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 - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
All 3DMark scores are at the standard 3DMark resolution, so I connect an external LCD where necessary (i.e. laptops with 1280x800 LCDs can't run 1280x1024 in 3DMark06 and Vantage). So the scores are definitely apples-to-apples in that department.I don't know what WoW is really like in terms of GPU needs, but the HD 3670 should be faster than the 8600M GT by a fair margin. If you need more power, though, Gateway's P-7808u FX should do the trick (review in progress), and MSI's GT627 is even more powerful in the GPU department (9800M GT). The only caveat is that neither LCD is anywhere near as good as the Studio XPS 16, and I really dislike the MSI keyboard (it's flimsy).
jiggpig - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
You should add the lenovo x200 or x300 to the battery life charts, I bet they could challenge the macbooks in battery life/battery size charts.JarredWalton - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I would if Lenovo would send me a laptop to test. I've heard good things from some people, and I would love to verify the results. Without doing the testing myself, however, I can't come to any firm conclusion. (What brightness level do they test at? What's the test like? That sort of stuff can make a difference.)erple2 - Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - link
Also, I see that you've posted the minutes/WHr results for the Apple notebooks. However, what are the "at the wall" measurements for power consumption?Is it that OSX is that much stronger optimized for low power usage? I wonder if there would be any difference running Linux vs. Vista vs. OSX on the same laptop (granted, you'd have to run them all on a Macbook I suppose to get that result) at least for power consumption, and wall outlet consumption.
Hrel - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Which GPU does it have in it? Sometimes you list the HD4670 and sometimes you say HD4650???Hrel - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I meant HD3670 and HD3650... ah typing mistakes that are made significant by barely different product naming schemes.JarredWalton - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Sorry about that... it's an HD 3670, but somehow in the process of writing I started saying 3650. The two chips are the same, other than clock speeds, but I'm not sure on the clocks for the 3650. Anyway, the incorrect part numbers have been corrected. Thanks!Hrel - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
"This will allow us to provide an apples-to-apples comparison with other laptops while also showing the performance range you can expect by lowering or increasing the resolution."YAY anandtech! Good job, now if only you would do this on every single review that has anything to with GPU's. Oh, I'm not done with the article yet, but if there aren't 3D Mark scores, there should be.
LoneWolf15 - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
Yes, because 3DMark scores are SO indicative of real-world performance.[/sarcasm]
cheetah2k - Saturday, April 4, 2009 - link
It would be nice to see 3Dmark06 scores across the whole Dell range in these reviews, including the hefty XPS1730.For those wanting to know, an XPS1730 with 2 x 8800GTX in Sli gets 11,490 marks in 1280x1024 with a T9300 CPU @ 2.5Ghz