We got a quick look at
Dell's new Studio 14z thin-and-light, budget-friendly laptop, and were mildly impressed. The thing is lighter than it looks, has a great blend of performance, price, inputs and outputs, and doesn't even look too frumpy to boot. The chiclet-ish keyboard is fine, though not great, and while the lack of Studio XPS-style leather frills and capacitive touch controls might be seen as a drawback to some, we actually like the no-nonsense approach. The inclusion of HDMI, eSATA and an ExpressCard 34 slot are pretty clutch for this form factor and price, and while a cheap external drive might be necessary for occasional use at the desk, the removal of it makes total sense for the target audience of students. Perhaps most astonishing, however, is that Dell has finally figured out that people care what the bottom of their computer looks and feels like -- and this one feels great. It's a whole new world, people.
posted May 28th 2009 4:24PM
Oops, never mind. Its at the front left edge according to the shots on Dell's site.
I take it they are following suit with the Studio 1555 and nixing the fingerprint reader option and doing (horrible) facial recognition software only? (which doesn't work when you join a domain as well)
Richard:
Yes Richard... we offer a 720p display as a base offering and offer a 920p display as an upgrade. Here's a Direct2Dell blog post that has more details. http://bit.ly/nNE7U
Thanks,
LionelatDell
Hey boss, any idea on how long it will take to ship? 3 of the options I configured says will delay shipment date, even without those 3, web still does not give an estimated ship date...
@Howard:
I placed an order for one of these this morning...ship date: June 26th. Ouch.
I was considering this, but the lack of an internal optical drive means some of my games won't work as it requires the CD to be recognized in order to start the game. Taking an external drive on the go would be too much of a hassle. Too bad, because I like everything else about it including the price.
No-CD cracks. You're not going to be banned for those, they're very commonly used and easy to obtain.
Steam
GOG
The one two punch of digital game distribution
As an alternative to a no-cd crack, you can also rip the cd to an iso file and mount it in Windows as a drive. The Microsoft utility you use for this is clunky but works (at least in XP).
a free program called magiciso is good for making and mounting images. works well on my wife's eee pc when necessary.
A+++++++ Great Comment! Will troll from again!!!!!!!!!111!!1!!!
Sorry to drop another mac comparison, but I am a bit (just a teeny bit) disappointed in the thickness. Is 1.2" the best Dell can do after omitting the optical drive? After all the Macbook manages to squeeze it all (optical drive included) into a .95" frame. The plastic Macbook is also thinner...with an optical drive included. Dell still deserves respect though. They are certainly moving in the right direction and Dell's PC designs these days are second only to Apple in my opinion.
Now I just wish Dell, and all electronics makers for that matter...Apple included, would get over this never-ending glossy smudgy fingerprinty plastic craze.
I was thinking the same thing about the thickness. I'm generally not a fan of the design where the laptop is thick at the back and thin at the front (Dell seems to like this setup) -- just make it all the same thickness. For what it's worth, assuming the thickness changes uniformly (and it looks like it does from pictures) a thickness of 0.79"–1.2" gives an average of just under 1". Still, I think the real measure of a laptop's thickness is it's thickest point.
any idea on estimated ship date?
Sorry for the double post...I replied to you on page 1
I placed an order for one of these this morning...ship date: June 26th
JUNE 26!!!!!! WHOAAAA thanks....was thinking of doing it or not but I need a laptop almost pronto, the most I can wait is 2 weeks....guess this one is out of the question for me then... thank you for the reply and enjoy it :)
Why not find a Dell store near you?
As usual Dell nickels and dimes you to death to outfit the thing decently. You can have 3 GB of ram or 6 GB for a lot more $$$ but not 4 GB. For a 64-bit OS. The entry level proc has a whole 1GB of cache. Pay extra for 802.11n which by now should be standard on everything. Also as per usual they release a new product but you can't get it for a month or more. Dell is really on top of things...
[sarcasm] Holy ****! The standard CPU has 1GB of cache ?! and you're complaining about that?! **** man, that's over 2 orders of magnitude more than my Q6600! [/sarcasm]
"Phil @ May 28th 2009 5:35PM
Maybe the fan whines like my old mini, or maybe it rattles like the imac I returned in December. Then again it might just have the awesome vibration of the macbook I returned two weeks ago."
Sure Phil. Like you have ever owned a Mac in your life.
You want copies of the receipts Terry?
Or you can call Mac Pro Solutions in Richmond, VA. They are an Apple authorized service provider who had the iMac for two weeks before I returned it. So Terry, macs do have issues.
"Eddy Munn @ May 28th 2009 5:00PM
Yeah, no Macs have multiple buttons, shame that isn't it."
Read up on multi-touch Eddy.
"Lionel M. @ May 28th 2009 5:34PM
Richard:
Yes Richard... we offer a 720p display as a base offering and offer a 920p display as an upgrade. Here's a Direct2Dell blog post that has more details. http://bit.ly/nNE7U
Thanks,
LionelatDell"
Translation. If you want a usable laptop we will nickel and dime you until you have payed twice the lowest price we list. You will get it when we get around to sending it to you. Plus since its made from the cheapest components we could find in China this week don't expect reliability but since we still made no money on it do expect our 3rd world tech to give you the very worst support possible. After we leave you on hold for four hours and hang up on you multiple times. Oh and good luck being an early adopter of a Dell product.
What do you require for a "usable" laptop? The baseline configuration is more than adequate for a $650 14" model, with the caveat of the optical drive, the exclusion of which is the entire distinction of this machine. The baseline 3 GB RAM, 250 GB HD, and 2.0/1MB C2D is more than adequate for multimedia, Windows and its staple apps, and any games that the GPU can handle.
Furthermore, Dell's upgrades really aren't priced that much higher than cost when compared to boutique manufacturers (especially compared to you-know-who). Just because there are a ton of options doesn't mean you need to max out your machine on every one. Don't need Bluetooth? Don't buy it. Don't need wireless N? Same thing. I don't care for ultra-high DPI screens, so I'd probably go with the stock one anyway.
Furthermore, I have only ever had good experiences with Dell's tech support. Part of it is a little insider knowledge (tip: use their chat system instead of calling them on the phone for warranty issues). But mostly they have always done a good job of honoring their warranty, both on my personal systems and those of my friends and family, and with the laptops I managed at work.
I just wanna say that the 50$ option to boost your screen to 900p which mean 1600x900 pixels is absolutly amazing. Just this option make it way ahead of the MacBook and most laptop out there.
E-sata + 1600 pixels long timeline is a dream for a mobile video editing system.
This laptop is a winner.
Yeah, except it wouldn't actually edit video at a great speed. I have a Macbook with 9400M and it can't edit video at a reasonable speed.
But that's not to say it's bad. It just won't edit video (again, at any reasonable speed).
Heeee? what codec are you using? With HDV its a bit slow on my old Pentium M 1.8ghz but nothing to worry about and I just make proxies in DV or Jpeg for accelerate things. I have less problems with AVI than Quicktime though... maybe this is the problem. I hope you dont expect your computer to edit uncompressed footage in real-time...
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9027714&type=product&id=1218010176167
im also thinking this one,, price vs performance....any suggestions? one main pro for HP is dedicated 512mb 9300 can play COD, con is slower cpu and DDR 2 but still very fully equipped
Integrated cards are getting much better. Nice netbook whatever but probably not powerful enough for me. I love Dell computers. Every one I had was nice so I would consider it for a gift.
http://jamesmsingleton.com
This laptop actually looks good. I am impressed Dell. I am not sure I like the side power button though - it looks good but I think it will get annoying if it is a light.
Does anyone know if there are two ram slots or just one? Since there site says 3gb one slot or upgrade to 5gb one slot. I would be more interested in the 3gb if i could upgrade in a few years and just add the ram to a second slot.
You might be interested in the thread at Notebook Review on the Studio 14z: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=385196
From what I see, there is 1GB RAM soldered onto the mobo, leaving only one slot left - hence the 3GB or the 5GB options.
I'm pretty sure it says the RAM is dual channel, which implies (necessitates?) two slots.
Just ordered one for my girlfriend. They really do nickel and dime you with the options. I pretty much decked it out, and it came to $940 I believe. That's with the higher res screen, 2.4GHz cpu, 320GB HDD, backlit keyboard, express port card reader, etc.
She has been wanting to get a macbook. This blows the plastic $999 macbook out of the water, and a similar unibody build would be damn near twice the price. I already built her a hackintosh desktop, and I'm pretty sure everything in this is Mac OS compatible should she choose to still go that route.
She has been using my eee 900HA. So I've already convinced here optical drives aren't necesarry, and this should be a huge upgrade. Better be, because I paid like $200 for the eee :)
Btw: estimated delivery date is a month away :(
How is "the inclusion of HDMI, eSATA and an ExpressCard 34 slot" clutch??? A small handbag? Successful in a tight situation?
- Confused :?
Looks like a Excellent laptopn/netbook to me really! I love how Dell always includes HDMI. This is why i have waited for something from dell which is cheaper teh XPS13 and has a bit more battery life.
Only thing i wish it has is a 3G but that one i can get a dongle for.
Now lets hope we mortals in Sweden get to see this nice laptop in a near future :)
wait...so since it doesn't have an optical drive or whatever, you can't watch DVDs without having an external adapter drive?
I was looking at the Studio 14 (different from the Studio 14z) and it had a slot loading drive. So this one doesn't have one at all?
That's right - no internal DVD drive. It's aimed at people who obtain their content online or rip their disc-based content to their hard drive.
I dislike this computer, for several reasons.
-No "graphite gray" option like on the Studio 17
-16:9 display
-No optical drive
I can't believe how ridiculous some of the feedback about this laptop is.
Not a useable laptop? You're complaining because you want one more notch in your resolution slider, that it can't play Crysis in 1900 x with 900000x anti-aliasing? Be realistic here, people.
This laptop has the latest Core 2 Duos(look at the bus speed), DDR3 memory and a fair graphics solution to boot, a card which, despite its weaknesses, can still play most games decently. You're blaming dell for charging out the wazoo? You can MAX OUT this machine and it is in the low thousands. It STARTS at 650 dollars. Compare that to a macbook...in fact, while you're at it, try maxing out the macbook and then tell me how it looks in price.
I saw complaints that it only had 3GB of ram. You're forgetting a few things here...
1) It's DDR3. It's faster. And more expensive.
2) Apple's OSX leopard is 64 bit but they come with more than 4GB ...in fact, most of their machines start with 2GB sometimes even less...so what was it you were complaining about again?
3) And besides, most software today can hardly even utilize anymore than that memory-wise. Unless you were planning on recording in cakewalk while downloading HD movies while also playing Crysis at 1900 x and 90000000x anti-aliasing.
So what is anyone complaining about? You can get a decent laptop with a decent CPU and a decent GPU and latest in memory technology WITH A 64 bit version of windows for under 800 bucks.
If you ask me, this is the best deal that has come along in a while.
(PS. ... does it really matter if apple's machines are marginally smaller/lighter? I mean I can definitely understand an HP dv6000 vs. like.. a macbook air but is half an inch and one more pound really going to make that big of a difference? Adamo is a joke. First, they didn't even get as thin as the macbook air, but next they put a ULV processor in it and it still has no cd drive...and it costs a small fortune just the same.
This one? No, not as thin and light...but it has nearly identical specs to the macbook air and it is SIGNIFICANTLY less expensive...plus it doesn't have the carelessly thought-out aluminum body which, btw, warps over time...big trouble for slot-load cd drives.
So there you have it. Stop complaining. Did you forget the price tag on this thing?
This laptop is amazing, battery lasts around 6 hours , i got the red one looks amazing. I was about to buy a macbook pro also! Until i saw this! Im glad i made the purchase, the screen even looks better then my sisters macbook pro =) + All my specs are better then her's! Glad i waited .
I think Dell got it right this time.