My XPS 700 Review: user-experience details

This is pretty long so I’ve divided it into two parts. First is my review of the XPS 700. It’s mostly a collection of my user-experience details, many of which I haven’t seen elsewhere. I don’t include benchmark numbers because other posts cover that and I don’t talk much about graphics or sound cards because those have been discussed a lot too. Part two contrasts my XPS 700 (which I’m returning) with the other computer I bought instead.

Part 1: My review of the XPS 700:

The XPS 700 feels to me like the build quality just isn’t there. Right out of the box the DVD RW tray wouldn’t open further than an inch on its own because it got stuck on the plastic drive door cover. It was slowly getting better with use, but it left a very bad first impression.

I detest the cheap front plastic grill. The little eject nub for each optical drive feels flimsy and you can’t reach it when the drive door is open because the plastic drive door grillwork falls in front of the eject nub. Yes, you can just push in the tray to close it, but that’s not what I wanted to do.

To access the floppy and media card readers you pull open a door that swings down and stops at 90 degrees (horizontal). With the media card reader immediately above that horizontal door there’s no room to grasp a compact flash card by its top and bottom. You have to grasp it by the side edges to pull it out, which feels very un-natural. That floppy/media door also has a cheap plastic click when you open/close it. Swapping the floppy and media card readers should help, but I didn’t try it.

The little flap you pull to open that floppy door cover looks just like the optical drive eject nubs except it’s centered instead of offset to the right. If you don’t know what each is for it’s easy to pull on an eject button and push on the floppy/media door flap. As amusing as it was to watch my husband do that repeatedly it’s not the best design.

As many others have noted the floppy and media card readers move a good eighth of an inch when you insert/remove media. Yes, there’s an easy fix (inserting a screw), but I shouldn’t have to fix it.

I agree with the many people who hate the power button. It sticks out about a quarter-inch, but it’s very hard to push, whether straight in, or up as some have suggested. And for goodness sake, it’s obviously not shaped like a button you would ever push up. It just isn’t friendly.

The wiring inside was all over the place, including a sound cable to the front panel that broke loose of its obviously over-stretched moorings. Cosmetic, but it seems like the machine is so new they hadn’t figured out where to route all the wires.

The handle you pull to remove the side panel is a bit finicky. Once you realize you pull the handle strait back to release the side panel it’s easier to operate. The edges of the aluminum panels don’t line up perfectly, but that didn’t really bother me. It changes a bit too depending on exactly where the side panel ends up when you close it.

I imagine the big holes in the front will let in a lot of dust along with the air. Removable filters would have been a nice touch as is done in some nice cases.

Of course I knew the machine was big and heavy. That wouldn’t have mattered if I felt there was overall refinement to the thing, but it strikes me as a huge, raw, unrefined beast.

And, the biggest reason I cancelled is that Dell let so many of us down. They did not communicate well with customers over several months, or provide an accurate, clear, consistent, prompt message and deliver the corresponding product as advertised, let alone in a timely fashion. We all deserve outstanding customer service and that was the rare occurrence instead of the norm.

Without all the history on this forum over the last two months, I might have, when it came down to it, lived with all the issues because the XPS 700 was sitting right there in front of me and it’s a fast computer. Ultimately, I really don’t think it’s anything special and I don’t like how Dell handled everything, so I was happy I had already gone elsewhere.

Nice things about the XPS 700:

The thick aluminum on the outside is impressive and seems strong, and it is nice that it includes foam weather-stripping inside where the removable side panel meets the chassis so it doesn’t rattle.

By now most people probably know you can change the color of the LEDs in the BIOS (better would be a Windows utility). I knew in advance about the changeable color and didn’t really care, but I found the lights nice after a while. I really like having LEDs on the back panel because they illuminate the back ports well. I don’t mind reaching for a flashlight but not having to do that is a nice touch.

This is a mixed point: The SLI graphics are impressive and watching the 3DMark06 demo is really pretty and smooth on the 24” monitor. However, I doubt it’s more impressive than other comparable modern SLI-enabled machines. The XPS 700 got a big boost from the Core 2 Duo and Extreme processors, but that’s not rare anymore. There are a lot of other motherboards with that support. The XPS 700 nVidia 590 chipset didn’t deliver the special features we all thought it would have, making the XPS 700 not so special.

Part 2: How the XPS 700 stacked up to my competing machine:

Dell shipped the XPS 700 to me after I cancelled my order. By the time I received my XPS 700 I had already received the alternate computer I had carefully custom-configured and ordered through Puget Custom Computers (pugetsystems.com). Dell had already lost my loyalty. In the end I was happy to confirm that, for my needs, the XPS 700 lost in the showdown with my Puget computer.

Like so many of us I watched the XPS 700 fiasco unfold for two months and became increasingly more concerned about Dell’s ability to provide consistent, high-quality, customer service. As I watched things develop at Dell I realized it felt like I was stuck watching a traffic accident unfold over and over again. I dreaded the idea of having to call Dell for anything. I didn’t want to do business with a company that made me feel that way so I cancelled my XPS 700. Hungry for customer service, I ordered from Puget Custom Computers and was rewarded with an experience that made me genuinely feel like a valued customer.

I let my XPS 700 sit in its box for a week. The Dell returns people were supposed to call me, but never did. Eventually curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see what everybody was talking about, whether or not I had just dodged a lemon, and whether or not I had made a big mistake by ordering a different computer. After trying out the XPS 700 I was pleased to confirm that canceling was the right choice for me.

I designed my Puget system as a nice quiet video editing machine. I configured it with Corsair 800MHz RAM, Raptor hard drive, Antec P180 quiet case, Asus MB, and other high-quality, name-brand, fully-functional, easily upgradeable components. It easily beat the XPS 700 in the video editing/compression arena and is much quieter than the XPS 700. The dual 7900GS graphics cards in the XPS 700 yield impressive-looking graphics in 3DMark06, but I’m not a gamer. Out of curiosity I put one 7900GS in each computer. Both had a Core 2 Duo E6600 and 2 GB RAM. My Puget and the XPS 700 got comparable 3DMark06 results. Maybe I’m missing something, but that tells me the “special Dell motherboard” isn’t so special. Of course, this wasn’t an SLI test, but there are other SLI motherboards on the market.

My Puget system feels like the build quality is very good. It has none of the issues of the XPS 700 from Part 1 above. Puget customer service has been excellent. They are human, and did make a mistake on my order (wrong overstock sound card), but the same Puget sales rep I dealt with before I ordered bent over backwards to get everything right for me. I’m not afraid of the experience I’ll have if I need to call them in the future. I am confident they’ll do their best to make it right. Puget is a tiny company of probably less than a dozen people. That was refreshing after being lost among the masses at Dell.