Dell Studio XPS 16: the Eyes Have It
by Jarred Walton on April 2, 2009 6:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Conclusion
So just how good is the Dell Studio XPS 16? That really depends on what you want to do with your laptop. If you're just a typical business user writing email and surfing the web, it can certainly do everything you need… but then so can pretty much any other modern laptop. It has a good set of features, looks reasonably attractive, and performs well. It's not too expensive, but then it's not inexpensive either. As a portable multimedia platform, picking up one of the models with a Blu-ray drive will allow you to wander over to your friends' houses and watch movies on their HDTVs. Just don't plan on watching any Blu-ray movies without the power adapter - or the 9-cell battery at the very least.
For most users then, the Studio XPS 16 is a good laptop that's worth a look. Many people are concerned about price these days, so ultimately they might have to look elsewhere. Take a walk down the aisles of any electronics store and you're likely to see numerous laptops selling for under $1000 that can do pretty much everything you need. They might have a slightly slower processor, no discrete graphics chip, and/or no Blu-ray drive, but most people don't need those things - especially if it means decreased battery life. But that's the summary for "most" people.
There's another category of users where our recommendation changes dramatically. If you happen to spend most of your time in Photoshop (or similar programs were color quality matters) and you want a laptop that won't hold you back, you seriously need to consider the Dell Studio XPS 16. Maybe you just want a high quality laptop display, since that's what your eyes will look at when you're using the computer. For either class of user, you should look at competing notebooks that use the same display or something very close to it. (The Dell Precision M6400 and Sony VAIO AW are also supposed to have great LCDs, but they're also larger and heavier.)
I'm not going to give the Dell Studio XPS 16 a general Editors' Choice award, since there are aspects of the laptop that I think could be better (temperatures being my primary concern). However, if you happen to fall into the second category of users I just described, it definitely deserves a gold medal. Yes, the RGB LED panel in the Studio XPS 16 is that good. In a word: wow! This may be as good as it gets in the world of laptop LCDs until OLEDs become mainstream. If you're like me and have been repeatedly disappointed with lackluster laptop displays, the Studio XPS 16 may finally restore your faith in humanity. This is change that even I can believe in!
Update: If you're interested in the Studio XPS 16, Dell is currently offering a special price of $1250, which includes the 1080p RGBLED display. It's a total savings of $343 and is only available for two days, so you'll need to act fast! Incidentally, that special price doesn't have Blu-ray by default. Still, it's worth snapping up if you have the money available!
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
79 Comments
View All Comments
JarredWalton - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
All 3DMark scores are at the standard 3DMark resolution, so I connect an external LCD where necessary (i.e. laptops with 1280x800 LCDs can't run 1280x1024 in 3DMark06 and Vantage). So the scores are definitely apples-to-apples in that department.I don't know what WoW is really like in terms of GPU needs, but the HD 3670 should be faster than the 8600M GT by a fair margin. If you need more power, though, Gateway's P-7808u FX should do the trick (review in progress), and MSI's GT627 is even more powerful in the GPU department (9800M GT). The only caveat is that neither LCD is anywhere near as good as the Studio XPS 16, and I really dislike the MSI keyboard (it's flimsy).
jiggpig - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
You should add the lenovo x200 or x300 to the battery life charts, I bet they could challenge the macbooks in battery life/battery size charts.JarredWalton - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I would if Lenovo would send me a laptop to test. I've heard good things from some people, and I would love to verify the results. Without doing the testing myself, however, I can't come to any firm conclusion. (What brightness level do they test at? What's the test like? That sort of stuff can make a difference.)erple2 - Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - link
Also, I see that you've posted the minutes/WHr results for the Apple notebooks. However, what are the "at the wall" measurements for power consumption?Is it that OSX is that much stronger optimized for low power usage? I wonder if there would be any difference running Linux vs. Vista vs. OSX on the same laptop (granted, you'd have to run them all on a Macbook I suppose to get that result) at least for power consumption, and wall outlet consumption.
Hrel - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Which GPU does it have in it? Sometimes you list the HD4670 and sometimes you say HD4650???Hrel - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
I meant HD3670 and HD3650... ah typing mistakes that are made significant by barely different product naming schemes.JarredWalton - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Sorry about that... it's an HD 3670, but somehow in the process of writing I started saying 3650. The two chips are the same, other than clock speeds, but I'm not sure on the clocks for the 3650. Anyway, the incorrect part numbers have been corrected. Thanks!Hrel - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
"This will allow us to provide an apples-to-apples comparison with other laptops while also showing the performance range you can expect by lowering or increasing the resolution."YAY anandtech! Good job, now if only you would do this on every single review that has anything to with GPU's. Oh, I'm not done with the article yet, but if there aren't 3D Mark scores, there should be.
LoneWolf15 - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
Yes, because 3DMark scores are SO indicative of real-world performance.[/sarcasm]
cheetah2k - Saturday, April 4, 2009 - link
It would be nice to see 3Dmark06 scores across the whole Dell range in these reviews, including the hefty XPS1730.For those wanting to know, an XPS1730 with 2 x 8800GTX in Sli gets 11,490 marks in 1280x1024 with a T9300 CPU @ 2.5Ghz