I am not a fan of slot loading CD/DVD drives. I never have been since Pioneer introduced them way back when CD-ROM drives were becoming essential PC hardware. I’m just not keen on the technology at all, so I was weary of using the one on the M1530. Upon popping a DVD film in to the drive Dell’s MediaDirect application fired up telling me that the drive was set to the wrong region code for my movie. This was quickly resolved and everything was fine, a little too fine if you ask me.
Upon playing Primeval the drive was silent. I brought the laptop close to my ear and managed to make out a faint whir. This left me a bit puzzled. DVD drives are meant to be NOISY! Out went Primeval and in went Twister - one of the noisiest films around. Once again silence from the drive with the audio muted.
At this point I counting myself too lucky so out came a couple of cheap cover CD’s from various magazines that I get free at work. Those were silent too. It’s well known that slot loading drives are rather noisy and loud compared to traditional drives with a pop-out tray so I count myself rather lucky here. Upon deeper inspection, the drive used here is from TEAC and it is the DVW28SLC model.
The Keyboard, Touch pad and Media Controls
The keyboard on the M1530 is superb and I’ve no complaint about them usage wise. They have excellent key travel and feel very comfortable in use. I have no complaints about the keyboard at all.
The touch pad does its job but with some issues. Firstly it is rather small, meaning that you can accidently end up touching the scroll bars located on the right and bottom of the pad - something that I haven’t adjusted to yet. The material of the pad feels a bit rough, rather than smooth. This resulted in my fingers sticking to it in places rather than smoothly gliding over its surface. As a result I don’t really enjoy using it too much. The touch pad buttons however are superb. They have good cushioning and are have decent tactile feedback too.
Just above the keyboard, you will find the media bar. As well as containing two buttons, one which fires up the Dell MediaDirect software (accessible outside and within Windows) and the other is the On/Off button. There are touch sensitive media buttons with blue LED backlights to the right of these. Upon pressing these buttons, the blue backlight will kick in for about a second before diminishing. Nice and functional.
Lastly Dell also includes a Media Center remote control, which is housed neatly in the ExpressCard slot on the side of the laptop. This is a superb addition and works on MediaDirect even outside of windows too. It is basically a Windows Media Center clone offering very similar functionality, but goes one better in that you can access it outside windows. This is done by pressing the MediaDirect button when the laptop is powered off. The remote is powered by a single 3v CR2016 Lithium cell battery (included).
Sound and Speakers
Speaker quality on any laptop is never a strong point and I wasn’t expecting miracles on this front. Speaker quality is acceptable and that is about it. Most laptops have tinny sounding speakers and the M1530 is no exception in this area. Dell has located these just above the media bar. Sound is provided by an integrated SigmaTel HD Audio Codec and does the job admirably. Needless to say for better audio something like a Creative Xmod will work wonders.
Heat Generation and Noise
The M1530 does a good job of keeping heat under control. The system fan located under the unit isn’t permanently on like most laptops I have used and when it does activate it keeps the CPU temps under 58c. Using CoreTemp for monitoring CPU temps I never saw the CPU temperature go over 58c, even when running 3DMark 2006. Once the fan does kick in you can easily hear it though but it isn’t too loud to be distracting.
Obviously under such a slim profile heat during use will be a lot more prominent and it is. The area under the hood to the left of the touch pad houses the slim 2.5" 250GB hard disk. After 30 minutes that area does get rather warm, and since the area to either side of the touch pad is where users rest their hands, that heat will be noticed. The fact that Aluminium is good thermal conductor doesn’t help with the heat matters.
I have seen a lot of users complain about noise from the hard drive and the Slot DVD drive, but both of these devices are strangely silent here. The hard disk used here is a Western Digital Scorpio WD2500BEVS 250GB model and to quote those who reviewed this particular hard disk at StorageReview.com "the drive is among the quietest we have ever heard".