Technology Geek

So first up, the tech specs and my config:

Model: Dell Studio 1555

Color: Midnight Blue

OS: Windows Vista SP2 64 bit w/ free upgrade to Windows 7 64 Bit

Screen: 15.6″ HD 900p 16:9 w/ glass edge to edge display

Processor: Intel Core2 Duo T6500 2.10 ghz

Memory: 8gb DDR2 800mhz

Hard Drive: 320gb 7200 RPM

Graphics/Video: ATI Radeon Mobility 4570 512mb DDR3

Wireless Card: Intel 5100 A/G/N

Bluetoooth: Yes (2.1)

Webcam: 2MP

Optical Drive: 8x Slot Load Super Multi (DL DVD+/-R Drive + Ram Support

Sound Card: Sound Blaster X-Fi (express Slot) W/ Integrated HD Audio 2.0 Speakers

Keyboard: 86 Key Backlit Keyboard

Other Standard features of the Studio 1555:

2x USB 2.0 ports

1x USB/eSata combo port

HDMI port

34mm Express Card Slot

8-in-1 Media Card Reader

2x Headphone 1x Mic Audio Jacks

4-Pin IEEE 1394 port

15-Pin VGA Port

Weight: about 5.6 LBS

Gigabit Ethernet

Standard 6 Cell Battery

So now that we got the tech specs out of the way on to the review.

This is my first time actually owning a Dell PC as a consumer, although I’ve used them in the corporate world as their Optiplex series is the desktop standard in the business world and never really had any issues but I wasn’t blown away, simply put, business PC’s are generally pretty Whack and mildly boring. That being said, I was slightly nervous about losing my high end PC virginity to Dell and was really hoping it didn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth. To be totally honest, I wouldn’t have went with Dell had my company not offered us to use its Dell Corporate discount and letting us have it taken out of our paychecks over the next year. I was already in the market for a high end PC but they just enabled me financially and more importantly, they wheeled me in with a nice discounted price point and an option to customize. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse and when they let us know the base model they decided to go with this year was the Dell Studio 1555, a mostly consumer intended flavor of dell, I was even more compelled. Long Story short, I customized the crap out of it and added features that would, with out discount, Cost around $1300. The laptop it would be replacing was an Acer Aspire 4073-Jal90, basically a low-end lightweight laptop I scored on sale at Best Buy for $400. Surprisingly my cheap Acer performed well at just about anything I threw at, minus its overheating issues when I put it to work and would transfer a ton of files without a cooling pad conforting its over worked insides. Honestly it was a great machine and I give props to Acer for providing a cheap product with the features and performance of the big dogs, however the geek in me is never satisfied and I had to send my Acer packing to a new home to some less nerdier people who will provide with a much needed break full of Myspace and Facebook visits.

My laptop took about 12 days from production to shipping to arrival, which in my opinion was pretty impressive being as I changed my processor last minute because I realized I mucked it up on the submission form. 12 days is an eternity when your awaiting something your so pumped about, you can barely sleep.

My first impression of the laptop was that it was very well built and was surprisingly lightweight for being so well constructed and having a 15.6″ screen, I believe the Macbook Pro 15″ weighs 5.5 lbs and the Studio 1555 weighs roughly 5.6 lbs. Right after the intial setup of the OS I went straight to the control panel and un-installed all the programs that dell bundles that I didn’t want, which was surprisingly not many (at least compared to Acer’s bloatware mess). After that I installed all my favorite (mostly torrented) software like adobe CS4, MS Office 2007, VM workstation, Google Chrome and others and then upgraded the OS to Vista Sp2. I imported all my data, music, pictures and documents which is always tedious but painless process nonetheless and I then finally was ready to start really putting this new toy through its paces.

As stated above, I was instantly impressed with the build quality and to this day 2 weeks later, I am still very pleased, outside a few minor hiccups. One of those hiccups being a sticky backspace button that made a mouse like squeek upon every press, it was redicuosly annoying and I was honestly kinda pissed. I was pissed, but not for long, as I opened up a browser, started a Dell Chat session with a Technical Support Rep and was able to get the issued fixed in matter of 10 minutes. Dell support had easily and willingly offered to send me a brand new keyboard free of charge, and literally 2 days later, it arrived at my door. I was impressed and even more happy because my squeeky key problem had ceased to exist before the replacement even arrived at my door, so I just gained a free backup keyboard even if I ruin it later because of user fault.

The screen is downright beautiful and took me a couple hours to get used to as my previous Acer’s screen was not much to look at. The colors were beautiful and videos/movies looked amazing. I honestly can’t imagine how the full 1080p screen could have looked any better as this one is just nothing short of amazing at 900p. It makes apps like Tweedeck look awesome in full screen mode and pictures just seem so crisp, the screen is just amazing. I haven’t tried any HDMI connections or anything just yet but I will update with my results. Any one planning to purchase this should really look into the Edge to Edge display option, which eliminates the plastic bezel around the screen so it just looks amazing and I lucked out because on Dell’s business site, that’s only a $10 upgrade and $10 well spent in my opinion.

One aspect that I’m usually not impressed with on any laptop (especailly my old Acer) that I have really liked on the Studio 1555 is the trackpad. The trackpad, though not huge, is big enough where I am totally comfortable using it and never seen a need for a mouse. The 2 buttons are entirely there own buttons and are very easily pushed not like my Acer where I would hear a loud snap when I attempted to press the right or left buttons, basically they just work. Another nice feature of the Studio 1555 is the multi-touch gestures, the standard Dell Synaptics driver comes with the “pinch to zoom in” already by default, however I downloaded the latest driver from Synaptics which is the way to go. The Synaptics driver has the typical pinch to zoom multi touch but also has 3 finger gestures, photo rotating, tap to click and assigning application short cuts to the four corners of the touchpad for quick launch. In any case, I reccomend picking up that driver, you get everything that dell offers and more. I also love that its not overly sensitive like my Acer was, it was so annoying when I was typing in a text input box and the my hand would slightly bump my touchpad and I would be writing in an another area of the paragraph all of the sudden… Lame.

On to the keyboard, which has been great minus the issue of a sticky backspace key out of the box which has worked its way out even though I have recieived a replacement and since then I’ve actually received a backlit keyboard, which I can’t as of yet review because I simply haven’t had enough time to install it. In any case, the keyboard is large enough and provides a fantastic typing experience and I have no real complaints. Those of you who are big users of the F1-F12 keys may want to make them the default keys in the BIOS or you’ll be typing FN + what F key you wish, as by default the F keys are also the media key, the wifi on/off keys and all that good stuff, which is in no way bad, I hate touch sensitive media controls buttons and Im glad they done away with such, simplifying the look.

In general the hardware has been impressive, it feels and looks high end. Weight wise its a perfect blend of “heavy enough to feel expensive but light enough to carry around” and I couldn’t be happier as I am truly a mobile user of it, it mostly never leaves my side.

Performance

A pretty laptop is nothing without snappy performance and performance thus far has been damn good for a laptop. I believe I could truly use this machine as a non movable desktop replace hooked up to an external monitor and have no problems. The Intel Core2 Duo T6500 processor does a great job of keeping everything up to speed, it was a $50 upgrade on the Dell site up from the default Intel Pentium Dual Core T4200 and $50 cheaper than the P7350 which actually benchmarked lower and cost double the price. All in all the T6500 was a good choice without spending $350 on the really high end stuff that would never even come close to maxing out. I ran some benchmarks and the processor on this machine outperformed every other model using the t6500 and even a few machines running a better processor.

For video and multimedia this machine is idea for what I do. The graphics chip (ATI Radeon 4570) is powerful enough to run most any game at medium settings and a lot of games on full settings, which is pretty impressive for a non gaming laptop. I have Adobe CS4 master collection installed and it runs Photoshop CS4 Extended very well, not really hiccups in the imaging. I’ve only watched a few DVD’s with it but they all looked pretty amazing and playback was damn near perfect. The place where this laptop really excels over my previous is streaming video over the internet. I’m not sure if its the graphics chip, the upgraded processor, the N Intel Wifi card or some mystical magic, but this machine plays back video AMAZING. Watching you tube videos in HD on my old laptop was damn near impossible and Hulu desktop would become my old Acer to its knees, whereas my new Studio handles it with ease and looks great in the process.

Listening to music with or without heaphones plugged is nothing short of amazing, but could be a little louder. However for me sound quality is more important that volume, and the quality of the Studio speakers really shine and the built in subwoofer vibrates your legs a little when its resting on your lap which really gives you a cinematic experiene when your watching an intense flick. When listening through the heaphones I’m amazed at how much volume it pushes to my Sennhiesers, I’m a maxed out volume kinda guy but thru the laptop I cant even get past half way up, so I imagine normal folk wanting to get there rock on could easily get by with a quarter on the volume bar. When I use the Sound Blaster X-Fi notebook sound card it sounds like I’m at a concert, its intense to say the least and awesome my dad gladly gave his over to me.

As as for general performance, its been well. Full reboot times could be better though, I love the Dell dck and have made good use of it, I can’t say that Ill be keeping when Windows 7 rolls around. It just takes a couple minutes for it to load up but a couple minutes is a long time in computer time and I’m waiting very impatiently for Windows 7 and its 50 second start-up times. After we get over the start up hiccups everything runs smooth and I don’t have many wait tims for everthing and I notice my Windows Sidebar Gadgets appear alot quicker on start-up than my old Acer. However as whole, this machine and this config is has perform very well and there really isn’t anything that I can’t do.

Overall

Though the Dell Studio 1555 is not Dell’s highest end model and really is there more consumer driven series, they don’t skimp on options to customize and turn it into any kind of PC you want it to be. As stated I have a had a few hiccups but Dell customer support has been amazing, whether I’ve been on the phone or over there chat service online, all has been top notch. Performace has been nothing short of consistent and fast and I’d say this is one of the better electronic purchases that I have made in life. It combines slick looks, with great performance, unmatched versatility, and in a lightweight well constructed package. If you thinking of purchasing this, Do it, but make sure to make it yours and customize it your needs, I did and I went a little extreme but having a beast of a laptop is never a bad thing.