Dell Studio 15

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http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39030093,49297898,00.htm

Reviewed 27 June 2008

Reviewed by Dan Ackerman

Parsing the intended markets for Dell's ever-shifting in-house brand names requires some tea-leaf reading. It's been easier lately, with the company stripping down its consumer brands to just the Inspiron and XPS lines.

Now the company is adding a new line between the budget Inspiron and the high-end XPS. The new Studio line, as personified by the 15.4-inch Studio 15, has the same tapered shape, slot-loading optical drive and rounded hinge as the Dell XPS M1530, but a similarly configured Studio system costs roughly £350 less than a similarly outfitted XPS.

The base model of the Studio 15 costs around £479. We've reviewed a model that includes an upgraded CPU, which costs around £540 from Dell. All prices were correct at the time of writing.

Design
The trade-off is mostly in size and finish. Even though it has a similar look, the Studio laptop is about 25 per cent thicker and slightly heavier than its more upscale XPS cousin, with plastic accents instead of metal.

We'd be tempted to toss in the extra £350 for the brushed-metal wrist rest and slimmer design of the XPS, but the Studio line does offer personalisation options -- including lots of colours and graphic imprints -- beyond what's available for Dell's other laptops.

While clearly inspired by the popular XPS M1530, the Studio 15 has a more angular look, with its large side hinges curving the screen down at a sharp angle; the XPS presents a more rounded look. At 2.77kg, it's too heavy to tote around every day, but still at the lower end of the 15-inch scale.

Our early review unit had a matte midnight blue lid, but as mentioned, there are a variety of colour options. It's also available in several artistic design motifs.

Features
The Studio 15 follows Dell's recent -- and welcome -- trend of putting HDMI outputs and touch-sensitive control buttons on just about every laptop. You can also get those on even the cheapest Inspiron 15-inch models. Like the XPS M1530, it has a slot-loading optical drive and an Express Card slot that doubles as a holder for a credit-card-style media remote.

Also like the XPS M1530, the Studio 15 has a 15.4-inch LED-backlit display with a native resolution of 1,440x900 pixels, which is standard for higher-end mid-size laptops. Dell's cheaper Inspiron 1525 has a 1,280x800-pixel display, but the extra screen real estate at the higher resolution in the Studio 15 makes for a much less cluttered desktop. We prefer these newer LED displays over older LCD models lit by a fluorescent lamp because of their lighter weight, brighter whites and lower power consumption.

Dell includes plenty of additional upgrade options and an industry-standard one-year parts-and-labour warranty with the system.

Performance
Intel's 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 CPU is the current default for mainstream performance. Our review sample included this CPU and it's available for around £60 as an upgrade to the standard 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 processor, with price correct at the time of writing. With 2.1GHz onboard, the Dell Studio 15 easily outperformed Dell's 14- and 15-inch Inspirons with slower 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 processors, as well as the most recent XPS M1530, which had an older 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500.

For most typical tasks, including Web surfing, working on Office documents and media playback, any of these CPUs would be more than adequate. We'd expect new CPUs from Intel's Centrino 2 refresh later in the summer.

Our review sample came with the 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD3400, although the Studio 15 actually retails with a HD3450 model; still, your performance results will be very similar. While neither card is at the top of the video card food chain, it'll provide for some basic gaming muscle. We got around 17 frames per second on Unreal Tournament III at 1,280x800 pixels. Tweaking the settings and turning down the detail level should get more playable frame rates in the mid-20s, but this system is targeted more at creative types, not hardcore gamers.

The Studio 15 ran for 2 hours 46 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, using the included 6-cell battery. That's reasonable for a mid-size laptop and our battery drain test is especially grueling, so you can expect longer life from casual Web surfing and office use -- we got more than three hours out of it in anecdotal use.

Conclusion
While the Studio 15 offers a good mix of features for the price, we'd be tempted to save up a few extra pounds for a thinner, lighter XPS.

Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday