Dell launch thin and light XPS m1330 in Ireland

copacetic

have been tracking this for a while on the gadget sites, good
to see it out here at same time in US. mmmmmm

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/emea/segments/gen/client/en/xpsnb_m1330_landing?c=ie&l=en&s=gen

Tom Dunne

Very nice. They are looking for decent light-weight laptops here in work, so I've sent the link onto the IT manager.

Looks very nice.

petes

I like.

youcancallmeal

4 pounds doesnt seem very lightweight? Thats only just slightly lighter than the m1210.

Tom Dunne

youcancallme>al wrote:

4 pounds doesnt seem very lightweight? Thats only just slightly lighter than the m1210.

Compared to the laptops we currently have, they are very light. We weighed one or two of them (as you do) and they were all over 2.8Kg (that's over 6 pounds in old money).

The 13 inch screen is a good compromise, I think 12 inch is just too small for anything serious.

copacetic

youcancallme>al wrote:

4 pounds doesnt seem very lightweight? Thats only just slightly lighter than the m1210.

but the screen is bigger and I think the weight comes down by half a pound and battery life shoots up if you select the LED screen. If you select the SSD hardrive as well you also get a weight saving and a battery life jump..

Personally I like it a lot, I had a dislike of the 1210s chunkiness and prefer the D620 I have now. This looks a lot nicer than either.

BostonB

Looks a lot better alright.

DirkVoodoo

Well, guess its time to trade in the ole' M1210. I was always disappointed they didn't fit it with a 13.3" screen, as the macbook screen always looked better than it. Don't like how the 9-cell battery protrudes downwards rather than backwards like on the 1210.

jimogr

Anyone know what battery life is like? Couldn't find it on dell's website.

DirkVoodoo

the 6-cell on the M1210 gets about 4 hrs on a full charge on lowest backlight intensity and wifi disabled, with integrated graphics.

Expect the LED backlight to further increase battery life a bit.

jamieh

Hi all,

I think I'm going to ge the M1330.

I'm just going through the options at the moment and I'm a bit stuck when it comes to the screen.

The 2 options are:

Standard:
13.3" UltraSharpTM WXGA display with TrueLifeTM
2.0 MP camera (standard CCFL display)

Optional:
13.3" UltraSharpTM WXGA display with TrueLifeTM
0.3 MP camera (optional WLED display)

The WLED is 120 quid more expensive. Would it be worth it?

I read somewhere that one of the screens makes the laptop a bit thicker...do you know which option would make the laptop thicker?

copacetic

the LED screen is thinner, lighter and uses less battery power. I'd definitely go for the LED.

jamieh

Nice one...cheers man.

youcancallmeal

copacetic wrote:

the LED screen is thinner, lighter and uses less battery power. I'd definitely go for the LED.

I've read up a lot about the LED lit LCD screen and its apparent benefits but does anyone know exact figures such as weight difference in grams or battery life comparisons between the ccfl and lcd screens?

copacetic

youcancallme>al wrote:

I've read up a lot about the LED lit LCD screen and its apparent benefits but does anyone know exact figures such as weight difference in grams or battery life comparisons between the ccfl and lcd screens?

i'm haven't seen any absolute comparisons as everyone is testing the LED screened version, all you can really do is compare the specs to other machines without the features but with same processor etc, some of the savings in power will no doubt have been eaten up by processing power increase too, based on how the system is doing in the benchmarking tests. Eg:

"At less than four pounds, it's one of the lightest 13-inch laptops we've seen--nearly a full pound lighter than the popular yet hefty 13-inch Apple MacBook, and a touch lighter than the 12-inch XPS m1210. "

So it is lighter than the 1210 even with the bigger screen.

I know Apple were guiding 30-60 minutes better battery life on 15.4" macbooks with LED backlighting, would expect a bit less of an improvement on the smaller screen here. Similar savings have been touted for the SZs I believe.

jamieh

Hey all,

I'm thinking of buying an M1330 in the next day or two.

The one I'm looking at has the following specs:

-Core 2 Duo, 1.8Ghz, 2MB L2 Cache
-Vista Ultimate
-UltraSharp White-LED LCD
-Fingerprint Reader
-2gb RAM
-160 GB HDD
- nVidia Gefore 8400M with 128mb GDDR3 RAM

It's coming in at €1,617.

What do ye think?

Is there any other machine I shuold be looking at? Do Sony have anything at the moment that would match the XPS or is the XPS my best bet?

legs11

makes my m1710 very very big indeed...........:D

BostonB

legs11 wrote:

makes my m1710 very very big indeed...........:D

Having a 13" screen vs a 17" one tend to have that effect.

extra-ordinary_

The M1330 does look pretty indeed. It seems to look a lot sleeker than the M1210 which looks like a brick in comparison.
I've ordered a black one with the lowest CPU, LED, 160GB, and 2 x 512MB of RAM for €1060.
Upgrade the CPU to a T7300 and sell the old one - hopefully €200, throw in another gig, and hopefully I'll have a system I'm happy with for around €1200. The only proplem I see so far is that Dell don't seem to be selling this with XP, so XP drivers may be impossible to come by and I may be forced to move to Vista, nnnnoooooooo!!!!
I went for the integrated gfx model as I've vowed not to get sucked into wasting any more of my life gaming:D

Delivery is 18/7/07 - so I'll let you know how I get on.

copacetic

do let us know, I'm still debating on what to do. No word yet on when the slot loading blueray or SSD hard drives will be available as options. Also would want XP so thats another issue, would be alright if not for the HDMI, LED and various other new things that you couldn't be sure of getting XP drivers for as you say..

extra-ordinary_

What's the deal on slot loaders anyhow, I thought they let a load of ****e into your drive? I haven't done any research on this though so shoot me.

You can get the solid state drives as it is but at €400 or something ridiculous like that for a 32GB HDD??

copacetic

extra-ordinary_ wrote:

What's the deal on slot loaders anyhow, I thought they let a load of ****e into your drive? I haven't done any research on this though so shoot me.

You can get the solid state drives as it is but at €400 or something ridiculous like that for a 32GB HDD??

well yeah, you've been able to get them for a while, but they are to be an option on the 1330 just not yet. unlikely you could retrofit them. 64GBs are out now so hopefully 32 will come down.
slot loaders save a lot of weight and space, (not sure about the ****e issue!)

DirkVoodoo

I'm also going to go for the low spec 1330. I bought a refurb'ed M1210 last year for €1000: T2300E 80GB HDD and only 512MB RAM. As I really wanted it for its size and couldnt argue with the price, I've been more than happy (aside from the sony DVD deciding to die this week). CPU and RAM can be upgraded later as needed, don't think I will need a Blu-Ray drive for another 2 years on a laptop.

What I really want are better images of the lid options. I'm wondering is the pearlescent white a polycarbonate job like the macbook or is it a matte finish in some other plastic like on my m1210. I'm thinkin red right now tho.

Also not happy with Vista, and Im betting these come with the restore partition as opposed to system disks???

copacetic

nice video review of a red one, looks a bit matte, not really liking the red:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCeHxyGuED0

BostonB

Looks nice than the m1210, especially the screen. Lots of people weren't happy with the screen on the M1210.

kaizersoze

I ordered nicely loaded one of these puppies today. Looking foward to getting it.
Estimated delivery is the 8th of August.

Edit: Delivery date just changed to the 2nd of August.

GadgetFiend

Is it possible to get this with XP does anyone know

I have hardware that's incompatible with vista

extra-ordinary_

There is more XP drivers appearing on Dell's site everyday, so I think it'll be possible to run it instead of Vista.

KillerShamrock

This has tempted me to get one, quick question if i connect the notebook to a hd LCD tv via the HDMI could i play games on the LCD tv. or is that possible through any connection at all.

There are only 2 things about it that bother me
1) the screen size, but that can be fixed if the above is possible
2) the graphics card how come your restricted to a 128 mb nVidia

or would i be better off forking out for a XPSM1710 or a beefed up inspirion 1720 max budget €1600 and could i aslo connect either of these to an LCD tv

BostonB

Richie6904 wrote:

This has tempted me to get one, quick question if i connect the notebook to a hd LCD tv via the HDMI could i play games on the LCD tv. or is that possible through any connection at all.

There are only 2 things about it that bother me
1) the screen size, but that can be fixed if the above is possible
2) the graphics card how come your restricted to a 128 mb nVidia

or would i be better off forking out for a XPSM1710 or a beefed up inspirion 1720 max budget €1600 and could i aslo connect either of these to an LCD tv

The main limitation for games and screen size is not the amount of graphics memory but the chipset on the gfx card itself. The M1710 and 1720 can be configured with a vastly more powerful gfx card.

Look for online benchmarks on the various gfx cards you are thinking of.

KillerShamrock

BostonB wrote:

The main limitation for games and screen size is not the amount of graphics memory but the chipset on the gfx card itself. The M1710 and 1720 can be configured with a vastly more powerful gfx card.

Look for online benchmarks on the various gfx cards you are thinking of.

Good point but would it be possible to upgrade the supplied card on a later date

BostonB

Richie6904 wrote:

Good point but would it be possible to upgrade the supplied card on a later date

Unlikely. Even if an upgrade is available it wouldn't be easy, or cost effective to replace the gfx board.

KillerShamrock

BostonB wrote:

Unlikely. Even if an upgrade is available it wouldn't be easy, or cost effective to replace the gfx board.

ah now that aint a good thing dont want to buy it then all of a sudden a new card is available for it, or the card in it wont be able to run any recent games

BostonB

Richie6904 wrote:

ah now that aint a good thing dont want to buy it then all of a sudden a new card is available for it, or the card in it wont be able to run any recent games

You've lost me.

KillerShamrock

i mean no sooner would i buy this then dell would release the m1330 with a 256mb card or better.

i know Mbs arent everything but they do help and 128 is kinda bottom of the pile now so to be basicly to buy a laptop with no choice in the matter is kinda silly. as 128mbs will not do a lot of games justice any more
I know its not meant to be a desktop replacement but it should at least have a 256 mb card option

BostonB

Richie6904 wrote:

i mean no sooner would i buy this then dell would release the m1330 with a 256mb card or better.

i know Mbs arent everything but they do help and 128 is kinda bottom of the pile now so to be basicly to buy a laptop with no choice in the matter is kinda silly. as 128mbs will not do a lot of games justice any more
I know its not meant to be a desktop replacement but it should at least have a 256 mb card option

You can get 128mb gfx cards that are faster than 256mb or 512mb cards.

Assume they all have the same 256mb. The Go 8400GS in the M1330 is a low end gfx card. The 8600GT on the 1720 is faster, the 7900GS faster again, and the Go 7950 GTX in the M1710 fastest of them all.

extra-ordinary_

My expected delivery date has been put back from 18/7/07 to 17/8/07.

This I do not like.

jamieh

extra-ordinary_ wrote:

My expected delivery date has been put back from 18/7/07 to 17/8/07.

This I do not like.

When did you order it?

I ordered mine on July 5th and the delivery date is July 30th.

Seemingly, there's a delay in the white-led screen! Did you order that upgrade?

20LEgend

I ordered mine on the 6th July and have a delivery date of the 31st July (with white led screen).

If they put the order back another 4 weeks they can feck off!

extra-ordinary_

My order was placed on 2/7/07. Yeh, I'm getting the LED screen aswell. I feel like telling them to feck off myself.

BostonB

Its a brand new model, and in demand. I'm surprised your surprised at delays. I would have have expected it.

extra-ordinary_

No, call me old-fashioned, but I expected delivery on the expected delivery date!!
lol

Ah well, as long as it's worth the wait, it really won't bother me too much, although I am a little disappointed.

jamieh

Hey all,

Has anyone received their m1330 yet?

Mine has been in Pre-Production since July 7th!

srdb20

Quick question, slightly off topic i know but here goes.....

Im looking to order one of these bad boys myself and i was just wondering if they take the payment immediately from your Credit Card or do they wait and take it when the laptop ships? The only reason i ask is because i dont get paid for a couple of weeks and seeing as there is a huge delay in ordering i wanted to get mine in ASAP.

Cheers

jamieh

Hey,

You pay them, then they start building it!

srdb20

Cheers for the reply, looks like ill be waiting the extra few weeks so!

Damn!!!

Thanks again.

jamieh

Hey all,

Mine is still in pre-production and it's due for delivery on July 30th.

Would ye say I can forget about having it on July 30th at this stage or are delivery dates generally fairly accurate?

kaizersoze

srdb20 wrote:

Quick question, slightly off topic i know but here goes.....

Im looking to order one of these bad boys myself and i was just wondering if they take the payment immediately from your Credit Card or do they wait and take it when the laptop ships? The only reason i ask is because i dont get paid for a couple of weeks and seeing as there is a huge delay in ordering i wanted to get mine in ASAP.

Cheers

I ordered one of these and a couple of desktops. The desktops have been delivered and my card has been charged. The 1330 is still in pre-production but it hasn't been charged on the card yet.

jamieh

My card has been charged.

I mailed a contact I have in Dell yesterday and he looked it up on an internal system and he said it's in production and that the online order status is generally wrong!

kaizersoze

jamieh wrote:

My card has been charged.

I mailed a contact I have in Dell yesterday and he looked it up on an internal system and he said it's in production and that the online order status is generally wrong!

If thats the case then it's been wrong since I placed the order on July 11th but I still don't have it.:) The online status thing hasn't let me down yet and was bang on with the desktop order placed the same day.

quarryman

i was gonna order one of these next week but need if before August 10th, what are the chances of this?

Is the delay in delivery due to the introduction of the product?