HP Envy 14 review shows better temperature management than the previous versions of Envy, but still their vents are kind of small - like Mac

XPS is good for anyone who is satisfied with GT420M or wants full-powered i7.

For me, i7 is not full=powered, just fully-heated, and it's too bad there is no Optimus for GT 435M.

Waiting for AMD 6000s 1GB/2GB doesn't matter

Dell does have better warranty, but Lenovo warranty is cheaper.

JBL is not too magnificent. It's probably like any other speaker but with a name to it. If you made a laptop and put Edifier or Creative on it, it would be kind of the same thing, except I would like Creative or Edifier more than JBL.

Holy crap that is fast. It barely just went on.

Please comment, temperature screenshots if possible.

Wow brilliant review and temps dj. Assuming they were like taken in the middle of a 2 hour thing.

Oh just noticed CPU Z read i7-740 as i7-840 or the other way round lol.

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Added on October 29, 2010, 11:37 pmIt looks like the Idle temps you have are post-testing Idle temps, which are good since they are low.

Mind telling us what sort of load you put, for how long, to get 79C on the GPU?

This post has been edited by LightningFist: Oct 29 2010, 11:37 PM

Well djlah can provide us with a i7 with GT435M review

LOL if you really believe Ideapad looks better than XPS then that is One good reason to buy an Ideapad I guess.

Layout of RAM should be either 4x2 or 2x4 or 2x2 + 1x4.

I heard XPS 17 has 4 slots, so not sure about XPS 15.

Of course B+RGLED is cheaper it's not the same as RGBLED

But only 1600x900 on XPS 17 (though not available here) and only Optimus with GT 420M. Still waiting for Dell to change their options.

The average 15 inch laptop does not have a numpad. It's not a flaw. Only some like Sager/Asus/MSI/Toshiba have it on <16 inch laptops, but they weight a heap too.

Does anyone know if the Dell XPS uses DDR3 or GDDR3 memory?

The specs says DDR3 on Dell's website, but Dell is not sure themselves.

XPS 15's screen will be equal to or slightly better than the standard SXPS 16's.

Not everybody wants 1080p. If you want it, RM411.

Warranty is better, but expensive.

6 Cell IS very very short for i7 quad. The same battery will give you 4/5 hours with a Core 2 Duo (low clock), it's the i7 quad that is the problem. Do you move around a lot? If you move around a lot, 9 cell adds time but adds weight (kind of conflicting).

Do you use Blu Ray? In the future most media will be digital/online, no longer physical.

Yes, Blu Ray in a laptop kind of sucks, it may also lag (my systems did).

Warranty, get 3 years, but I'm not sure what the difference is between the RM599 and RM876 versions.

2 Hours with Core i7 quad is possible on full charge, turn down brightness, don't use Wifi unnecessarily. Most people with i7 quad will be plugged in. 9 Cell adds time but adds weight.

Well mero that's not much of a discount if they gave you the minimal 3 year warranty (XPS Premier, RM599), hence not a great deal.

That is assuming you don't have the B+RGLED and/or Blu Ray drive.

Nevertheless it was a slightly good package initially (prior to adding the warranty and keyboard and battery), and it seems cheap because it only comes with stock 1 year warranty.

I would not buy it unless I wanted a Core i7 quad, or unless a better discount/deal was given.

At this specs, no deal.

It bulges down, only a little bit. Weight, you can check Dell's website.

Many people want i7 quad because they think its "power" will benefit them. I think the opportunity cost is battery life (if you're mobile often), heat, and power, as well as performance in normal use.

"wouldn't it be better in the long run to get a higher grade processor assuming that technology is advancing pretty fast" yeah that's what I thought but trust me the current Core i7 quads are not that advanced. Sure, they have turbo, but it only turbos to 2.53GHz etc for two or less cores, it can only work the four cores together at the base speed (very low, 1.6GHz or 1.73 GHz for 720/740QM).

Besides, if you think the current Core i7 quads will be able to last long, they actually were sold before these Core i5s. Apart from turbo, i5s are not that much of an improvement over Core 2 Duos with high clock (plus they have greater cache, lower TDP, etc).

If you ask me Intel is not "advancing" very well. Mostly we get i5 or i7 because they are new.

In gaming, you won't feel the difference, so you would want to choose it depending on whether you are a CPU-intensive user. If you only do typical things, i5 would save power and be a little faster (most important thing would be the Hard drive and the GPU). Basically a high frequency Core 2 Duo would do the job (but this is as of now very rare).

But, Dell (and Asus) have somehow been offered some sort of deal by Intel, it seems. I think Intel did not learn from their initial sale of the i7-720QM (Sept 2009) and they overproduced i7-740QM or something - so now buying 740QM is relatively cheaper than lower or higher i5s, even though all the i5s should be cheaper (according to Intel).

If you buy Dell you get a better deal overall because i7 comes with better graphics, more RAM, other add-ons. But like I said that deal you showed us is not much of a deal, maybe RM~100 discount, at RM4100+, some say it is reasonable, I say you're being forced to get i7 with the good GPU, unless you do not mind getting i7.

Pretty much. If you desperately need a laptop now, yes, the i7 "package" has more value.

See if you can get a price reduction. Which 3 year warranty are you buying, the RM599 (3yr XPS +1 CC), RM699 (3yr XPS +3 CC), or RM876 (Dell Care Prem)?

Well Mero this is why a ton of us have not ordered the XPS.

Even in AnandTech's extremely poor (in quality) review of the new XPS 15 (which is ok I suppose), they mentioned this (that you cannot order i5 + 435) because you still can't do so the world over.

What do you mean people will gladly take i7? Quite the opposite, actually.

People will gladly take i5s if it is not set at an obscene price (e.g. SXPS 16) because they are only offering slow i7s.
i7 quads are more powerful in some situations, but the advantages of i5s in most situations outnumber that of i7 quads.
Now, if you had i7 extreme, that'd be different. i7 quad 720-840 just aren't worth the heat and temperature.
People elsewhere may be getting low idle temps because it is the colder month now in some countries.
If it rained everyday in MY you could have 5-10C cooler laptops too.

I am really hoping that a new product will be released soon, or at the very least the current XPS laptops will have their hardware replaced (think Sandy Bridge, AMD 6xxx or beyond, but information is limited and the manufacturers are very obscure).

Dell did put new GPUs in their products but they have been so unkind in options (no XPS 17 in many countries, no i5 in some places, no i5 + 435 option, a lot of other nos).
Maybe this is a sign that something good is on the ready, or at least around a very big corner.

So mero he revised the price then?

After 9 cell, backlit, 3yrs warranty, what's the final price?

Warranty is extra important.

My old Dell laptop (shipped July 04, used since Jan 05) just ~died, and I realised warranty was only till 07. But of course, a new laptop must at the very least have 2 yrs on it. My new Dell desktop had a year on it (but it had multiple problems on the first day/week itself).

Sometimes they are assembled in haste and this is usually the cause. With mass production, their quality control is reasonable, and perhaps I was unlucky.

Tell us more about your laptop when it arrives

With 3 years, you're safe if anything happens. People do sometimes get their Studio XPS 1645/47s or M1530s and M1730s replaced by Alienwares. The less-savvy customer may get a Studio 17.