Dell XPS arrived today

marktime · 30 Mar 2011 at 23:19

Crikey, not sure I could look at that everyday! Luck of the draw with the outlet, I guess. Can send it back under DSR I suppose (no doubt as the original owner did when they took a look at what they'd ordered after one too many).

Emlyn_Dewar · 30 Mar 2011 at 23:56

I think I could put up with it, if you spend more time looking at that side of the screen then you are definitely doing it wrong...

JimboJet · 31 Mar 2011 at 15:06

quick rub down and a tin of spray paint would sort that!

DannyW · 31 Mar 2011 at 21:58

70 things running in the task manager

would 8gb ram from 4gb be a massive upgrade, would i notice the difference?

(cant have an ssd need to storage)

iMacMart · 2 Apr 2011 at 08:09

Would i3 or i5 version play bad company at med - low eye candy settings? Or has anyone tested and can confirm?

Thanks

Meaker · 2 Apr 2011 at 08:34

How much do you use the optical drive? You could get a HDD caddy instead and get an external optical. Then grab yourself an SSD boot drive and mech storage drive.

http://3dmark.com/3dm06/15558468

Thats my score (at the same 1280x768).

Jonno02 · 2 Apr 2011 at 23:31

Lucky for some eh

marktime · 3 Apr 2011 at 01:20

DannyW said:
70 things running in the task manager

would 8gb ram from 4gb be a massive upgrade, would i notice the difference?

(cant have an ssd need to storage)

Upgraded mine to 8gb a week ago and there's no difference tbh, kept an eye on task manager whilst I opened 10+ IE8 tabs, every Office 2010 app and a handful of utils and it's not even using 3gb. Still, with the current price of RAM so low seemed like a good time to add a little futureproofing (although I'd probably end up replacing the whole machine before memory capacity became an issue).

In some ways I wish I'd gone for the XPS 17 now, the extra bay for SSD being one reason.

iMacMart · 3 Apr 2011 at 08:22

Can anyone comments on bc2 and the i3 or i5 xps? Also

marktime · 3 Apr 2011 at 09:03

iMacMart said:
Can anyone comments on bc2 and the i3 or i5 xps? Also

No personal experience of playing BC2 on the xps15 as such, but this should give you some idea of the NV 420M's overall performance:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-420M.35837.0.html

Looks like it's just about playable on medium.

iMacMart · 3 Apr 2011 at 10:04

Thanks

iMacMart · 4 Apr 2011 at 17:11

Right confirmation came through

I paid £433 delivered for the below

XPS L501X
Documentation, ENGLISH
Carry Case : Not Included
Optical Drive 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Keyboard
Battery : Primary 9-cell 90W/HR LI-ION
Hard Drive : 500GB 2.5inch Serial ATA II (7.200 Rpm) Hard Drive
Display : 15.6" HD WLED True-Life (1366x768) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Processor : Intel i5-560M(2.66GHz) Mobile CPU
Certified Refurbished

Not bad I thought...

We shall see

Selekt0r · 6 Apr 2011 at 15:43

Selekt0r said:
...The second laptop (an XPS15 L501X) which I received earlier this month has also had problems - it randomly powers off. Only very infrequently, but very annoying, and the last time it also corrupted the hard disk (although a chkdsk appeared to sort it out OK). I'm still trying to get this resolved but I'm pleased with the customer service so far. I'll report back at a later date, however if the solution I'm being offered comes to fruition then I'll be a happy/loyal Dell customer for a long time...

Well, here is my update on the problems with my Outlet purchase last month(an XPS L501X). As mentioned above, the laptop would power off randomly.

A call to tech support resulted in a scheduled engineer visit (it was covered by a next business day warranty) to replace the motherboard and processor, however they cancelled the visit the day before due to a lack of stock :confused:

and told me that it would be minimum of 3-5 working days until it would be available.

So, I had a (polite but firm) moan about the delay, and was amazed when the support agent offered me a brand new laptop to the same or better specification. Having bitten off his hand at the offer, he proceeded to advise me that, since the new L502X (Sandy Bridge) model had just been released then he would order one of those

The outlet laptop had a 'design studio' lid (which of course we didn't know about or choose - thankfully not quite as bad as DannyW's - but it was just a rather gaudy yellow splodge). So, my daughter (who is getting the laptop) was able to choose her own preferred design for the replacement.

Here is the spec./price for an identical laptop from the website today:

Not bad for £461 (what I paid for the outlet laptop)

So, a very happy customer here, and a very good (overall) experience of Dell's customer service.

* I accept that this may not match every other person's experience of Dell customer service, so please no flaming if you have painful memories of poor service and/or jealousy

iMacMart · 6 Apr 2011 at 17:27

I can't fault Dell and their support service, use them at work and they are very good

broona · 6 Apr 2011 at 17:34

iMacMart said:
Right confirmation came through

I paid £433 delivered for the below

XPS L501X
Documentation, ENGLISH
Carry Case : Not Included
Optical Drive 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Keyboard
Battery : Primary 9-cell 90W/HR LI-ION
Hard Drive : 500GB 2.5inch Serial ATA II (7.200 Rpm) Hard Drive
Display : 15.6" HD WLED True-Life (1366x768) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Processor : Intel i5-560M(2.66GHz) Mobile CPU
Certified Refurbished

Not bad I thought...

We shall see

You did better than me, ordered this for £436 today, although it's not my money, so I can live with that, lol :-

XPS L501X
Documentation, ENGLISH
Carry Case : Not Included
Optical Drive 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Keyboard
Battery : Primary 6-cell 56W/HR LI-ION
Hard Drive : 640GB 2.5inch Serial ATA II (7.200 Rpm) Hard Drive
Display : 15.6" HD WLED True-Life (1366x768) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Processor : Intel i5-460M(2.53GHz) Mobile CPU
Certified Refurbished

rypt · 6 Apr 2011 at 18:27

broona · 12 Apr 2011 at 11:38

Mine arrived this morning, not from the outlet though, bought off another forum for £500 all in, seems spot on so far :-

Hard Drive : 640GB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
Optical Drive 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Processor : Intel i5-460M(2.53GHz) Mobile CPU
Display : 15.6" Full HD B+RGLED True-Life (1920x1080) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate (64 BIT)
Battery : Primary 9-cell 90W/HR LI-ION

And the other one I ordered from the outlet for a mate should arrive tomorrow, let's hope it's not pink or something stupid, lol!!!

iMacMart · 12 Apr 2011 at 17:08

Mine arroved today

i5 560m 2.66ghz
4096MB
9 cell battery
500GB 7200rpm HDD
Silver case top

£433 delivered

Very pleased it is in new conditions, only wish they had sent out restore DVD's

Meaker · 12 Apr 2011 at 18:18

I know with acer you can create your own. Check if you can.

iMacMart · 12 Apr 2011 at 18:54

Meaker said:
I know with acer you can create your own. Check if you can.

Doh, just formatted the primary partition for W7 Ultimate, left the recovery partition intact though...

Will call Dell and see if I can get some from them