Dell XPS 15 & 15z Laptops

[Kougar]

I'll just preface by saying that my laptop is six years old, more like seven from purely a hardware standpoint. So I've begun eyeing laptops again and the usual deal websites to see what may come along, as I can't put off upgrading this thing any longer.

I noticed the XPS 15z pretty quickly, but I'm rather intrigued by it. Granted it doesn't have all the options of the vanilla 15 SB model and does have a slight price premium, but I was still drawn to the thing. Having a better, full 1080p extra-bright display and almost all the features of a Macbook Pro packed into a laptop 1mm higher at exactly half the price was extremely appealing.

The Sandy Bridge XPS 15 by comparison offers quite a few upgrades at the same price point as the 15z though, and wasn't that much worse in the form factor or weight department in my opinion making it a good value alternative. The actual 6+ hours of battery life in some tests almost sold me, though. Consumer Reports almost got 7 hours while running Office programs, too. So I'm sure a little clockspeed adjusting and some undervolting later could very well amp that figure up an hour or two, I'd bet!

So, does anyone have any thoughts or observations on these laptops, or know of any they actually like more for around $1,000? Right now I'm looking at about $900 after discounts for the hardware I'm after, not sure a Quadcore is worth the extra cost, especially given it will eat battery life more than the dualies. Compared to my Pentium M, any SandyBridge dualcore with HT would be akin from going from a horse to a Bugatti Veyron!

 

[Rob Williams]

It never ceases to blow me away at the value that notebooks offer nowadays. You spend a grand and get a seriously sweet machine... it's unbelievable. That 15z looks great... I like the aesthetics and design a lot. How it compares to the competition though, I'm not sure. I've been a huge ASUS notebook fan for a while, so if I end up needing a new model when whatever I have dies, I know that's who I'll be going with. I tend to like their designs a lot more, but that could be a matter of personal opinion (they are indeed "rock solid" which also helps). I've never used ASUS customer service but have heard some stories where it's not been the best. I am willing to believe that Dell might one-up everyone else in that regard. Even if you have to talk to someone who doesn't natively speak English, you'll at least be talking to someone.

Quad-core would be worth the extra cost if you plan on doing a lot on the notebook, and I mean a lot... as in super-heavy multi-tasking. If you're going to use it for regular use, I'd go with a dual-core. It'd save money and would likely deliver better battery-life as well. Plus, a dual-core with HT is almost like a quad-core in terms of overall efficiency.

 

[Kougar]

Been traveling a hell of a lot lately (as Rob will be happy to complain-, er, verify!) so haven't had time to check the forums till now!

I got my current laptop with the assumption I could replace my desktop with it... that never panned out. Couldn't upgrade anything in the laptop (even after parts got cheap to do so), and I've since come to the realization I will always have a desktop. I'm too much of a power user & gamer to ever go laptop-only. So simple mobility through battery life followed by value and function are what I look for in a laptop these days. A dualie should be cheaper and will offer additional battery life. "Should" being the issue, most deals for the 15 & 15z include a quad by default without the ability to downgrade, interestingly.

I had the odd experience of using a new HP laptop during my traveling... to my surprise I loved the machine, but the "modern" touchpad was incredibly aggravating to use. A single flat touch surface (sans buttons) serves as both pad and left/right/middle mouse buttons all in one. Corners of the pad would actually depress like clicking a mouse, but half the time it'd not register a click, or would think I'd double-tapped the surface for a click. And I even had a better time of it than others that tried to use it! Totally killed whatever points the HP machine itself had earned, that was for sure. Keep in mind this is coming from a guy that programmed all four corners of his "normal" touchpad to do various things or open specific programs in addition to a vertical / horizontal scroll area and double-tap capability. The antiquated precursor to touch gestures.

ASUS has had some nice laptops, I can totally agree with you on that. But I don't see anything that matches the 7 hours in real battery life with them. And getting it serviced would be less convenient... I have had the mainboard, GPU, and DVD tray ejector each go on my current dell laptop already. Laptops are the one thing an extended warranty could well be worthwhile in.