As promised, here is the final part of my 4-part review on the Dell XPS M1330.
I have had the laptop for a couple months now, using it daily, mostly for email and web surfing, but I have also tested it for gaming and other tasks.
I will just kind of laundry list my observations here in no particular order.
Keep in mind that when I mention a comparison, it is to my older Dell e1405.
Overall, I am a little disappointed with this notebook, but mostly for personal reasons.
- I am definitely a 14″ notebook person - I can use the 13.3″ just fine, but it seems I lose more usability with the screen and keyboard size then I gain in weight savings. This is compounded by the fact that the battery life on the M1330 is about an hour less then my e1405 (both with extended batteries). I kind of learned this when I had a MacBook for a short time a year ago, but I guess I had to learn it twice. The problem is compounded on a MacBook as you cannot fullscreen most apps on Mac OS X. It is also worse with Vista if you use the sidebar (which I do - its my favorite Vista feature).
- The keys are too loud and I absolutely cant use them in a quiet room with other people around without them hearing - this sucks
- I had to disable the fingerprint reader as the process was getting stuck at 100% CPU and sucking my battery, and I didn’t feel like debugging it.
- Vista. Oh Vista. I can live with its issues, except for the one where wireless decides to drop out and refuse to come back on every once in a while - its maddening
- Performance for all my uses is very good board - it even plays Call Of Duty 4 decently. However, I wish I had dialed down the cpu for battery reasons.
- Battery life is good but about 20% less then my e1405 - this is because of the dedicated video and faster CPU, I had hoped the smaller LED screen would offset that - it didnt.
- The form factor is kinda awkward. I was hoping maybe I could open it on a New Haven Line train but no dice - only in the face 2 face seats.
In general, whenever I have to fiddle with my e1405 (which my wife now uses), I kinda wish I had it back, with that big ol screen and forever battery life. I never play games on this thing anyway. Oh, and it cost a lot less. However, I know my opinion will change 180° when I have to use it more while traveling.
Oh well, at least I got a ridiculous deal on this one, and my wife seems to like her upgrade to the e1405.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Anon // Mar 8, 2008 at 6:07 am
You can tone down the cpu, so that it runs fast only when you need it to. This can save a lot of battery life. I know for a fact that this is possible in Linux. I will omit the obvious suggestion to any Vista user.
2 Chris (Admin) // Mar 8, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Well Vista will use speedstep by default, which I cranked down as much as I could (you can specify min/max, battery and AC), without much difference.
I actually want my old e1405 back, I steal it from my wife all the time. best laptop I ever owned.
I fixed the Vista wireless issue, I had two APs too close together and the interference was screwing up Vista - didnt bother XP though, maybe because I used the Intel Connection manager.
BTW I have been a Linux server developer for 13 years and although I excitedly try out each new Ubuntu release, I prefer Windows on my desktop and notebook and program over ssh shells.
3 chi // Apr 5, 2008 at 1:36 am
so just exactly how bad is the battery life, 2hrs? 1hr?
4 Kim // Sep 19, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Hey Chris-
I was in very similar shoes. Thought my latitude d630 was too heavy, and not-so-sexy and got a m1330. Yeah, at first I was in love with its sleek looks but prefer my d630 for its better keyboard and much longer-lasting battery (both 9-cell). Plus, I worry about the LED screen on my m1330…it seems delicate to me whereas I know I can pretty much throw the d630 anywhere without causing it harm.
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