M1710 REVIEW WITH SOME ACER 8104 COMPARISONS

This is my rambling review of the DELL M1710. I want to get something posted soon, then I'll edit the first post as I add to it, so you may not be notified of updates. I'll do some comparisons to my Acer 8104 as I go along. (Size and weight were the first things that smacked me in the face.)

I bought the lappie from a reseller in May 2006 and saved about a thousand bucks. There aren't many Dell resellers around now. I didn't neeeeeed a new laptop, but who can't drool over the latest and greatest. The price tipped the scales for me.





The new beast, with my Acer 8104 rear right, and Sony HX73 17" LCD. (That's Grandma and Grandpa Bane on the wallpaper, from their 1913 wedding photo. (I'm HOW OLD?) But I digress.)

The basic config:

Dell XPS M1710
Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2500 (2.00GHz/667Mhz)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Service Pack 2, English (with CD)
17 inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WUXGA with Black LCD Cover
2 GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMM
512MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX
80GB Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Dell Wireless® 350 Bluetooth Module
Wireless, Minicard, DW1390, Broadcom Corp.
8XDVD+/-RW w/Roxio Creator MyDVD Combo LE, Sonic CinePlayer
3Yr Next Business Day Parts and Labor On-Site Response
OTHER SOFTWARE:
Soundblaster Audigy Advanced HD Audio
Corel Photo Album, WordPerfect trial, Quickbooks trial, McAfee, AOL, Earthlink, who knows what else

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

1. Big, big, big, big, big. (But not toooo big.) (Just wayyy bigger than my large Acer 8104.)

Look Grandma! A laptop laptop desk!!

It feels heavy compared to my 8104, but I did a rough (holding them in my arms) weighing test with both on my bathroom scales. The Dell is as advertised, about 8 to 8.8 lbs with battery, and the Acer is about 6.6. I canNOT IMAGINE some of the new laptops that will be 15+ lbs. WOOF! This is plenty.

The M1710 is 15.5" wide, compared to 14.25" for the Acer. This, with the weight, means a shift in portability. I could barely, and uncomfortably, use the Acer in an economy class seat on an airplane. I had to put the lappie base near parallel to my chest in order to view the screen, and typing was minimal at best.

This will be pretty much a no-go with the Dell, unless I leave it closed and just use the Media Center to listen to CDs (something my Acer did NOT have). The width will still be a lap full. Fortunately, I'm barely even an infrequent flyer, so not a prob for me.

2. Looks? Sweeeeeet. The outside lid (mine's black, red is available too) looks "ribbed" in all the pictures, but it's actually a smooth surface with light-play built-in. The black has a luxurious look, as opposed to the "flash" that I imagine the red gives it. The lights are an interesting touch too. They come set to red but I changed mine to blue via the Dell QuickSet utility.

The case looks and feels solid. The keys are just a shade larger than my Acer's, though both have half-height function keys. The Dell key-play feels firm, though I'm occassionaly missing a shift-for-caps stroke. I'm sure I'll get used to it.

3. Battery. To be tested, of course, but I've been on battery for over an hour now. The first time I booted the machine, the battery had 98% charge and an estimated 1hr45min remaining, so I was a little disappointed. Today it said 2hr50min remaining, which is much better. My Acer is still getting 2:45 to 3:00 on 16 month-old batteries.

4. Other immediate comparisons? I miss the quick-buttons via the Acer Launch Manager to email, internet, and whatever else you set. A minor thing but it was handy. On the other hand I'm going to LUV the Dell MediaDirect feature for playing music or watching movies without booting the whole laptop. More sweeeet.

The AC Adapter brick is larger and heavier than the Acer's, but not the biggest I've seen by far. Specs say it weighs 1.68lbs.

The Dell screen is very bright, wayyy brighter than the Acer, and alllllmost as bright as my Sony LCD (it's a close call). The 1900x1200 is easier to read than I thought. I bumped the dpi from a very readable 120 to a normal 96, because of some fuzziness in some browser text, so it's moderately fine print, but still doable. No dead pixels. Very clear, crisp, sharp resolution.

No benchies yet. I was horrified to see SIXTY-ONE process threads running, due to the infamous Dell bloatware and freebie software. I thought my Acer was bad with 40-45. Still, it runs great and some of that software is going to go. I'll also be using FSAutoStart for further thread reduction when gaming. I think the McAfee will go soon too, as I've been comfortably using AVG, Windows Defender, and Ad-Watch on my Acer.

The fans are pretty quiet, though I haven't stressed or gamed it yet. I was happy to see, via MobilityMeter, that the temp during normal surfing and apps was in the very low 40s Centigrade. On battery today it has been 40-51C in the short time I've had MM on. My Acer surfs and apps between 48-54C, and games around 70-72C.

Hmmm. I think that's about it for now. I have a ton of software to install. (I went for the 80GB drive as I only used 60 of 100GB on my Acer, with same TON of software. I have a 250GB external for archiving, and I can always pop a bigger one in later if needed.) Eventually I'll run some benchies and see how it games. (Since there is no such thing in my mind as "gaming in moderation", I'm happy to say I've been "game-free" for over 30 days, but that sure aint' gonna last now.) I've been looking for an excuse to get Oblivion, as if I needed one. My Acer has gamed very well on its 128MB X700, so I'm dying to see how 512MB performs.

What may be most interesting is a screen comparison, and despite my decent digital camera I still have the ability to NOT do justice to the screens.

However it looks, the Sony HX-73 (1280x1024) is the best of the three, followed closely by the Dell (1900x1200), and third by the still very good Acer (1680x1050). I have no complaints about any of the screens, and the Dell's is EXCELLENT.

I said earlier the AC brick is bigger. The Dell is 135W, the Acer is 65W.

Did I mention it was shipped in a box? 17lb shipping wt. for the Dell, 11lb shipping for my Acer.

Minimalist inside. One box for the lappie, one for the accessories. Software includes Win XP Home XP2 Reinstallation CD, Sonic CinePlayer Reinstall CD, M1710 Drivers CD, SB Audigy Advanced MB CD, Roxio Creator MyDVD Combo LE CD, WordPerfect Productivity Pack CD, and AOL CD. There is an owner's manual, product info guide, cd case, soft cloth AC adapter bag, S-Video Out adapter (upper left of 3rd pic) and of course the AC adapter and one battery.

TBC.

Performance: It's much faster, and multi-tasks MUCH better, than my Pentium M 2.0ghz Acer. I've been very satisfied with my Acer, but when I went from my Sager 8887 hyper-threaded 3.0ghz to the Acer, I noticed a drop in "relative" processing speed, especially when multi-tasking apps. Now with the Core Duo 2.0ghz, that speed is back with a vengence and a whole lot more. I can "do other things" reasonably easy while downloading, copying, or installing apps. I have had a very few pregnant pauses and screen "painting" (choppy window movement or blank spaces when closing overlaid windows) but I'm not concerned. Windows and apps open with a speed I'VE never seen before, and I think once I get some of the gar-bahge shutdown, it will be even better.

Speakers: Grrrrr8! Best I've had by a long shot. I haven't played with them tooo much yet, but it was ENJOYABLE to listen to music while working. Hope I can get some bass thud down the road, but we shall see. It has a subwoofer but lappies seem to shy away from any real bass reproduction.

That's about it for awhile. Gaming is the next big thrill ride, but that may be a day or two away. I'm confident the M1710 will not disappoint.


GAMING: Ahhh. How MANY times can I play HL2!? As long as it keeps getting better and better I guess. It was beautiful and ran well at 1680x1050 on my Acer 8104. Now there is even MORE eye candy with options set at 16:10 and 1900x1200. I ran Fraps (which I'm not very good at as evidenced by the 3-300MB video captures from repeatedly hitting F5). I got some FPS captures averaging around 120. Needless to say it mostly ran in the low to mid-100s, with lows in the 70-90s and highs above 200. I was too busy playing to notice, other than there was no lag, but some waiting for loading. The graphics quality was suuuuu-perrrrrrb, which brings me to...

LCD: I've read several threads here and in NBR forums with people swapping out a LOT of screens on various previous XPS and Inspiron models. It appears that Dell has been using the same or similar screens for sometime, with LG, Samsung, and Sharp brands. These are generally identified by the Device ID under Device Manager\Monitor\Plug and Play\Properties\Details. My ID is SEC3155, which is reportedly Samsung. A lot of folks mention light leakage, and I have about an inch along the bottom. It is "slight" leakage and only noticeable during the black screen of bootup, and ever so slightly noticeable with the black WinXP screen saver. Not a prob. My concern was the viewing angle. Moving my head side to side, even slightly, seems to give a shading\shadow\cloud effect to the opposite side I'm looking at. It's not "bad", but it's nothing like the great viewing angles on my Sony HX-73 17" LCD. (See the LCD pic above, but not for angle.) Unfortunately, NOTHING, yet, compares to the vividness, brightness, and viewing angle of the Sony. Well, after doing some gaming and movie watching, I've decided IT'S A KEEPER! The picture quality is just too darn good overall to gripe about the shading or risk an even worse swap, as some have experienced. My Dell screen is BRIGHT and VIVID (more than my Acer but not as much as my Sony). Adjustments can be made through the Color Correction settings (which I haven't fiddled with much yet). Even a quick fiddle makes me think the "shading" is due to the glass and not the pixels. It is a glossy, highly reflective glass (you can see things behind you on black screens), and definitely not matte. It is what I consider "moderately" sparklely (I'm great on these technical terms, eh?) and not a bother. If you look at the glass at an angle on a black screen, it has a "ripplely" look. As I type this text in Notepad (I run at 1900x1200 and like it) I'm starting to get some vision-ghosting because there is so much white real estate. Anyway, just to repeat myself, it's a keeper, better than my Acer (which was GOOD), not quite as good as my Sony (a high standard, for which I'm "spoilt", as they say in the UK).

DVD info: Following is DVD spec info using free DVDInfoPro. It verifies what your DVD should do.

That's about it for my review, further occasional comments not withstanding, but feel free to ask questions if you're curious about something I haven't covered. I have an unlimited supply of opinions!

02 Sep 2006: Great comparison and review of Core 2 Duo vs. Core Duo at Anandtech. I'll be looking to drop a new T7600 in within 4-6 months, price drops permitting.


1. You have to disconnect the Wireless card on the bottom of the PC and pull the wires through the top as a step. The manual shows the wire connections as pulling straight up from the card. They DO, but they were very tight. You don't have to remove the card itself (though I did because I didn't understand the snugness at first). You just need 2 strong fingernails to pinch under each connection and pull it straight up. It will disconnect.

2. When you finally have disconnected everything and remove the LCD, the right metal hinge (as you face the open keyboard and screen) lifts clear, but the left hinge grabs on something. It turns out it has an extended tab as part of the hinge, to help keep it secure. You have to slide, lift, and "giggle" and it comes free. This is mentioned in the re-assembly portion of the manual, but not the disassembly portion.

Those were the only 2 uncertainties I had. It is a fair amount of disassembly. I taped all my screws to a piece of paper and labeled them, though they all looked nearly the same. The old T2500 CPU lifted right out once you turn the ZIF screw (Zero Insertion Force) and the new one dropped right in. I put thermal compound on the cpu but no polishing was necessary. Both the old and new cpus have a mirror finish that you can read your camera lens numbers in. The heat sink, which normal isn't polished anyway, was very smooth and I actually scratched it slightly, but not adversely. I put Humpty Dumpty back together again, booted up, (oh yeah, you should have PREVIOUSLY UPDATED to BIOS A03 or A04), and I was in business.

Going from the Core™ Duo processor T2500 (2.00GHz/667Mhz) to the T7600, user perception is that it is much faster, but not "blindingly" "night and day" faster. I am very satisfied with the upgrade however. (Now if only I could get one of those overclockable T7600G processors that has a stable OC of 2.83Ghz or a fan-screaming OC of 3.16Ghz. It just never ends.)

What about warranty you say? I've read on the Dell site that, while you are allowed to replace parts, you might consider putting the old parts back in if there are problems to be resolved. (Really should have bookmarked that!) I've also read others "advice" that you can replace parts, but those not from Dell are not warrantied, of course. I'm not worried, but caveat emptor for those who go where they have not gone before.

nVidia graphics card overclock: I've gotten more performance (so the tech savvie tell me) by OC'ing the graphics. The technically adventurous can go nuts on the tweaks for this. I've done modest and effortless OCs. This method allows you to boot to CD and flash a specific OC. You must reboot to CD to change it back to original or another OC. Just use the hpflash1.exe to format your thumbdrive, use WinRAR to extract the appropriate files from the ISO file from Juanlu or Hammermd, and your lovely Win98 thumb boots into DOS in a "flash"!

160GB HDD: With the acquisition of an OnAir GT TV tuner, and subsequent mega-large recordings of HDTV (6-7GB per hour), I badly needed HDD space. The 160GB 5,400rpm Segate Momentus seemed like a good holdover until large (<100gb)>OnAir USB HDTV tuner: I plan to do a user review of this. Suffice it to say I get awwwwwwesome HDTV (and analog) viewing\capture on my 1920x1200 screen. Excellent hardware and full-featured software, but the "user-friendliness" has some rough edges and realllly needs smoothing out.

Source: Notebookforum
by MRMsyvc (Many Thanks)