Overview
Gaj got first glimpses at the Dell’s Studio range of laptops, when he was invited to their lavish launch event back in June. Well, now it looks as though Dell have been kind enough to let us gets our hands on one of these laptops and take it for a Gaj-it test drive. Sitting nicely in between the Dell’s Inspiron and XPS range this is classed as what you would call a mid ranged laptop, so with that in mind let’s not waste any time and to see whether it lives up to our expectations…
Review
Style
With a lot of laptops taking on the wafer thin themes, it looks as though this laptop isn’t going to win any awards in the weight watchers camp. What I mean by this is that it’s by no means a portable alternative. Touting a 17″ screen, this laptop is classed as a ‘desktop replacement’ as you either have to be a body builder or an aspiring body builder to want to lug this laptop around with you.
So now that I’ve got that out of the way, this laptop makes up for its lack of carrying around with its stylish exterior. Having taken many design traits from the XPS range this laptop has a wedge-shaped profile making it sit nicely on a desk with a drop hinge, slot-loading optical drive making it look snazzy when inserting your DVD discs and touch-sensitive media buttons.
The Studios also come in a variety of colours, which include Plum Purple, Tangerine Orange, Flamingo Pink (hhhmmmm…nice), Midnight Blue, Ruby Red, Spring Green or the standard laptop colour Jet Black, allowing the consumer the choice of personalising their purchased laptop to their own taste.
While the Flamingo Pink might not be the most desired colours for males it might make getting the funding permission from the other half that much easier and with other colours available you could make a compromise on a more ‘neutral’ colour. As expected from Dell the texture and paint job on the laptop is absolutely flawless and to top this off Dell have also added the option of having high gloss “Graphite Grey” color, which comes in your choice of black, blue, pink, or red edge trim around the display, back and sides.
Open this laptop up and the design tricks don't stop there. With an imprinted design on the palm rest area and on the lid if you select the added option above, it makes the design look like a close-up view of a topographical map and is yet another way that the Studio notebooks stand out from the rest of the Dell range.
In terms of overall chassis construction, this laptop is quite solid and suffers from virtually no flex or creaks when squeezed and twisted between your hands. While this is no disclaimer to throwing your laptop around like a cat by the tail it does mean that this laptop should survive a drop from your desk without significant damage if the situation should ever arise.
For all us modders out there, Dell have made getting into this laptop incredibly easier. As with most notebooks, there are separate panels for the RAM, hard drive etc this laptop comes with one huge panel on the back which when removed allows access to the whole machine, so no more fiddle screws to worry about when you just want to open up your laptop for a quick clean.
Under the bonnet
Now for the fun bit, the laptop itself comes with 4 options, processor wise this comes with either a
- Intel® Pentium Dual Core Processor T3200 (2.0 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 1 MB L2 cache)
- Intel® Coreâ„¢ 2 Duo Processor T5800 (2.0 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2 cache)
- Intel® Coreâ„¢ 2 Duo Processor T8100 (2.1 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 Cache,)
- Intel® Coreâ„¢ 2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.4 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 Cache)
Now the one we got our hands on was the 2.4GHz but apart from the fact that the one is a Intel® Pentium Dual Core, these laptop run rather fast, with the top range model being one of the fastest laptop processor available for its class these laptop can handle all your multiple applications with ease.
Bundle this with the fact that these laptops come with RAM ranging from 2GB for the low spec model to 4GB for the two high end models, this laptop will speed through your work like a dinosaur on a cow vindaloo (one for the Red Dwarf fans there) and with the introduction of Vista Service Pack 1 32-bit operating systems now support 4GB rather than the 3GB it did before.
The laptop we had came with a nice ** of RAM and the results show below reflect this system spec so please do not take this report as fact when purchasing one of the lower spec machines in this range. These may look the same but the differences in processing power and RAM will show and thus the results will vary.
Anyway back to the review – all of these laptops (apart from the lowest spec machine) come with a dedicated 256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3650 which is also DirectX10 compatible. I found that this card could handle the latest DirectX 10 graphics features rather well on Lord Of The Rings Online even with the other graphic setting set to high. I was quite surprised with this due to the memory being so low on this card so games that use the more advanced DirectX10 features such as Crysis should by rights be quite playable on this laptop but maybe not with the details set to max although we have yet to find an affordable PC that can do this so its not surprising the laptop market will have a bit of catching up to do.
Otherwise all these laptops come with a nice 17″ screen that all use TrueLife technology, which means that the image is nice and sharp and you no longer have to worry about those annoying shiny marks that appear everytime someone turns a light on.
As for Hard Drive space, whilst the lowest spec machine comes with 250GB and the high end one 500GB, these should be absolutely fine for the gamer who wants to use the laptop to play games, watch DVD and listen to Music all on the same machine. The low spec user might have to be more careful than the high end user but all in all there should be plenty of room or everything you will need.
Sound wise this laptop handles sound production reasonable well, it will in no way match that of a sub set up to handle the bass but as laptops go the speakers built in will make watching DVD enjoyable.
The Gaj-It Verdict
Design 9/10
Usability: 9/10
Features: 9/10
Value: 9/10
We Say
This is a rather nice desktop replacement if your not wanting to spend more than £1000, however please remember that I am referring to the two high end options model laptops in Dell let us review. With surprising 3D performance this laptop should appeal to gamers and even the other half for its styling options.
Technical Specs
(Please be aware these figurers match that of the model we were given to us for review by Dell)
- Processor – Intel® Coreâ„¢ 2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.4 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 Cache)
- 4GB DDR2 RAM
- 250 GB – Serial ATA-150 – 5400 rpm
- Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
- 15.4′ TFT 1280 x 800 ( WXGA ) – Color Shine
- DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 – 256 MB
- Bluetooth – No
- Notebook Camera – Integrated – 1.3 Megapixel
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