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Dell Studio 1537 (P8400)-Review From An Owner's Perspective |
Are you thinking about purchasing a new Dell Studio 1537? Well, I'm currently using one to write this review and I'm going to let you know the good-the bad-and the ugly. |
I'm not going to get too technical here, but these are the basic specs: Core 2 Duo (2.20 GHz/1066Mhz FSB/3MB cache.) It comes in a multitude of colors, but I chose black; because I thought it would ship faster…foolish me. It also comes with Vista Home Premium installed, a 1 year in-home warrantee, 15.4" W/LED display, 4GB of DDR2 at 800MHz, a 256 ATI Radeon HD 3450 graphics card and a 320GB SATA hard drive. There are a few other things, but you get the gist. |
Now, I do like the computer so far, but there have been problems. To begin with, the ship date was scheduled for 3 weeks out, I figured that I could live with that. A day before it was due to ship, it was put on delay; another week out. Ok, I waited that long, what's another week going to hurt. Then, the day of it's next ship date I received a notice that informed me that if the unit didn't ship out today, I would need to notify Dell that I would still like to receive the computer, if not-they would automatically cancel the order. By the time that I received this information-by e-mail, not phone-I only had a couple of hours to react. Frantically, I called customer service and was informed that my computer had finally shipped. As you can see, we're off to a bad start. |
So, about 5 weeks latter, I finally received my new Dell Studio 1537 (P8400.) After messing around with it for a while, I decided to disable several of the Vista features to speed things up a bit; you would be surprised at the amount of resources that the desktop sidebar and 3-D viewers can hog up. After a little tweaking, I decided to see if a game called FEAR would run on this system; I had originally purchased this for my XPS, but it would cause my system to freeze. The result was very good, I was able to run the game with mid/high graphics and sound options and it worked great. I was also able to run my Web design and photo software simultaneously with unexpected speed. |
The machine executes very well, the screen is extremely bright and it also is surprisingly viewable in bright light. I also want to say that I was a little concerned about the abilities of the 256 ATI Radeon 3450 graphics card, but for my needs it is more than sufficient. The system has a Windows Experience Base Score of 4, which means that it should be able to run all new features of Windows Vista with full functionality, and generally it will support high-end, graphics-intensive experiences, such as multiplayer and 3 D gaming and also record and playback HDTV content. |
This is the third computer that I have purchased from Dell so far. First I picked up a Dimension 2400 desktop, it was a good computer for the money and I still use it for basic applications. Next, I purchased an XPS M140 laptop, this computer has been good to me as well-but I picked it up about 2 years ago and it has since become obsolete. Now, I have a brand spanking new Dell Studio 1537 (P8400) laptop and this is what I think of it. |
It does have some drawbacks though. The internal speakers are horrid, although the sound is very good with external speakers or head phones. The case feels a bit flimsy, you can hear many creaks and squeaks as you press down in different areas and for some reason, if I attempt to put the Dell Studio into Sleep mode, when I wake it I see a display screen that tells me that Windows did not shut down properly; so I use hibernate instead. |
I do recommend the Dell Studio 1537 (P8400) despite its flaws and Dell's. If you decide to purchase one, I also suggest adding the finger-print reader, blue-tooth capability and you may also need an internal modem. I checked on Dell's site and was unable to find a way to add this, but it is listed as a possible option after you build your computer-if you can't find a way to add it online, then I would speak with a Dell representative directly. |
So far I have been very pleased with this computer, but it did come with a price tag of just over $1100.00 (options included) and you may find a better system for the money now; although, when I was shopping in October, this was the best deal that I could find. Also, the new XPS's may turn a few more heads, but if you compare the two systems, component for component, I think that the Studio comes out far ahead. Written by K. Stewart BestReviewsOnEarth.com |