Dell Launches Studio Series - Dell Studio 17

Friday, 4 July 2008

The times gone when people used to carry nameless, gray colored, faceless notebooks that lost in the crowd. Since the demand for attractive and efficient notebooks is in, Dell has been coming out with exceptionally cool gadgets. Recently it announced the launch of Dell Studio 17, a very highly configured and easily customizable notebook.

Design & Look: First of all its size is huge and can be called as a desktop replacement, because we cannot expect people to carry such notebooks during their travel through airline or when they have to move from place to place. Its more like having it in one place most of the times. The looks are same as XPS M1530. It looks as if dell just brushed up the aluminum parts and offered some options to customize the look. whats the end result? a good looking stylish desktop replacer! The thing that studio 17 lacks is mobility. Most of the body is like the xps m1530 like the wedge-shaped profile, slot-loading optical drive, drop hinge and touch sensitive media button. well it has more in store than just the design. The colors are awesome like Plum Purple, Tangerine Orange, Flamingo Pink, Midnight Blue, Ruby Red, Spring Green or standard Jet Black. The only thing that doesn't seem so good with the this notebook is its bottom panel. Instead of providing separate panel covers for each part, it provides one huge bottom panel.

Screen: This comes with many options from dell like a WUXGA (1920 X 1200) glossy display, a WXGA+ (1440 x 900) glossy display or a WXGA+ LED (1440 x 900) glossy display. Our review team came up with a 1920x1200 display and that looks cool. It should look even better with a blu-ray drive. The displays looks good from all angles. The best is from the horizontal view, ofcourse apart from the frontal view. The uppe view is also good enough, however the lower view saw some colors getting dim and invert.

Keyboard and controls: The keys have excellent travel and cushion. All the keys give you good exprience. however, small flex was observed on the key for letter K. Ofcourse i should say this is one of the best keyboards used in 17 inch environment. Women may complaining using this keyboard since if you got slightly longer nails, they get stuck between the keys. It also has the keypad lighting to type in dark. Mouse makes a lot of clicking sound when pressed, though cushioning is good. Touch pad is as usual, nothing much to say in a notebook of this size.

Ports, Inputs, Holes: Rear of the notebook has nothing, absolutely no ports. There is on IR port in the front. On the Left side you got WiFi on/off, security lock slot, WiFi catcher/locator, VGA, HDMI, two USB, Ethernet, powered USB port, Firewire, ExpressCard slot, 8-in-1 memory card reader. On the right side, you have Two head phone jacks, microphone jack, slot-loading optical drive, two USB, power jack, power button.

Audio: Dell studio 17 has one of the best speakers than the common notebooks have. However, it is only acceptable among the 17 inch category. Well if u are not so used to audio, then these are more than enough.

Battery life: The 9-cell lithium-ion battery provides excellent battery life to the notebook.

Pros: Beautiful design, Solid selection of available configurations, Reasonable battery life, Nice keyboard, touchpad and media buttons, Great component layout, Dell Dock is a nice feature, Good value for the price.

Cons: No lugs/screw posts for VGA cable and no docking station connector, All-in-one access cover on the bottom of the notebook is either great or frustrating, No option for better graphics than ATI Radeon HD 3650 at this time.