Battery Life
Life of the 9-Cell battery, which I had ordered is something I can’t really comment on properly just yet as it is early days. On full charge I can manage about 3hrs 10minutes with the laptop running at full CPU power and max screen brightness, however this can vary depending on what features you have switched on.
Vista’s power management is more flexible than what is offered by XP so you have a lot more customisability. One thing I’d like to mention is that the 9-Cell battery is a lot larger than the 6-Cell and goes as far as raising the rear of the laptop due to its larger height.
The battery itself has a battery level indicator, which can be activated by pressing a battery status button just beside it. Nice touch!
Bundled Software and Bloat
Upon booting up the XPS for the first time you’re presented with a screen in which you can add names for accounts in Vista and then Vista itself boots and sets itself up. It was at this point when I realised I would have a lot of uninstalling to do. Google Sidebar was installed, as well as Roxio Creator and about 10 sub programs belonging to it. Sadly you can’t uninstall these Roxio programs in one go, you have to uninstall them individually and that took some time. Microsoft Works was next to go - I just don’t know why anyone would want to use this suite in this day and age. It is next to useless and Dell would be far better off talking to the people who produce OpenOffice as this is miles more capable.
The Biometric suite, which works with the Fingerprint Reader (right of the touch pad) was next to go. This initially did its job quite well. I registered two of my fingers with the software and you had to use either of these to swipe the reader before you could log in to Vista. The Fingerprint Reader software was then passworded to stop others registering their fingerprint. So imagine my surprise when my girlfriend somehow logged in by swiping her thumb over the reader….goodbye Biometric Suite!
Next up to be removed was McAfee Anti Virus, with a free 30 day subscription. Not that I care. All Anti Virus programs do is slow down your PC by around 50% if there is a real time scanner running and it just eats a colossal chunk out of the speed you expected from your new machine anyway. I haven’t had a virus since I started using and building PC’s back during the 80386/80486 days so GTFO. If you don’t like bloated software, you will have a fair bit of work to do here, although that can be said for any laptop I guess, since they all come pre-loaded with useless rubbish.
Conclusion
Overall the XPS M1530 is a solid addition to the current XPS range from Dell. It is essentially a larger version of the already acclaimed M1330 with a decent price to boot. Overall I’m extremely pleased with the purchase and surprised too. Extra goodies such as the Creative headphones, the free SD card and a nice cow unfriendly binder/wallet just surprised me even further.
You could argue that you could just go and buy a cheaper customised Inspiron and have it configured with the same specification as the XPS. You could do that but it won’t be as light, nor will it be as good looking as the M1530.
Dell has already stated that their present XPS line-up will receive new additions and those are already beginning to happen. USA and Canada have a choice of new, larger resolution screens and they should be available to UK residents within the month.
Pros
- Very thin and light
- Powerful Nvidia 8600M GT using DDR3 RAM
- Silent hard disk and slot loading DVD drive
- Solid build quality and design
- Surprisingly good built in web camera
- A good selection of extras included
- Media Center Remote is very handy
Cons
- The M1530 would benefit from bigger screen choices for UK buyers
- Far too much bloated software pre-installed
- Touch pad has it’s issues