Hello! I'm Nicola, and thanks for taking the time to read my review. A bit about me, well I'm 20 yea...
Hello! I'm Nicola, and thanks for taking the time to read my review. A bit about me, well I'm 20 years old and I live in Kent, I spend far too much time reading and watching movies and writing for this place :)
Member since:23.01.2007
Reviews:50
Members who trust:13
The Dell Studio 15 was my first ever laptop. I've had a desktop for around 15 years now and have always stuck with them. To me, they are half the price of laptops for double the features - so why on earth should I upgrade? This all changed when my desktop computer randomly blew up when I was away on holiday! On coming back I was initially planning on just getting the newest model of desktop, but I noticed a special deal on laptops so that it wasn't quite so much over the price.
So, let's have a look at it. The whole point of Dell is that you can personalise your laptop to look and behave exactly how you want it, and this has been extended even further with the Studio range as you are able to customize the colouring of it. There are a wide range of colours and styles available for the Studio including extravagant designer patterns - but for me, I just went with a nice simple pink colour. The colour of it is very pretty, it's not obnoxiously bright and it's not boring and dull either. It's got a matte finish so it doesn't slide around everywhere - despite this it does still seem to get scratch marks on it, no matter how careful you are with it!
The keyboard of it has a very nice feel and is easy to type on too. A problem I have found when using other laptops in the past is that my hands start hurting after a while - for some reason this is not the case with the Studio. It's touch pad is also much better than other laptops, I have found that it behaves much more and doesn't randomly click by itself like others seem to, it is also much more responsive.
The graphics card on it is above average - to be honest the original reason I bought this specific laptop was because it was the cheapest one I could find that was able to handle The Sims 3 - it's not a laptop for those who are extremely into their gaming, but for the average gamer like me then it's a good choice and can handle high quality games without too much of a fuss. It also has a built in webcam and microphone which produce typical quality picturing - not perfect, but webcams never are. It also has a built in wifi connection which is excellent for me. It is really fast at connecting and I have never had any problems with it randomly disconnecting or anything like that. The speakers aren't fantastic and are actually worse than the quality of my mum's extremely cheap store brand laptop! You'd be annoyed with it if you use your laptop to listen to a lot of music, but for your average applications such as games and youtube videos it's fine - and it sounds much better when you fix your headphones into it anyway.
Another way it differs from most laptops is the monitor on it is slightly further behind the keyboard. Whereas most are directly above it, the monitor on this is pushed back and connected behind it rather than fixed on top. This doesn't sound like it would make much difference, but for some reason I find it more comfortable and adaptable.
The laptop is very light and you can easily carry it around with you without feeling like your back is going to break. It is soft and comfortable on your legs, and doesn't randomly start burning a hole in your thigh like other laptops sometimes do.
It's a very quiet machine for the most part. I can easily forget I've left it on at times. The fan on it is quite noisy, but as long as it's doing it's job and preventing my laptop from overheating and dying, I'm not too bothered!
The battery life isn't superb, but it is better than most other laptops I've used. On the lowest quality settings it lasts about two and a half hours, but that should be more than enough for most uses anyway.
Overall, I would recommend this laptop. It has already taken preference to me over my newly repaired desktop! It's a beautiful little laptop and is very user friendly with a lot of useful applications. It's perfect for both the casual user and the gamer, and is extremely responsive and effective.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
(+) Product is fine but dont bother buying from them direct due to poor customer service/ norights (-) Product is fine but dont bother buying from them direct due to poor customer service/ no rights
(+) cool and quite robust trackpad, good display,64-bit windows 7 (-) few connectors,dell drivers only, not realy for gameing (most models), finger print prone!
Channel DDR2 SDRAM [1x2048 + 1x1024] - Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit- English - 250GB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive - 15.6in Widescreen High
Postage & Packaging: see site for shipping costs Availability: 3-7 days
Studio 1555 Pentium Dual Core T4200(2.0GHz,800MHz,1MB) 160GB (5,400 rpm) Sata Hard Drive ... more
Dell Wireless 1397 (802.11 b g) Graphics Intel Integrated GMA 4500MHD 6 cell 56W HR LI-ION Battery Camera Integrated 2.0 Mega Pixel Camera Power Supply And Pow...
Advantages: Wide Screen, Integrated Webcam & Card Reader,WiFi Access, Blue-ray Drive, Two Headphone Ports Disadvantages: Mic Problem, No Bluetooth Access
Darvaish 28.05.2009 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of Dell Studio 15
Feb 19th, 2009
very helpful by (100%):
