XPS: My first impressons...

Random blurtings about my new XPS:

1. It's thick alright
2. Not as heavy as I thought it would be.
3. Not as ugly as I thought it would be. It's FAR less ugly than my 8200.
4. Build quality better than I expected, given the 2-tone after-thought "permanently attached to a docking station" look.
5. Subwoofer makes a huge difference compared to the 8200, but still doesn't compare to the Toshiba + Harmon Kardon speaks/subwoofer. A good effort though! Makes MP3 listening bearable without headphones. Wish the L/R speakers weren't placed on the front lip - they should be on the top IMO. But that's just my beergut getting in the way.
6. The screen is absolutely gorgeous, albeit a bit on the small side for a 1920x1200 resolution.
7. Truemobile 1300 driver installation a PITA after an OS reinstall (first thing I did). Took me a while to get it right
8. Ordered a plasma quicksnap, got Cipher. oh well. They're useless anyway
9. Backpack it comes with seems to be of very high quality. Something you'd definitely get charged $60 for at Best Borro..err...buy.
10. Eject button for DVD/CD drive is placed somewhat too conveniently. I find myself pushing in the tray, only to have it eject again because I was holding the button down while doing so.
11. Keyboard is amazingly comfortable, and all the keys are in the right place for me.
12. Performance is certainly desktop-class. Heat on your lap is "warm", not hot. Center gets more warm than the sides as has been mentioned before.
13. Gotta install SP1 before USB2 works properly. Keep that in mind.

I used my own corporate edition, conveniently stolen from work and has no activation madness.

If you can download SP1, avoid the "express" install version. Doesn't have all the driver INF's since it only downloads what it thinks you need - and if you have "unrecognized" hardware in the device manager, it won't download INF's for it (this was the case with USB2 for me). Get the "network" version of SP1A and let it install the extra few megs of INF files. USBroot will be recognized immediately after you install it At least, that's how it worked for me. If you're using Dell's OS CD, YMMV.

.......along with 15,000 other pieces of crud i'll never need or want

There's a little song I sing with every dell I buy... "Fdisk, Format, Re-install... Doo dah... Doo dah..."

The 5105-S607 i owned did....

Machina, not sure if you're following "that other thread" about the XPS, but things are getting pretty hot in there...