Dell XPS M1330: The good, the bad & the ugly

I've owned this baby for over 2 months now, and I'm so happy about it; I want to blog. :P Here's a review, 'Amal style':

The good:

Slim and sexy design:
I have the tuxedo black, which in my opinion looks more professional. I'm sure you all must have heard about the thinnest point measuring just 0.9" (that's about 23mm to us metric fellows). The thicker end, however, measures 36mm which is on the higher end. But I feel the tapering design is good; what people see is the sleek front.
The brushed aluminium on the inside palmrests screams style.
I haven't weighed my lappy myself but it doesn't feel much a tiny bit over the 1.9kg given in the tech specs. Now what this means is that you can lug it around in your college backpack or carry it around in your arm like a folder (when put in the nylon case provided, few will suspect you are carrying a computer; it looks exactly like a file).
For me portability was one of the critical characteristics to filter laptop choices and the XPS M1330 blew the top off of most contestants hands down.

Keyboard & Touchpad:
Full keyboard! Except the numpad, everything's there. Ctrl is on the bottom-leftmost (as opposed to Fn key on some laptop brands which is annoying). Keys are adequately spaced and provide great tactile feedback which makes typing a pleasure.
The touchpad is placed so that you don't accidentally brush it while typing, which on some other brands can drive you crazy (You start typing only to realise that half of what you just typed has gone elsewhere). Sensitivity is good and the buttons are soft and noiseless, which is how it should be.
Also worth mentioning are the touch sensitive keys for media, volume and optical drive eject. They glow up in a row when the computer is woken from sleep mode, hibernation or started up, which is great eyecandy.

Battery:
From what I've been told Dell has a patented battery technology which is better than most other options. On the older HPs, for example, you will get no more than 2.5hrs of usage whatever you do. On my 1330 with my usage (I have a USB optical mouse and a USB Reliance datacard) I get over 3.5hrs with the 6-cell lithium. My screen is LCD. The WLED option is supposed to give you better power efficiency but apparently you get 10 more minutes which is definitely not worth the extra 5k rupees. Brightness is exactly the same too.
Another cool feature is that there's a button and LEDs on the battery (bottom side) with which you can check the battery charge without even opening the lid.

High-end features:
It may be small and light, but it packs a hell of a punch when it comes to features. Some of the things that were not all available on other competing models were the Draft-N WiFi, 320GB HDD option, 64GB SSD option, stereo sound, fingerprint reader. Dedicated graphics chip was available on many models but this is one that you can actually play games on. I'm currently playing FarCry on High graphics option without any hiccups whatsoever.

Post-sales:
Dell India provides NBD (next business-day) on-site warranty free for 1 year, so whatever problem you may face, it'll be fixed within a day by a service executive who will arrive at your doorstep.
My right speaker gave out within a month of playing heavy rock, and I called Dell. Although I didn't get NBD, I did get NFBD (next few business days) service. :D ..the delay, btw, is only to be expected from anything in India. The guy who came to replace the speakers knew what he was doing.

Freebies.....!! :
Don't we all love 'em? :)
With my laptop I got a pair of noise-reduction in-ear earphones from Creative which I now cannot live without.
Also packed were a USB modem, nylon carry case, and remote control.


The bad:

Location of the Fingerprint reader:
It's situated immediately beneath the down-arrow key, which is not very comfortable to use.

Power button backlight:
The power button should be backlit when the laptop is on, but due to some reason, it's been designed not to.

Sound:
Not up to the mark. But obviously you can't expect BOSE quality sound from a laptop this small.


The ugly:

Vista:
Dell does not offer the DOS option with this model. Lemme tell you, in very simple terms: Vista SUCKS. It's sluggish, has bugs, takes a lot more space, and will make you tear out your hair in frustration. The first thing you should be doing when you get your laptop is pulling Vista out by the ears and installing XP.
Take this: I couldn't play FarCry in lowest graphics with Vista but on XP it works in high graphics like a charm. Not to mention Bioshock and Crysis. ;)

MediaDirect & Recovery:
Dell bloats your disk with the recovery and MediaDirect partitions; you can essentially kiss goodbye to over 10-15 GB of hard disk space even before you get your hands on it.
According to me both these partitions (and the small partition on the beginning of the drive) are unnecessary so you can flatten them when you install XP.
Unfortunately there's a MediaDirect button on the keyboard panel that is hardwired into the BIOS. Pressing it accidentally will (apparently) cause hell to break loose on your comp if you've deleted its partition.




There! I've given you my opinion of my laptop. The verdict is that it's a beautiful and near-perfect model for my specific needs, which are: high portability, high connectivity, medium-end gaming, best price.
If you have the same requirements, look no further.

Any suggestions, opinions, questions are always welcome, please add them as comments.

Buying the Sony Ericsson W890i? List of flaws:

I'm a hard man to please. For gadgets, at least. In doing research before you buy one, it helps more if you have a list of flaws associated with it than just a lengthy review examining its features.

So, for the benefit of those of you who are considering buying the Sony Ericsson W890i mobile phone, I'll do my bit to help you decide.


First I should tell you that this is the first SE phone I've ever had. I've owned a N6630 (for 2 yrs), then a Motorola ROKR E6 (1 yr), before replacing it for this. I've had this mobile for exactly one month now. So far, it's given me GREAT service!
I can easily see why there are so many SE patrons. It's easily the best of the three phones I've used.


It does not come without its share of drawbacks, though.


Problems with SE W890i:

1. Cannot use without sim. (wtf... Nowadays even the Rs. 4k phones have this feature)

2. You need to restart phone to put the phone in flight mode. Unlike the Nokias in which you can go 'Offline' and Motorolas that can 'Switch off Antenna' from the main screen itself, in my Sony Ericsson I need to first enable the Flight Mode option in Settings. Then I have to restart the phone to get the option of choosing Flight Mode. (Totally sux)

3. No option of taking pics with the front camera. At first I thought a java app would be able to do this, but no, the front cam cannot be pulled up using java. In India where 3G networks are non existent, this part of the phone is completely useless.

4. The Select key, Call Pickup key and Call Hang Up key are plated with a gold coloring on the silver phone; this coloring is easily scratched.

5. There is an LED near the camera button which is supposed to work as a status light (blink when you have missed calls etc.) but doesn't work at all!

6. You cannot use any phone functions when you connect the phone in File Transfer mode. My Motorola didn't have this problem.

7. There is a certain limit for the length of the notes you can store in the 'Notes' application. Even in my ancient N6630, I could store whole books in the 'Notes' app.

8. The same file plays softer during music playback than while ringing, through the external speakers. (This seems to have been fixed in a firmware upgrade)

9. You can't modify the smileys for texting.

10. You can't change the shortcut functions for the left and right softkeys, only for the arrow keys.

11. There's no digital zoom available in the camera when using 3MP.

12. There's 3G and HSDPA (which are useless in India) but no Wi-Fi. :(

13. Recordings from sound recorder etc. show up in your music library. You have to manually move them to the 'Ringtones' folder to avoid this.

14. The built-in email feature doesn't work with gmail.


Needless to say, the good points outnumber the bad by a large margin. The above is just to let you know what annoyances you should expect from this cell phone, before you buy it.


NOTE: This post will be updated as and when I think of more faults. If you are planning to buy the W890 and have questions, please add them as comments and I will try to answer.