 REVIEW : Dell XPS m1730 [ Category - PC Hardware ] |
 2007-11-04 17:53:48 - by  Marc B |
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Dell XPS M1730 Review One of Dell’s latest releases, the XPS m1730, is a feature packed powerhouse that most gamers dream about. Throughout this review I will take you through the various features of this piece of computing machinery that has rightfully been named “The Beast”. First of all I will run through the maximum specifications available from Dell on this laptop.
A few features that you may choose instead, to bring down the hefty price are: - Intel® Core ™2 Duo Processor T7500 - 2GB DDR2 SDRAM @ 667MHz - Single 160 GB 7200 RPM disk - No AGEIA PhysX accelerator - No Blu-Ray burner/reader This should drop the price dramatically without sacrificing much power at all. Now that we have covered the specs lets move onto the “nitty-gritty” of the machine.
There are going to be people who don’t like this laptop purely based on looks alone. That’s fine, as those of us that do, will love it. The first thing that you notice is the presence of neon LED’s surrounding the laptop. There are 2 LED’s on the back panel that light along pathways giving off the impression that it has wings and can fly and with this much power it wouldn’t surprise me if it could. These panels can be ordered from Dell in one of four different colours; red, blue, grey and white. The Dell logo on the back panel also lights up, there is an LED inside each speaker casing and an LED underneath the touchpad that lights up the letters “XPS”. With software provided by Dell you can individually change each LED to one of 16 different colours and several effects. You can even install software that will sync the lights to music played from Windows Media Player, iTunes or Winamp. The keyboard is also backlit which makes typing in the dark a breeze. Last but not least this laptop has a Logitech LCD display built in just above the keyboard.
This screen is the same as the one in the famous G15 gaming keyboard and displays information such as: date and time, RAM and CPU usage, timers, in-game information and many other patches available for download from Logitech. All this is covered in a shiny, carbon fiber looking case that screams “I am powerful!”
The physical size of this laptop is actually quite large. The dimensions are 16.5 x 11.6 x 2.2 inches and it weighs in at a whopping 14.2 pounds including the power pack (10.6 lbs without). These stats make this a hefty sized laptop but well worth every ounce if you ask me. One thing that I will note is that it is quite hard to find a carry bag that is actually going to fit and protect this laptop. As the machine is actually quite heavy you are going to probably want to get a backpack style bag to set the weight evenly on your shoulders, especially if you are going to be carrying it quite regularly. Unfortunately most bags that I tried just didn’t fit the laptop or left the top two corners pushing at the fabric on the top of the bag, leaving them unprotected and vulnerable to damage. In light of this I ended up choosing the Belkin NE 17 messenger style bag as the laptop fit quite nicely and it provided a sturdy barrier of much needed support and protection. However I wish to note that the 17’ Dell backpack will fit the M1730 better than most other backpacks and Dell also have a custom made XPS series bag that is designed especially for this laptop.
The keyboard is a full size keyboard with a 10 key numeric keypad bringing you that one step closer to an overall desktop feel. There are people that have the opinion that the keypad gives you an offset orientation to the front of the screen, as the touchpad is not centred to the screen but to the keyboard. I am yet to find a problem with this and have found it to feel quite natural.
Performance, where do I start? This machine has the grunt to keep up with most top end desktop PC’s and it’s portable. I am yet to find a game that I haven’t been able to play at full specs and that hasn’t run smoothly. These include: F.E.A.R., Half Life 2 – Episode 2, Stranglehold, World of Conflict, Quake 4 (Unreal Settings), Ghost Recon AW2 and many more. What more could a gamer want from a gaming laptop, especially considering that the machine I tested was only the base model? If you have the money, Dell gives you the option to put in the Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 chip, Ageia Physx card and 4 GB of RAM, which will give you more than enough power to meet all your gaming, audio, video and high end computing needs. It comes standard with dual NVIDIA Geforce 8700M GT graphics cards running in SLI mode with a total of 512MB of video RAM. This is one of the core features that gives the M1730 the power to tackle all those high end games head on
The option to have an Ageia Physx card installed is giving Dell the edge over most other gaming laptops as it is the first and only laptop on the market at the moment to have this. If you do choose to install this card I assure that you won’t be disappointed. The Physx card basically assigns itself to calculating all the physical interaction within a game. It will calculate things like, speed, gravity and weight, and display their effects a lot more realistically on the screen. At the moment this piece of hardware can only be taken advantage of by selected games such as Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter 1 and 2, Unreal Tournament 2007, Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, Cell Factor and many more in production. By purchasing this card you will equipped to experience them all.
Unlike many other laptops, the XPS M1730 is targeted at being a desktop replacement and has been designed to be left running constantly without any worry about overheating or issues that arise from prolonged laptop use. Considering the performance level of this laptop it does not run hot at all. I was able to use this machine on my lap, playing high end games, for several hours without any discomfort to my legs. Considering the power this is quite a feat. There are several fans in the bottom of the laptop which make this possible.
During testing the XPS M1730 failed dismally in battery life tests. It could only hold out for 69 minutes whilst playing a DVD from disc. I was able to stretch 2 hours out of the machine when running a file from disk at about half brightness. Still not good enough if you want to watch a movie that is longer than 2 hours whilst running on battery. Unfortunately these are the sacrifices that one needs to make in order to have such portable power. I for one feel that it is well worth it and was not in search of a laptop with maximum battery life.
The massive 1920 X 1200 native resolution of the screen supplies the user with a huge amount of display space and a crystal clear picture. I am very impressed with the quality of this LCD panel. During game play it does not display any lag in response time that would normally leave shadows across your screen in those intense battle scenes. The colour depth is absolutely amazing and rivals even the top end LCD panels on the market at the moment. Black is black and white is white; unlike many other displays that have trouble showing the full colour range.
Despite the fact that a vast majority of the users who will purchase this laptop would be considered quite tech savvy we all know that there are going to be instances where we need to reach out, whether it be for problem resolution, hardware failure or just to be pointed in the right direction for correct drivers. I did find my self in this situation as I had issues with the XP graphics drivers displaying a screen a screen flicker whilst running full screen video on battery and I also had issues finding XP drivers for the built in card reader. I found Dell support to be extremely helpful. This is contrary to all the terrible things that I had heard and read about contacting Dell. The graphics issue was resolved temporarily with a change to 16 bit colour depth and I received a call within two hours with directions to a link where I could download newer drivers that resolved the issue permanently. I was forced to contact Dell as NVIDIA did not have the drivers for the 8700M GT on their site and I was already using the ones on the Dell website. With regards to the card drivers I was told that the laptop was designed for Vista and the drivers come with Vista. They informed me that the drivers were being written and would be available within a week. I received an email about 5 days later providing me with a link to the XP media card drivers.
Ironically, during writing this review and after only 3 weeks of use, I had a power supply failure. Interestingly enough it was not even during heavy game-play but during general use. This happened on a Friday afternoon at about 5:00pm and I was under the impression that I was going to have to wait until some stage the following week to receive a new battery pack. I called the guys on the XPS team, troubleshot the problem and confirmed it to be a power pack failure. I was not guaranteed that the part would be delivered, but they told me that they would do their best to get it to me as soon as possible. Despite the fact that I had to make several phone calls to chase up the order I had a new power pack in my hands Saturday night at 8 pm. I was very impressed with the service provided and don’t know any other laptop, or product for that matter, that I could have bought that would have a replacement part delivered to me 27 hours after making first contact at 5pm on a Friday afternoon. Well done Dell, very impressed. Despite the fact that I was disappointed that something had failed in such a short period my confidence was restored when I realised how quickly the problem was resolved. Power packs will fail especially when they are pumping out 230W of power. All in all I was very pleased with the dealings that I had with Dell, from sales all the way to support and I would recommend them to anyone.
This computer is definitely marketed at, and designed for, serious gamers and high end PC users. The performance exhibited by this machine has set a new benchmark in power for all new laptops to come, not only for Dell but the entire laptop market. The only real disadvantages to this machine are the lack of battery life and its weight. However, in my opinion and considering what it is designed for, these are such small disadvantages when taking into account the benefits of the sheer power. All in all I am confident to say that this is a well built machine that will appeal to a lot of users. Those that choose to purchase this product will not be disappointed. Pros
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 2 Comments |  2398 Views | |  Del.icio.us |  StumbleUpon | |
| Comment by Sebbo - 2008-01-17 05:24:36 |
| Great review, informative, cohesive, easily the best review I've read about this product - how about some more photos / vidoes of it in action? ***** |
| Comment by John - 2007-11-29 16:55:00 |
| Hi there. Nice review. |
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