Dell Studio XPS 16: the Eyes Have It
by Jarred Walton on April 2, 2009 6:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Design and Appearance
For whatever reason, 16:9 aspect ratio displays and notebooks are becoming all the rage. What's odd about this is that most multimedia content (i.e. Blu-ray movies) target even wider aspect ratios like 2.35:1. Personally, I wouldn't consider 16:9 any better than 16:10, but it's not worse either. The Dell Studio XPS 16 is a 16" chassis with one of these "new" 16:9 displays.
The Studio XPS 16 sports a stylish black exterior, with a glossy plastic finish and a leather patch on the lower half of the LCD cover. Whether that's to make carrying the laptop more comfortable or simply for styling purposes, we do think the overall appearance is quite nice. At least, it looks great initially... once you start using the laptop all the dark glossy surfaces quickly accumulate fingerprints and smudge marks. Dell is kind enough to include a cloth to help you wipe away those fingerprints, but many people are getting tired of dark, glossy laptop finishes.
Fingerprints are also a problem with the display, which has an edge-to-edge glossy sheet of plastic covering the panel. The surface of the display is highly reflective in the wrong lighting conditions, although that's balanced somewhat by this being the brightest LCD panel we have used in a laptop to date. Some people will absolutely love the design but others would prefer the option of selecting a matte LCD finish. Apple offers such an option with their MacBook Pro, which is one area where Apple can claim a victory in terms of the LCD.
Another rather odd design decision also involves the LCD cover. If you look at the pictures above showing the rear of the laptop, you can see the only ventilation is at the back-left corner. The problem is that when you open up the laptop, the bottom edge of the panel blocks this exhaust port. We didn't have any issues with instability, but Studio XPS 16 does tend to get rather warm at times and we can't help but feel the position of the top panel relative to the exhaust is partly to blame.
If it sounds as though we are being overly harsh on the Studio XPS 16, most of these complaints are relatively minor. Fingerprints and smudge marks aren't the end of the world, and only the obstructed ventilation port is a real issue. The chassis is otherwise quite good, and we like that Dell has used metal instead of plastic on the bottom. It's probably no surprise that we still give the nod to Apple in terms of style and build quality, but the Studio XPS 16 is better than most laptops.
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JarredWalton - Sunday, April 5, 2009 - link
I don't have updated scores with new drivers, but you can see the http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=324...">original XPS M1730 3DMark scores - including scores with the CPU overclocked. I didn't have 3DMark Vantage at the time, so those scores are also missing. Basically, the scores are relatively close to the Clevo D901C laptop.Hrel - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I have a Dell Studio 15 Series laptop T8100 320GB HDD X3100GMA... it's okay for the most part; wish it had some kind of useable graphics, but I couldn't afford the upgrade. Anyway, the slot loading DVD drive is a pain in the but! It quirks out sometimes when you hit eject and just keeps trying to eject the disc even if it's already out until you restart the whole thing; one time even after doing that it just wouldn't take discs for like 5 days at all. Then randomly it started working again. Not to mention if it ever DOES fail I'm gonna have to pay more for the replacement than I would if it was a standard cd tray drive; I REALLY don't like that choice of DVD drives.Also, on a 16" 16:9 Chassis they really should include a keyboard that has a dedicated num pad. Asus includes a full numpad on their 15.6" 16:9 chassis. On that note though, the keyboard on my Studio 15 is well laid out and pleasant to type on.
QChronoD - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Where the measurements for the screen done with the out-of-the-box settings, or was it calibrated first?JarredWalton - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Calibrated. As best as I can tell, there's no truly reliable way of testing the color accuracy without calibrating. I tried to do it in the past, but I became suspect of my results. Besides, if you need accurate colors there's generally no way around hardware calibration utilities.DigitalFreak - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Windows Vista Hope Premium? :0)JarredWalton - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Truth in advertising? :-DLingyis - Monday, May 3, 2010 - link
bad news--i was just gonna get one of these babies and Dell told me Studio XPS 16 no longer comes with an RGB LED option.i want a good laptop display--i'm deciding between the Studio XPS with a regular WLED vs the Precision M4500. The precision M6500 appears to have RGB LED but it's 17 inches which is too big.
so what to go for--the RGBLED-less Studio XPS or the Precision M4500?
brock5 - Tuesday, September 28, 2010 - link
Eyes are the most sensitive part of our body and all <a href="http://rjneyeinstitute.org"> Eye disease </a> are equally capable of harming the eyes, as they are very delicatebrock56 - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - link
Eyes are the most sensitive part of our body and all <a href="http://rjneyeinstitute.org"> Eye disease </a> are equally capable of harming the eyes, as they are very delicate