I'd recommend the XPS 1330 or 1530 over the Apple Mac Book Pro. For one thing - Battery life. When running normal usage on leopard my brother gets 2-3hrs on his Macbook pro and when running vista he gets 1-2hrs. On the 1330 I was clocking 4.5-5hrs.
The other thing is cooling. The Apple laptops are notorious for getting scorching hot. You constantly have to have a cooling pad and a thick book under it to stop it burning your lap. The 1330 and 1530 never get as hot as the mac book even when playing games. Saves you lugging round cooling pad and book
Also the keyboard - Although not backlit the screen provides enough light to see the keys even in the dark. It saves battery life not having backlit keys. The keyboard is probably one of the key selling points of the xps series. I've used a done of laptops with tacky plasticy keys that are either not very resposive of feel mushy and after a while may even fall off. The materials used for the keyboard on the xps systems are top notch and feel like they'll last for ever.
Lack of giga-port little disappointing but with wireless N you can still get upto 300mbps transfer - not 1000mb granted but it's not often I do big transfers across my network so it's not a big deal for me. A giga-port won't speed up internet access so not that fussed.
Overall I'd say the 1330 is excellent if you want light weight but still have decent power and a bright screen (the white led option is definitely worth it - saves power, means the laptop is slightly thiner and lighter and it's very bright without killing the battery. Also uses Santa Rosa technology so that it reduces CPU to save power when in lite use and increases when in heavy use. It also means that if you are using an intensive program that only uses 1 core it will overclock that core and reduce clock speed of the unused core making for faster overall performance.
I really like hearing from people with hands on experience. I would hate to spend $$$$ on a system to only review it as poor battery life, like you stated with the MacBook Pro.
I do transfer large files to my NAS and i do have N Wi-Fi but i currently use a Business Dell Latitude D620 with Gigabit and am not sure i could go back, ;). I think i will wait and see. I am not real worried about the illuminated keyboard, although it would be sweet!, but Gigabit is a must. I have an all Gigabit network at home and would hate to not utilize it.
Like stated above, i do have a D620 but am wanting a personal laptop so i hope the M1340 has some upgrades.
How are you getting 4-5hrs runtime per charge? What's your rig setup? Mine is:
-T7500 2.2G cpu
-Nvidia 8400 GS gfx
-13.3" LCD
-9 cell
-CONDITIONS: wifi on, bluetooth off, full brightness
Results are pathetic!
TEST 1
11:19am - 1:50pm = 2hrs:31min
TEST 2
4:08pm - 6:04pm = 1hrs:56min
Test 3:
9:31am - 11:51am = 2hrs 20min
Test 4:
4:55pm - 7:39pm = 2hrs 44min
Also, I think a backlit keyboard is good feature to have on your "flagship" line. For those of us who don't wear contacts to bed, the backlit keys really help w/reading in bed.
Don't get me wrong, I would NEVER buy a Macbook or MBPro over this m1330, but I *am* disappointed with its lack of some key features, mediocre battery performance and *still* fairly poor build quality (for what they're charging). I returned my first unit because my display was built poorly and made a clicking sound when from the left edge. I got a replacement and it still does the same thing, so it has to be a design flaw. Not only that, my second model's expressCard slot is put together poorly because when I put the remote in it, it got stuck! So, I'm hoping that the third time will be a charm. I'm only going to use mine long enough until the new Intel notebooks start shipping. They are going to be as almost thin as a RAZR!
Wow you battery performance is way lower than mine. My rig was almost identical to what you described although I had it 1 notch down from top brightness.
I also was using a 9-cell.
The apps I had running were a web browser (firefox), Photoshop and Dreamweaver (doing web dev).
Obviously if I watch movies or play games the time is reduced to about 2-2.5hrs which still is above average.
When you compare this to the 20mins you get out of the xps 1730 this is a good battery life.
How long have you been using your battery? Mine's only a week old and that could be attributing to its low capacity. Li-Ions take a few charge/discharge cycles to reach full capacity, but I can't imagine that it's functioning at about half the capacity as what you're getting from yours. Are you sure you're getting the right run times? Are you actually timing it from start to finish or are you just going off of what Windows calculates, because Window's calculations are grossly exaggerated.
BTW, all I do is surf / email / im during my test. Nothing strenuous like playing a game or running cpu-intensive PS filters.
Message Edited by funkmasterta on 01-04-2008 07:19 PM
Yeah I should have said from first charge I got less performance. After a weeks worth of full discharge and recharge cycles and talking to it nicely I got the figures I quoted. Again they are rough figures I didn't stop watch it. But based on the estimated life left quoted by the system when I start and the estimated battery life left when I finished using it 3-4hrs later I came to those figures. I only ever used it until it ran out on 1-2 occasions. I no longer have the 1330 so can't do more tests. If you never get over 3hrs I'd get the battery checked out as that doesn't sound right. Dell always quote quite conservatively on the expected battery life of their systems, I imagine it's so they don't get complaints. I usually get more out of the batteries than quoted. I think they estimate battery life on 1330 to be 3-4hrs so you definitely should be getting more. Also check what power profile you are using. I mostly use balanced aka dell recommended. High perfomance I only use when gaming and the battery life is halved. Powersaver cuts the max cpu speed in half so I only use that if I am on a very long trip without power or battery is getting low and i need to finish what I am doing.
ButtonMasher
243 Posts
0
January 3rd, 2008 23:00
The other thing is cooling. The Apple laptops are notorious for getting scorching hot. You constantly have to have a cooling pad and a thick book under it to stop it burning your lap. The 1330 and 1530 never get as hot as the mac book even when playing games. Saves you lugging round cooling pad and book
Also the keyboard - Although not backlit the screen provides enough light to see the keys even in the dark. It saves battery life not having backlit keys. The keyboard is probably one of the key selling points of the xps series. I've used a done of laptops with tacky plasticy keys that are either not very resposive of feel mushy and after a while may even fall off. The materials used for the keyboard on the xps systems are top notch and feel like they'll last for ever.
Lack of giga-port little disappointing but with wireless N you can still get upto 300mbps transfer - not 1000mb granted but it's not often I do big transfers across my network so it's not a big deal for me. A giga-port won't speed up internet access so not that fussed.
Overall I'd say the 1330 is excellent if you want light weight but still have decent power and a bright screen (the white led option is definitely worth it - saves power, means the laptop is slightly thiner and lighter and it's very bright without killing the battery. Also uses Santa Rosa technology so that it reduces CPU to save power when in lite use and increases when in heavy use. It also means that if you are using an intensive program that only uses 1 core it will overclock that core and reduce clock speed of the unused core making for faster overall performance.
g8t0r
2 Posts
0
January 4th, 2008 02:00
I really like hearing from people with hands on experience. I would hate to spend $$$$ on a system to only review it as poor battery life, like you stated with the MacBook Pro.
I do transfer large files to my NAS and i do have N Wi-Fi but i currently use a Business Dell Latitude D620 with Gigabit and am not sure i could go back, ;). I think i will wait and see. I am not real worried about the illuminated keyboard, although it would be sweet!, but Gigabit is a must. I have an all Gigabit network at home and would hate to not utilize it.
Like stated above, i do have a D620 but am wanting a personal laptop so i hope the M1340 has some upgrades.
Again, thanks for the help ButtonMasher!
G8T0R
funkmasterta
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
January 4th, 2008 03:00
-Nvidia 8400 GS gfx
-13.3" LCD
-9 cell
-CONDITIONS: wifi on, bluetooth off, full brightness
Results are pathetic!
TEST 1
11:19am - 1:50pm = 2hrs:31min
TEST 2
4:08pm - 6:04pm = 1hrs:56min
Test 3:
9:31am - 11:51am = 2hrs 20min
Test 4:
4:55pm - 7:39pm = 2hrs 44min
Message Edited by funkmasterta on 01-03-2008 11:36 PM
ButtonMasher
243 Posts
0
January 4th, 2008 12:00
I also was using a 9-cell.
The apps I had running were a web browser (firefox), Photoshop and Dreamweaver (doing web dev).
Obviously if I watch movies or play games the time is reduced to about 2-2.5hrs which still is above average.
When you compare this to the 20mins you get out of the xps 1730 this is a good battery life.
funkmasterta
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
January 4th, 2008 14:00
Message Edited by funkmasterta on 01-04-2008 07:19 PM
ButtonMasher
243 Posts
0
January 4th, 2008 18:00