Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Dell XPS16 for Christmas?

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 6:16 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@×××××.com> wrote:
> 2009/11/20 J. Roeleveld <joost@××××××××.org>:
>> On Sunday 15 November 2009 19:39:40 Mick wrote:
>>> I have been thinking of buying this laptop and was looking at the Gentoo
>>>  Wiki which shows relatively good hardware compatibility, except for the
>>>  radeon card which is now an older offering:
>>>
>>> http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Dell_Studio_XPS_16
>>>
>>> The current spec on the UK Dell website shows 1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4670 (see
>>> below).
>>> ================================================================
>>> PROCESSOR:    Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 720QM (1.60Ghz, 6MB cache)
>>> LCD:  Black Leather back cover : 15.6" (inch) Truelife 1080p Full HD WLED
>>>  Edge to Edge Display
>>> MEMORY:       4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
>>> HARD DRIVE:   500GB (7,200rpm) Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive
>>> PRIMARY BATTERY:      9-cell 85Whr Lithium Ion battery
>>> OPTICAL DRIVE:        Internal Blu-Ray ROM (Blu-Ray read, DVD and CD read & Write)
>>> Optical Drive
>>> GRAPHICS CARD:        1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4670 graphics card
>>> WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY:        Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g)
>>> BLUETOOTH:    Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module
>>> ================================================================
>>>
>>> According to these links the RadeonHD driver is experimental:
>>> http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeon
>>> http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeonhd%3Aexperimental_3D
>>>
>>> Does anyone have experience with this driver, or better yet, this laptop?
>>> Shall I buy or shall I shy away from it?
>>>
>>
>> Most Dell-laptops actually work quite nicely with Linux, however, be aware
>> that DELL has issues with the harddrives they supply.
>> I've seen 6 different recent DELL-laptops with crashed harddrives in the past
>> 1.5 years. These laptops were handled carefully.
>>
>> Response from Dell was: "Sorry, we shipped a wrong batch...."
>>
>> I would suggest frequent backups of important files and/or the harddrive
>> swapped for a more reliable model.
>
> Thanks guys - the hard drive story sounds scary!  Was there a
> particular batch of a particular hard drive manufacturer that was
> suspect here?

I think you could mention any brand of hard drive and people would
have horror stories about it. Hard drives are like airplanes; they
tend to fail spectacularly. The good news is that if you had to choose
one part of a laptop to go bad, the hard drive would probably be the
easiest piece to replace (or maybe RAM). Certainly better than a trend
of failing display panels!

I've owned a couple Dell computers personally and overseen dozens of
them at work and they are generally good value and perform without
issues. Their business division's customer service (at least a few
years ago) was pretty good, they would send someone to our office the
next morning to fix the problem.

Dell Home, on the other hand, at least in the US, seems to outsource
most (all?) of their email/chat/phone support overseas to non-native
English-speakers and if you've got a question or request that's not on
their script, save yourself the headache and don't even bother asking
them for it. Anything they tell you is just the same info you can read
on the Dell support website, assuming you can break through the
language barrier enough for them to understand what you're asking in
the first place. And if you bought a Dell product from a store and not
from Dell directly, forget it. You don't exist if you don't have a
Dell order number.

That being said, the XPS 16 looks like a good value to me (based on
the US pricing), and a pretty sweet laptop especially with the blu-ray
and WLED display. And AFAIK is one of the only laptops on the market
today available with an RGBLED display (at least in the US, $175 extra
for the privilege).

I would also check out the Asus G51J-A1 which is a similar set-up to
the Dell. It seems to be a good package for the price too.