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Rating Summary
ToddK
Chicago, IL
“Dell XPS M1530, you are stealing my heart”
- a PC User, always online, a techie, a coder, a graphics pro, Practical, married, a technology geek
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- Fast, Lightweight, Sleak Design
Dell XPS M1530 —
Let me first start by saying that I am a huge IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad fan, but when I switched jobs, my only option was Mac vs. Dell. I choose Dell as I feel more of a connection with PCs vs. Macs (Mac fans don't bother commenting as you are part of the reason why I can't associate myself with Macs ;-p) Back to my story...I wasn't very excited to get the Dell as I have formed opinions over the years that ThinkPad was the superior machine and to top it off, I was taking the plunge into the feared Vista world. First, some specs:Dell XPS M1530(256 MB graphics card, 15 inch display, 4 gigs ram, 2.4ish gig duo processor, big HDD, integrated camera, fingerprint reader, the whole 9 yards)I haven't done benchmark tests (and won't) but I do monitor my system and notice that the Dell XPS M1530 is not skipping a beat. I am very finicky with my system as most heavy computer users are and I'm very happy with the performance thus far. I have also set up a dual boot for Linux (yeah, I'm a geek) and most of the drivers are there out of the box.I'm a huge fan of a tight resolution on the laptop monitor and the M1530 has a whopping 1920 X 1200! The monitor is tighter than most stand alone monitors that I've used in the past. This aspect alone made me begin to get warm feelings for the Dell. True, some people can't work at this resolution, but that's their problem...This was the first time I used Vista and while I have some issues with how they manage file structures and overall usability issues, I have yet to experience a crash. You may ask, "but have you stressed your machine to a point where it would crash?" My answer is "You have a lot of nerve asking that question" and then I would tell you at this very moment I am running the following programs:Firefox with about 7 tabs openMS OutlookMS Visio (large file in process)GIMP (open source Photoshop program with several images in process)EvernoteGoogle DesktopMS WordiTunesand I am experiencing 0 system latencyOne area of concern for the Dell XPS M1530 is it's perceived durability. I say "perceived" because I plan on not doing any tests of its durability. While it is a solid machine, I am used to my old ThinkPad which has fallen out of my bag onto concrete, had water spilled in the keyboard, Dora blankets stuck in the optical drive (thanks kids) and never had an issue. I'm sure the Dell will do well, but also hope I never have to find out.Overall, the Dell XPS M1530 has made me a believer that others can make a good machine besides the ThinkPad. I'm becoming a fan each day I use it.Last edited on Jul 21, 2011
Dell XPS M1530
is recommended
by ToddK
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