, which is better than WXGA but still less than the 1080P displays that are standard on almost all competing models. With that said Dell does offer RGB-LED display upgrade options for this model where none of the competing models offer similar displays.

The standard display has good vertical viewing angles where colors don't start to invert significantly until the screen is tilted 15-20 degrees forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles are better with colors staying true to roughly 80 degrees in each direction. Backlight levels are pretty good in terms of even brightness and peak brightness. With the screen displaying an all-black background there is minimal bleed around the edges at normal brightness levels. As you increase past 80% the black levels start to appear washed out, but that is normal for bright panels. The backlight is strong enough to comfortable view the display in bright office conditions or outdoors if you find a spot of shade.

The Dell Studio 17 includes JBL stereo speakers with a bottom-firing subwoofer. The primary drivers are top-firing through the corners of the palmrest which is much preferred over lap-firing speakers which can sound muffled. In our tests the Studio 17 speakers rated well above average when playing both movies and music. Midrange and high notes came through clearly and the subwoofer added some bass which is usually lacking from many notebooks. Peak volume levels were above average and more than capable for filling a small or medium sized room with sound.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard on the Studio 17 is very nice and very comfortable to type on with such a massive palmrest. With the notebook sitting on the edge of a desk or on your lap your wrists are fully supported to your forearms. The soft rounded edge of the front of the notebook doesn't seem to cause any pressure points, which can be a problem with some notebooks. The keyboard layout takes full advantage of the massive surface area of the Studio 17. The keyboard is full-size with no condensed keys and it includes a four-key wide numberpad. The layout is Dell-standard with the function keys being secondary and the access keys being primary. To give you an example you can adjust the brightness directly by pressing F4 and F5, but to refresh a webpage you would need to click FN+F5. You can notice some flex of the keyboard under strong pressure but under normal typing it isn't that apparent. Individual key action is smooth with a very soft click emitted when each key is fully pressed. The configuration we reviewed doesn't offer a backlit but it can be included as a $25 option. After using the Studio 17 a few nights in front of my TV I really found myself wishing that the backlight came standard.

The touchpad is a very large Synaptics model with some multitouch support. Advanced gestures include two-finger scrolling, rotating, pinch zoom, and a three-fingered flick. Sensitivity is excellent with the touchpad picking up even the slightest touch without a problem. This did cause some problems if you barely brush your palm against the touchpad while moving the cursor towards a target. The touchpad would detect the second input and make the cursor freeze until you let off. No amount of adjusting the settings corrected this but with enough practice you learn to move your hand farther away from the touchpad boundaries. Touchpad speed is great with no discernable lag noticed even during quick movements. The surface texture is a light matte finish and very easy to slide your finger across dry or moist. The touchpad buttons are also very nice with a deep throw and a soft click when pressed.

Ports and Features
Port selection is very good even with no ports or slots added to the front or rear edge of the notebook. Dell included two USB ports, one eSATA/USB combo port, VGA, HDMI, and Displayport-out, LAN, two headphone jacks, audio-in, LAN, and finally a FireWire-400 port. Expansion slots include an ExpressCard/34 slot and SDHC-card reader. One additional port that wasn't used in our configuration is the antenna jack that connects to an internal TV-tuner. We did have one problem with the USB port layout; the right side has spacing far enough apart from each other to prevent you from using some dual-pronged cords.

The Dell Studio 17 includes an accelerometer to protect the hard drive in the event of a physical system crash. If it detects the notebook is dropped it will rapidly park the hard drive to help minimize damage. This is common in many business notebooks, but unlike every other implementation we have seen, this one was the first to cause problems. If you tilt the notebook too far in any direction it will directly alter the direction movement on the screen. We first noticed this during our testing phase when the notebook was resting on an elevated stand. If the Studio 17 is tilted forward dialog box selection will randomly switch back and forth. If you tilt the notebook to one side it will start moving the selection box up and down. To only way to correct this is to uninstall the ST Micro ScreenDection driver. This problem is also reported on the Dell Community forum.

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<!--pagetitleell Studio 17 (1747) Performance and Conclusion-->

Performance and Benchmarks
The Dell Studio 17 is no slouch with its Intel Core i7 720QM processor and ATI Mobility Radeon 4650 graphics. While playing Left 4 Dead at 1600x900 resolution with high settings we saw an average framerate of 60FPS, a max of 87FPS, and low of 38FPS. Even with hordes of zombies around the main characters the notebook never dropped below 30FPS. Although this system is more than capable of playing Left 4 Dead at high settings, it still fell behind the ASUS G51J and Acer 8940G which included better graphics cards. Since the Studio 17 is a notebook more focused on all around multimedia performance we didn't have a huge problem with this. The downside is users need to upgrade to the Alienware m17x or switch to the Studio XPS 16 to get better graphics cards options from Dell. Both alternatives have a much higher starting price - around $1,600- that could be hard to swallow if you are working on a smaller budget. HD video was not a problem for the Studio 17 with the 1.6GHz Core i7. The CPU never broke a sweat playing 720p and 1080p video with plenty of overhead room left for other activities.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

3DMark06 comparison results against netbooks @ 1024 x 768 resolution (higher scores mean better performance):

HDTune hard drive performance test:

Heat and Noise
Thermal performance of the Dell Studio 17 is above average when you consider that a single fan is handling the cooling for a quad-core processor and mid-range graphics card. Under normal use the case temperatures stay within very reasonable levels with few hot spots. Under stress some areas near the processor and touchpad warm up, but still not up to uncomfortable levels. Fan noise during all conditions is minimal, but it does get higher pitched and more frequent under load.

Battery Life
Our configuration of the Studio 17 included a 9-cell battery that helped squeeze out some impressive time from this Core i7-equipped notebook. In our battery test with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and Windows 7 on the balanced profile the notebook stayed on for 4 hours and 19 minutes. During the test the Studio 17 consumed between 17 to 19 watts of power.

Conclusion
The Dell Studio 17 performed very well as a multimedia-oriented desktop-replacement notebook. The system includes everything you might want, including great speakers, very nice screen options, a fast processor, and a very capable graphics card. Compared to the ASUS G51J or Acer 8940G which offer NVIDIA 260M and 250M cards respectively, the Studio 17 does fall behind in gaming performance with its lower performing ATI Mobility Radeon 4650. No other higher performing card can be configured with the Studio 17, meaning you would have to jump to the Studio XPS 16 or Alienware m17x which have much greater starting prices. Overall the Studio 17 blows away the competition in custom options -- including an optional RGB-LED backlit panel or touchscreen -- and it offers a very low entry price for its Core i7 configuration. Keep this system on your list if you plan on buying a 17" notebook anytime soon.

Pros:

• Great build quality
• Very good speaker system
• Low starting price

Cons:

• Some minor keyboard flex
• No high-end graphics card option
• Faulty accelerometer driver

Related Articles:

• Alienware m17x Review
• Dell Studio 17 Gets Multi-Touch
• Dell Studio XPS 16 Review
• Dell Studio 17 Review

 

Great review Kevin! Thanks, I was waiting for one of these to come out.

 

Agreed! Thanks for a very thorough and useful review!

DELL should send you one with the RGB-LED (1920x1080) for further review...

 

Not a bad battery life for such a powerful machine. Pretty good heat management too....

And I actually think the price is somewhat reasonable! I wouldn't say no to having such a machine - although I must admit my old hp 8710w is hard to beat.

 

Isn't it commonplace that the graphics options in midrange laptops are limited to midrange card(s), as Studio 1735, Vostro 1700, 1710 and 1720 ? That's artificial market segmentation...leave high-end cards strictly to high-end lappies etc.

 

Nice review, and that's a decent price for those kind of components.

Dell has traditionally had very functional keyboard layouts and their latest 17" models are no exception. All keys are in the right places (chiefly, the insert, printscreen, home, end, pgup, and pgdn keys). The F keys being secondary functions would bug the hell out of me, it is an ignorant feature. Hey Dell, think about your expert users; changes like that are done at the expense of the expert user in exchange for making it more touchy-feely for Joe/Jane consumer, who probably won't care one way or another.
Apparently it can be disabled via the BIOS . . .
I tried a Dell XPS 1340 yesterday and found the keyboard sort of lifeless; if this is similar (which it looks like) then that might be a deal breaker. HP has better keyboards than Dell. I'd probably pick up an HP Pavilion given that.

 

Charles, what do you mean be "lifeless"?

 

As in, the key feel is not very distinct, sort of mushy. On a proper keyboard there is a communicative feel all throughout the keystroke. Recent Dell keyboards have not given me that impression. They are not bad keyboards by any means (they get most aspects right - layout, no flex, pressure point) but they fail to encourage typing. YMMV, and as noted I only tried a XPS 1340 (also a Studio 15, if that counts). This Studio 17 and other Dell notebooks may very well be different.

 

Thanks...I think I know what you mean...fortunately my old Dell has a very good keyboard, though years are catching up now...

I think I should try one before criticizing Dell keyboards...

 

I bought an Inspiron 1545 for my older sister several months back. It was dirt cheap ($360 from the Outlet) and my expectations weren't very high, but the keyboard was a pleasant surprise. The layout is simple and logical, key spacing and feel make touch typing a breeze and the keys have just enough resistance. I was even more impressed in the lack of flex, even under significant pressure.

But what in the hell were they thinking when they made the Function keys secondary??? It supports my theory that when Dell creates a laptop that's simply TOO good, they deliberately find a way to screw it up! Of course I'm being sarcastic and cynical, but hindsight lends the theory some credibility. And it would it explain the (abysmal) touchpad on my Latitude E6400!!!

I wasn't aware that Dell had changed the function keys (making them far less functional) until my sister called me with a problem. Her 1545 had suddenly lost its wireless connection and a reboot didn't fix the problem. I spent at least 30 minutes walking her thru rebooting her modem, then the router, checking the cables between them, etc. I finally gave up and drove 45 minutes to her house to see if I could figure out how to fix it.

The problem? She (or my nephew) had inadvertently hit the key formerly known as F2. It is the wireless radio on/off switch by default and F2 is the secondary function (Fn + F2 if you insist on using it)! I simply pressed that key again and, surprise!, it had a wireless connection once again! How freakin' stupid!!!

 

My old vostro 1700 had a great keyboard, the feel and feedback was great. But I have noticed new keyboards especially the flashier and chicklet style do feel mushy and do not inspire me to type on it. Maybe its a business class thing or maybe its things to come.

As for HP I will say I do like the keyboard in my moms compaq and the one in my HP server is good too (minus the finish).

 

more than 4hours? wow, this has got my interest... 17inch that's cheap. with decent battery life!

any one know the batt life if configured with the intel graphics?

 

This can be changed in the BIOS. I actually like being able to set them they way I want.

 

I do prefer F-keys to be F-keys too, quite annoying otherwise; but if they can be set to function normally in BIOS, it does seems reasonable. Microsoft has gone that way with their keyboards in the last few years too (for the ones I've used at least) i.e. the F-keys default to not working as F keys unless you engage F-lock). I guess it's meant to make systems more 'friendly'

 

I don't disagree with that at all. BUT I think it should be set for them to work as Function keys by default. Then more advanced users who want to change them in the BIOS, they can do so.

 

Keep in mind that 4+ hours of battery life comes with the extended-life battery that sticks out the bottom of the notebook. It's safe to assume the standard battery would only deliver 50-60 percent as much run time.

 

HP is doing this on all of their new Pavilion notebook models now as well. You can thank the fact all the PC companies are trying to be like Apple by doing that. I'm pretty sure we'll see this proliferate.

 

Finally Dell is using a decent third party speaker solution instead of their own generic crappy speakers.

 

Is that 4650 ddr3 or dd2?

 

Is it just me or are the back ends of these laptops getting bigger with each generation? Also why did they send you the lower resolution screen for such a large laptop?

 

when i remember right, its DDR3

just a few words from someone who actually has it: this laptop is absolutely fantastic
but the 1080p screen is much better then the default one, but the battery lifetime is shorter of course

people interested in more information should maybe look in this thread too:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=420136

 

It's DDR3 for the 4570 and 4650 used on the Studio 1745/1747. The Studio 1555 also has the DDR3 version of the 4570.

 

Thanks for the reply!

What i am also wondering is:

Will this be a good upgrade over my current laptop?

Dv7 p8600 and a 9600m gt?

 

Is your DDR2 or GDDR3?

 

Mine is ddr2.

 

I was under the impression that the graphics card was soldered to the motherboard and there for, not upgradable. The above paragraph seems to hint to otherwise....can anyone confirm this?

 

I would just assume it's soldered in. In all the other previous and current generation Studio laptops, the graphics card is soldered; I don't see why the 1747 would be any exception.

Some real gaming test benchmarks for this machine would be nice...I'm actually considering buying exactly this to replace my dead 1555.

Good review, Kevin!

 

The 4650HD is no slouch, so if you dont mind the size Mastershroom, then the upgrade will be noticeable most likely.

Lumix25, the 4650HD is superior than the 9600M GT, and the performance up wil be noticeable for graphics, and perhaps some speed up on regular tasks too.

 

When will the RGB led screen be available in Dell UK? This sucks, I was about to purchase it .

 

Yeah, I hate that as it's not like the GPUs actually cost THAT much. If this had an Nvidia chip it would be a perfectly good choice for me.

 

It's also fairly simple to overclock. Btw, on the subject of battery life, i7 models are only available with 9cell battery through the website.

 

Any links to a guide to overclocking the 4650?

 

I am not a fan of overclocking, since it voids warranties, but if willing to do so, RivaTuner and ATITools are the best around AFAIK.

 

Thanks. I doubt I will find it necessary to overclock, since I'm not a huge gamer. But i like to read up on how anyways

 

Nice article. I wish I could have found more of these when I was researching my computer purchase.

I have had my 1747 for only two days and so far I am very happy with it.

Re: operation of the function keys
The function key behavior is an option in the Windows Mobility Center (Windows 7). Open using the touch-sensitive icon with the little gears (at the top of the keyboard). I too thought it odd that the default behavior was to use the multimedia keys.

I have the 1920 X 1080 B+RG LED display. This display is stunning. Much nicer than the 1920 X 1200 15" display on my five-year-old Inspiron 8600.
I am, however, disappointed in the way Dell is marketing this display. I did some research on display types before buying this 1747. I found a display type called RGB LED (best) and a type called WLED (second best) but I found no info on a B+RG LED display. I concluded that this was Dell marketing lingo for the RGB LED type of display. It was not until after my unit shipped and I used the Service Tag to look up the configuration that I saw the display listed as "Liquid Crystal Display, 17.3, Full High Definition, White Light Emitted Diode". So what I have is an LCD WLED type display. I am not complaining about the display - it's great. I am not happy with Dell for not clearly describing the technology used.

I have a line on my system configuration called Free Fall Sensor. I have two Seagate Momentus ST9320423AS HDDs. This drive, according to the Seagate website does NOT have free fall protection. The model ST9320423ASG (with a 'G' at the end) DOES have a freefall sensor. What I DO have is a task running that is named FF_Protection.exe*32. A web search shows that this is software that provides free fall protection. My question is how can a program know if the computer is falling? Wouldn't you need an accelerometer sensor in the computer for the program to monitor? And why would Dell build a sensor into the computer and then write a program to monitor it when the HDD manufacturer (Seagate) already has a product with that feature built in? Any body know how Dell's free fall sensor works?

BTW-the backlit keyboard is fabulous!

 

Hi MNCamper

What is your battery life with this "B+RG" display?

Thanks!
Rayt

 

Yeap, just need to make a small mod to rivatuner.cfg. I don't see how it would void the warranty since bios is not touched. If you monitor temperatures and don't get too greedy with the overclock percentage, this should be just fine.

Anyway, here is the link for 4670, but the concept is the same, just get the right GPU ID with GPU-Z (it should be 1002-9480).

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=433749
http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=ae62620811135b3675aa3656a0175eea&topic=130309.0

 

I get about 4-4.5 hours with 9cell battery on i820 model with 1080p display and 1 HDD. This is on Dell's power profile with WiFi on, Bluetooth absent, Aero off, brightness at about 40% (could be easily lower, screen is very bright). I haven't really messed with battery optimization at all. All in all, very nice for a 17" laptop with decent discrete graphics and a very fast CPU (for a laptop ).

 

Rayt,
I don't think I will be much help with this question. I seldom use my computers off the grid.
But, I did run my 1747 on battery for a couple of hours just to test that the battery and charging system were working properly. I think I took the 9-cell battery down to around 40% to 50% in that time. Don't quote me on that. I was not paying too much attention to how long the battery would last. This was with the power configuration as shipped.

 

r u measuring temperature at which mode ?

1. minimum load
2. avg load
3. maximum load

 

On the review? After stressing the system.

 

is this temperature is OK for a laptop ?

and u know anything abt cooling system of dell studio 15 and 17 both with core i7 ?

if both r same then its my advise to check this website before purchase these above two laptops ...........

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Studio-1557-Notebook.23009.0.html (check emissions section)

 

The 17 has better cooling system than the 15, where the 15 is overheating the 17 is only warm.

 

I bet the 17 will overheat as soon as there will be new cpu options for it. It's like Dell makes a laptop and tests it with only the curent cpu's, or maybe just the lowest cpu, witouth thinking about the heat factor from future cpu's. Sure its great that new cpu's can be put in an old model, but don't be surprised if it overheats then.

 

New models as in Arrandale?

Arrandale should not heat as much as Clarksfield.

 

you price would be much higher as well


its better to keep them separate. A mainstream user will never need the 4870 for example so its just better to reserve those for high end segment

 

I went to see this laptop at Best Buy and I found the keyboard to be much better than the one on the Studio 15. I haven't tried a recent Studio 15, but I remember the one I tried earlier this year had a mushy keyboard. The new Studio 17 had a clickier and lighter feel. Quite nice.

 

Yeap, arrandale should be less expensive as well as less hot then Clarksfield due to it being a)dual-core instead of quad-core and b)being made on 40nm manufacturing process, I believe. So if Studio 17 can handle the current i7, the dual-cores shouldn't present much of an issue.

On the temperature question:

CPU
Idle/Min load - ~45-50
Ave load (web browsing, moderate flash, word docs) - ~52-55
Gaming - 60-65 (closer to 60 normally)
Prime95/full load test - 68-70

GPU
Idle/Min load - ~45-47
Ave load (web browsing, moderate flash, word docs) - ~50-55
Gaming/3dmark06/GPUtool test - 60ish (closer to 60 normally)

So overall, cooling is quite sufficient, laptop never gets hot, only a bit warm around touchpad and on the bottom.

 

There still 45tdp due to the CPU and gpu on the same die

 

The new ones are 32nm. What strikes me as weird is that they're not immediately giving us 32nm quads for the high end. If there's a part that needs 32nm, it's quad core notebook chips!

Would garbage Intel video really take much power though? Ugh...just wish Intel was focusing differently. I guess it makes sense from one perspective, since they probably make the most from these "mainstream" dual core chips, but people satisfied with dual core probably won't know the difference anyway :-/