I have been lurking on this forum for several months and the information I learned played a key role in my decision to purchase an M1210. My sincere thanks to all of the contributors on this forum.
My new M1210 arrived 6 days ago and I have just completed setting it up. I thought I would share a few thoughts and experiences.
1.0 Why I chose the M1210
Many excellent reviews have been written on the M1210 so I won't repeat what is readily available elsewhere. Instead, I thought would share the key reasons I chose the M1210.
Satisfied & Active User Community
Most M1210 owners seem to be very satisfied with their purchase. Excellent support is available from a very active user community. This forum appears to be one of the best places to go for help.
Top Rated Ultraportable
The M1210 consistently gets good reviews. Most recently, the June 2007 issue of PC World rated the M1210 as the best ultraportable.
Uncompromising Performance in Small Package
I wanted excellent performance in a small package. The M1210 excels at delivering cutting edge performance in a small package.
Excellent I/O
The M1210 has the best I/O of any small notebook. Specifically, its combination of 4 USB ports, firewire, s-video, memory card reader, and 2 headphone connectors is unique.
Good Design
The M1210 has a very nice design that is well documented in other reviews. I do want to mention a design feature that is important to me. Unlike many other notebooks, the M1210 has a rear mounted network connector. In my case, a network cable is almost always connected and I like the reduction in desktop clutter provided by the rear mounted connector.
Customization Options
I am fussy about my computer technology and I like the flexibility of being able to select individual components. In my opinion, Dell does customization better than anyone else.
2.0 What options I chose and why
Note: All prices are in Canadian dollars.
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
This was a $100 upgrade from the base T5600. I did not choose the more expensive options because processor speed is not the best place to spend a limited budget. It is much more beneficial to put your money in memory, graphics, and hard drive performance.
2 GB memory
This was a $110 upgrade from the base 1 GB and seems to be a fair price. I think 2 GB is the minimum memory acceptable for Vista and everyone should purchase this upgrade.
200GB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive
This was a $190 upgrade from the 160 GB 5400 rpm drive. It is overpriced by about $60 compared to what you would pay on the street. The 200 GB 7200 rpm drive is brand new and is the biggest fastest notebook drive you can buy today. Most other notebook manufacturers are not yet offering this drive which may be another reason for you to choose Dell XPS. I wanted top performance and capacity however many people will not need this expensive option. Note that it is easy to upgrade your hard drive in the future when prices come down.
256MB nVidia GeForce Go 7400 TurboCache video card
This was a $130 option that was offered to me as a limited time no charge promotion. Graphics is a good place to spend money if you want top performance.
Vista Ultimate
This was a $180 upgrade from Vista Home Premium. Dell overprices this option by about $80 compared to what you would pay on the street. I chose Ultimate because I wanted to learn Vista, however for most users I think Ultimate is a waste of money and Home Premium is the best choice.
Integrated Webcam and Mobile Broadband Antenna
This was a $80 upgrade. I wanted a built-in camera however this is a good place to save money if you don't need it. By the way, do not choose this option because you want an AUO LCD display. Mine came with a Toshiba display (more on this later).
3 Year Return to Depot Service and Technical Support
This was a $149 upgrade from the base 1 year warranty. I do not normally purchase extended warranties because most vendors make a profit on extended warranties which means that you are paying more than the probability of failure times the cost of repair. I do make an exception for notebook computers because they are incredibly complex devices with components like the LCD display and hard drive that can easily fail. I did not purchase the more expensive CompleteCare package because I am very careful in how I handle my system.
Additional Options
I also purchased the following:
I paid a total of $2505 before tax.
3.0 Negotiating tips
Dell seems to offer continual promotions on the M1210 by bundling various combinations of options valued at about $100-$130. Dell overprices some of their options (see above for details). For my configuration I knew that the options were overpriced by about $140 (Vista Ultimate + hard drive). Because of this I entered into the price negotiation wanting a $100-$150 discount. Dell quickly agreed to a $100 reduction on the web calculated price (in addition to the $130 graphics promotion). This probably means that I could have achieved a little more if I had pushed.
Note to US customers
I live in Canada and purchased from Dell Canada. I noticed that some identical options were far more expensive (after accounting for exchange rate differences) on the Dell US web site (especially memory and hard drives).
4.0 Features I wish the M1210 had
The M1210 has a near perfect combination of features for my needs but there are a few things I wish it had.
13" Display
A 13" display would be a better compromise for an ultraportable however this size does not seem to be available from any notebook vendor.
Better Quality DVD RW Drive
My dvd-rw drive works however dvd read speed is disappointing (about 3x compared to 7x on my desktop). And the drive does not seem to be very tolerant to dvd disc imperfections. I suspect these issues may be inherent to many notebook dvd-rw drives due to the small form factor.
Santa Rosa Chipset
I held off purchasing my M1210 for several months on the assumption that Dell would introduce the new Intel chipset technology in their XPS line first. I guessed wrong. Dell has decided to introduce Santa Rosa in their Latitude line first. I am not too concerned because most of the Santa Rosa features are not that critical for my needs.
Intel Turbo Memory
This is a variant of ReadyBoost offered by some vendors such as Lenovo. I decided I could live without this feature because:
This is a new feature offered by some vendors that promises strong data encryption with no impact on performance (unlike Vista Ultimate BitLocker which is a performance dog). I decided I could do without this because hardware encryption is not yet available on the 200GB 7200 rpm drive that I wanted, and because TrueCrypt is a great free software solution if needed.
Modular Drive Bay
This is a useful feature that permits swapping out the optical drive for an extra hard drive or battery. It is offered on the Dell Latitude and Lenovo ThinkPad lines. I do wish the M1210 offered this.
CompactFlash Socket
The M1210 memory card reader does not support the CompactFlash format which my camera uses. An external USB memory card reader is an inexpensive work around.
Keyboard Illumination Light - a nice feature on the ThinkPad line
DVI Video Connector - these days more important than S-Video
5.0 My experience vs. problems reported by other users
Display Quality & Size
Display quality is probably the most hotly discussed topic among M1210 owners, and was the issue that worried me the most. I read everything on the forums and came to the following conclusions:
In summary, I am very satisfied with my display.
Processor Noise
Some people (including owners of other notebook brands) are reporting a high pitch noise which appears to be a design issue with the Intel Core 2 Duo processor. I am pleased to report that my system does not have this problem and is very quiet.
Over Heating
Some users are reporting that their M1210's are overheating. My system seems to run cool.
Keyboard Flex
Some users have expressed concern about excessive keyboard flex. My keyboard does have a little flex but I do not consider this to be a problem.
Hard Drive Noise
Some users have reported excessive head parking noise with older Hitachi drives. My 200 GB 7200 rpm drive is made by Hitachi and is very quiet.
6.0 Installation discs
I wanted a complete set of installation discs and pushed hard to get them when I placed my order. Here is what Dell shipped with my system:
7.0 Why I chose to do a clean install
Doing a clean install on a notebook can be a risky adventure given that most manufacturers install a lot of custom software to enable their notebook's features. On the other hand, being able to build a system from scratch provides liberating independence and total control over how the system is configured.
Because of the complexity of Dell's partitions and the reinstallation procedures associated with the bootable diagnostics and MediaDirect I initially decided to not do a clean install. So I embarked on cleaning out Dell installed stuff that I did not want which included:
Then the crap hit the fan...
I wanted to create a new partition for my data, and I wanted to delete the Dell System Restore partition so that I could use its 10 GB of space. Despite using proven tools and being very careful when I made these partition changes, the system became unbootable. I am pretty sure this was caused by me breaking the boot black magic that Dell uses for MediaDirect.
As an aside, earlier on I evaluated MediaDirect and concluded that it was a mediocre feature that I would rarely use. More specifically:
The first thing I did when I received my M1210 was to make a backup image of the complete hard drive. I did this even before I booted up Windows so that I knew I could restore the as-delivered configuration at any time. As it turned out, doing a clean install is very easy so I think you can skip this initial drive image step if you wish.
Dell ships the M1210 with the following factory installed partitions:
I decided to delete the Dell System Restore partition because I prefer to use my own tools and methods for backing up partitions. I also decided to delete the MediaDirect partition (see above for reasons). So the only decision I needed to make was whether to keep the DellUtility partition. This bootable partition is accessed by pressing F8 when the system boots and it launches some Dell diagnostics. I decided to keep this partition because the diagnostics seem to be quite thorough, and because it only takes 55 MB of hard drive space, and because Dell does not use any black magic on the partition. Note that if you have the Dell Drivers and Utilities cd then you can safely choose to delete this partition because the cd is bootable and runs a similar (but possibly older) set of diagnostics.
Here are the steps I followed to build my system from scratch.
Boot from the Dell Windows Vista disc, delete all the partitions you do not want, create a partition for Windows, and install.
Note: Windows is automatically activated by the Dell Windows Vista install disc. You do not need to enter a key (or do anything else) to activate.
Disable UAC and System Restore in Windows (makes the install process smoother and faster).
Update Windows using the standard Microsoft update tool. You will be offered at least 16 Windows updates plus about 4 driver updates. Accept and install all of them.
Download from Dell and install the following drivers and utilities in the following sequence. Newer versions may be available from Dell at the time you read this and I recommend you use them if available.
Re-enable UAC and System Restore if you like these features.
That's it.
9.0 Final comments
I am very pleased with my decision to purchase the M1210 and would not change anything. Thanks again to the members of this forum for helping with my purchase decision.
Cheers
My new M1210 arrived 6 days ago and I have just completed setting it up. I thought I would share a few thoughts and experiences.
1.0 Why I chose the M1210
Many excellent reviews have been written on the M1210 so I won't repeat what is readily available elsewhere. Instead, I thought would share the key reasons I chose the M1210.
Satisfied & Active User Community
Most M1210 owners seem to be very satisfied with their purchase. Excellent support is available from a very active user community. This forum appears to be one of the best places to go for help.
Top Rated Ultraportable
The M1210 consistently gets good reviews. Most recently, the June 2007 issue of PC World rated the M1210 as the best ultraportable.
Uncompromising Performance in Small Package
I wanted excellent performance in a small package. The M1210 excels at delivering cutting edge performance in a small package.
Excellent I/O
The M1210 has the best I/O of any small notebook. Specifically, its combination of 4 USB ports, firewire, s-video, memory card reader, and 2 headphone connectors is unique.
Good Design
The M1210 has a very nice design that is well documented in other reviews. I do want to mention a design feature that is important to me. Unlike many other notebooks, the M1210 has a rear mounted network connector. In my case, a network cable is almost always connected and I like the reduction in desktop clutter provided by the rear mounted connector.
Customization Options
I am fussy about my computer technology and I like the flexibility of being able to select individual components. In my opinion, Dell does customization better than anyone else.
2.0 What options I chose and why
Note: All prices are in Canadian dollars.
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
This was a $100 upgrade from the base T5600. I did not choose the more expensive options because processor speed is not the best place to spend a limited budget. It is much more beneficial to put your money in memory, graphics, and hard drive performance.
2 GB memory
This was a $110 upgrade from the base 1 GB and seems to be a fair price. I think 2 GB is the minimum memory acceptable for Vista and everyone should purchase this upgrade.
200GB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive
This was a $190 upgrade from the 160 GB 5400 rpm drive. It is overpriced by about $60 compared to what you would pay on the street. The 200 GB 7200 rpm drive is brand new and is the biggest fastest notebook drive you can buy today. Most other notebook manufacturers are not yet offering this drive which may be another reason for you to choose Dell XPS. I wanted top performance and capacity however many people will not need this expensive option. Note that it is easy to upgrade your hard drive in the future when prices come down.
256MB nVidia GeForce Go 7400 TurboCache video card
This was a $130 option that was offered to me as a limited time no charge promotion. Graphics is a good place to spend money if you want top performance.
Vista Ultimate
This was a $180 upgrade from Vista Home Premium. Dell overprices this option by about $80 compared to what you would pay on the street. I chose Ultimate because I wanted to learn Vista, however for most users I think Ultimate is a waste of money and Home Premium is the best choice.
Integrated Webcam and Mobile Broadband Antenna
This was a $80 upgrade. I wanted a built-in camera however this is a good place to save money if you don't need it. By the way, do not choose this option because you want an AUO LCD display. Mine came with a Toshiba display (more on this later).
3 Year Return to Depot Service and Technical Support
This was a $149 upgrade from the base 1 year warranty. I do not normally purchase extended warranties because most vendors make a profit on extended warranties which means that you are paying more than the probability of failure times the cost of repair. I do make an exception for notebook computers because they are incredibly complex devices with components like the LCD display and hard drive that can easily fail. I did not purchase the more expensive CompleteCare package because I am very careful in how I handle my system.
Additional Options
I also purchased the following:
- 6 cell battery and 9 cell battery ($129)
- extra 65 watt AC adapter ($39)
- S-Video to TV-Component and SPDIF Adapter ($29)
- Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate) ($80)
- 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability ($0 included in base)
- Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 internal wireless ($0 included in base)
- some forums suggest higher power consumption and possible worse reception on B/G networks
- may not be fully N compliant
- no improvement on B/G network performance (which most people use)
I paid a total of $2505 before tax.
3.0 Negotiating tips
Dell seems to offer continual promotions on the M1210 by bundling various combinations of options valued at about $100-$130. Dell overprices some of their options (see above for details). For my configuration I knew that the options were overpriced by about $140 (Vista Ultimate + hard drive). Because of this I entered into the price negotiation wanting a $100-$150 discount. Dell quickly agreed to a $100 reduction on the web calculated price (in addition to the $130 graphics promotion). This probably means that I could have achieved a little more if I had pushed.
Note to US customers
I live in Canada and purchased from Dell Canada. I noticed that some identical options were far more expensive (after accounting for exchange rate differences) on the Dell US web site (especially memory and hard drives).
4.0 Features I wish the M1210 had
The M1210 has a near perfect combination of features for my needs but there are a few things I wish it had.
13" Display
A 13" display would be a better compromise for an ultraportable however this size does not seem to be available from any notebook vendor.
Better Quality DVD RW Drive
My dvd-rw drive works however dvd read speed is disappointing (about 3x compared to 7x on my desktop). And the drive does not seem to be very tolerant to dvd disc imperfections. I suspect these issues may be inherent to many notebook dvd-rw drives due to the small form factor.
Santa Rosa Chipset
I held off purchasing my M1210 for several months on the assumption that Dell would introduce the new Intel chipset technology in their XPS line first. I guessed wrong. Dell has decided to introduce Santa Rosa in their Latitude line first. I am not too concerned because most of the Santa Rosa features are not that critical for my needs.
Intel Turbo Memory
This is a variant of ReadyBoost offered by some vendors such as Lenovo. I decided I could live without this feature because:
- performance improvement is still unproven
- advantage is minimized with a 7200 rpm drive
- can achieve same thing with an external USB flash drive
This is a new feature offered by some vendors that promises strong data encryption with no impact on performance (unlike Vista Ultimate BitLocker which is a performance dog). I decided I could do without this because hardware encryption is not yet available on the 200GB 7200 rpm drive that I wanted, and because TrueCrypt is a great free software solution if needed.
Modular Drive Bay
This is a useful feature that permits swapping out the optical drive for an extra hard drive or battery. It is offered on the Dell Latitude and Lenovo ThinkPad lines. I do wish the M1210 offered this.
CompactFlash Socket
The M1210 memory card reader does not support the CompactFlash format which my camera uses. An external USB memory card reader is an inexpensive work around.
Keyboard Illumination Light - a nice feature on the ThinkPad line
DVI Video Connector - these days more important than S-Video
5.0 My experience vs. problems reported by other users
Display Quality & Size
Display quality is probably the most hotly discussed topic among M1210 owners, and was the issue that worried me the most. I read everything on the forums and came to the following conclusions:
- consensus is that AUO is best followed by Samsung and Toshiba
- all brands seem to have less than ideal viewing angles and contrast ratios
- manufacturing quality varies significantly (some AUO users are unhappy and some Toshiba users are happy)
- no dead pixels or any other visible defects
- vertical viewing angle is not great but acceptable
- contrast is acceptable
- image quality looks quite good to my eyes
- image quality is improved by installing PowerStrip and adjusting gamma to 0.6 to 0.7
In summary, I am very satisfied with my display.
Processor Noise
Some people (including owners of other notebook brands) are reporting a high pitch noise which appears to be a design issue with the Intel Core 2 Duo processor. I am pleased to report that my system does not have this problem and is very quiet.
Over Heating
Some users are reporting that their M1210's are overheating. My system seems to run cool.
Keyboard Flex
Some users have expressed concern about excessive keyboard flex. My keyboard does have a little flex but I do not consider this to be a problem.
Hard Drive Noise
Some users have reported excessive head parking noise with older Hitachi drives. My 200 GB 7200 rpm drive is made by Hitachi and is very quiet.
6.0 Installation discs
I wanted a complete set of installation discs and pushed hard to get them when I placed my order. Here is what Dell shipped with my system:
- Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit A00
- Drivers and Utilities A01
- MediaDirect 3 A02
- Logitech QuickCam for Dell Notebooks OEM release v9.6 for Windows XP A00
- Microsoft Works 8.5 A00
- Roxio Creator & MyDVD 9.0 DE A01
7.0 Why I chose to do a clean install
Doing a clean install on a notebook can be a risky adventure given that most manufacturers install a lot of custom software to enable their notebook's features. On the other hand, being able to build a system from scratch provides liberating independence and total control over how the system is configured.
Because of the complexity of Dell's partitions and the reinstallation procedures associated with the bootable diagnostics and MediaDirect I initially decided to not do a clean install. So I embarked on cleaning out Dell installed stuff that I did not want which included:
- Dell System Configuration Wizard (useless wizards & link to user's manual)
- Dell Support (an auto-update utility - I prefer to manually install updates)
- Norton Internet Security (I prefer Avast)
- Adobe Reader 7 (version 8 is current)
- Google Desktop
- Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer (not needed with IE7)
- Roxio Creator DE (I prefer Nero)
- Microsoft Works (I prefer Office)
- NetWaiting (enables sharing of phone line between internet and phone calls)
- Digital Line Detect (detects and displays digital phone line information)
- Skype Setup
- Program Files\BAE\BAE.dll (apparently a Dell/Google web error re-director)
Then the crap hit the fan...
I wanted to create a new partition for my data, and I wanted to delete the Dell System Restore partition so that I could use its 10 GB of space. Despite using proven tools and being very careful when I made these partition changes, the system became unbootable. I am pretty sure this was caused by me breaking the boot black magic that Dell uses for MediaDirect.
As an aside, earlier on I evaluated MediaDirect and concluded that it was a mediocre feature that I would rarely use. More specifically:
- startup and shutdown time is only marginally faster than Vista, and using sleep in Vista is much faster
- I manage my media (music, video, photos) with other applications and did not want yet another media manager
- I did not want to have to figure out how to install codecs for newer formats like h264 and mkv
- I frequently have multiple programs running when playing media which you cannot do with MediaDirect
- Microsoft's Media Center is a much better choice if you want MediaDirect functionality from within Vista
- I could get rid of all traces of Dell installed software that I did not want
- I could configure the system exactly the way I wanted it
- I did not need or want MediaDirect and therefore did not have to worry about reinstalling it
- I would not have to fight with Dell's black magic partitioning every time I wanted to change my drive configuration
The first thing I did when I received my M1210 was to make a backup image of the complete hard drive. I did this even before I booted up Windows so that I knew I could restore the as-delivered configuration at any time. As it turned out, doing a clean install is very easy so I think you can skip this initial drive image step if you wish.
Dell ships the M1210 with the following factory installed partitions:
- DellUtility (labeled FAT16), 54.88 MB total, 7.047 MB used, FAT16
- Dell System Restore (labeled RECOVERY), 10 GB total, 3.74 GB used, NTFS
- Windows (labeled OS), 174.3 GB total, 11.54 GB used, NTFS
- MediaDirect (labeled MEDIADIRECT), 1.999 GB total, 757.9 MG used, FAT32
I decided to delete the Dell System Restore partition because I prefer to use my own tools and methods for backing up partitions. I also decided to delete the MediaDirect partition (see above for reasons). So the only decision I needed to make was whether to keep the DellUtility partition. This bootable partition is accessed by pressing F8 when the system boots and it launches some Dell diagnostics. I decided to keep this partition because the diagnostics seem to be quite thorough, and because it only takes 55 MB of hard drive space, and because Dell does not use any black magic on the partition. Note that if you have the Dell Drivers and Utilities cd then you can safely choose to delete this partition because the cd is bootable and runs a similar (but possibly older) set of diagnostics.
Here are the steps I followed to build my system from scratch.
Boot from the Dell Windows Vista disc, delete all the partitions you do not want, create a partition for Windows, and install.
Note: Windows is automatically activated by the Dell Windows Vista install disc. You do not need to enter a key (or do anything else) to activate.
Disable UAC and System Restore in Windows (makes the install process smoother and faster).
Update Windows using the standard Microsoft update tool. You will be offered at least 16 Windows updates plus about 4 driver updates. Accept and install all of them.
Download from Dell and install the following drivers and utilities in the following sequence. Newer versions may be available from Dell at the time you read this and I recommend you use them if available.
- Driver - Chipset - Intel Mobile Chipset 8.1.1.1010 A01
- Driver - Chipset - Ricoh R5C832 1.0.1 A00
- Driver - Video Adapter - nVidia GeForce Go 7400 97.46 A01
- Note: Windows update also installs this driver however I recommend you re-install the Dell driver because it adds an nVidia applet to the control panel.
- Driver - Audio - SIGMATEL STAC 92XX C-Major HD Audio 6.10.0.5343 A02
- Driver - Communication - Conexant D110,HDA,MDC,v.92,modem Drv32_7.58.0.50 A01
- Driver - Network - Broadcom 440x 10_100 Integrated Controller 4.60 A02
- Driver - Network - Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module (Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR) 6.0.1.3100&FW216 A00
- skip this is you do not have this Bluetooth option
- Driver - Network - Intel PRO_Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection 11.1.0.0 A03
- skip this if you do not have this wireless option
- Driver - Mouse & Keyboards - Synaptics Touchpad 9.0.1.3 A00
Driver - Mouse & Keyboards - Logitech Integrated Camera 10.5.1.1125b A05- skip this if you do not have the camera option
- Utility - Network - Broadcom 440x 10_100 Integrated Controller 10.0.7c A01
- Application - Quickset 8.0.11 A03
- Bios - Dell XPS M1210 System BIOS A07
- factory install was up to date
- Utility - Diagnostics - Dell 32 Bit Diagnostics (Graphical User Interface version) A1284_0432
- I did not install because the factory installed diagnostics partition works well.
- Utility - Diagnostics - Dell 32-bit Diagnostics Utility Partition Contents Upgrade Tool A1277
- I did not install because the factory installed diagnostics partition works well.
- Utility - System and Configuration - Dell Notebook System Software 5.0.5 A00
- I believe this is a Dell Support app that periodically checks for Dell driver & utility updates. I prefer to manually check and update my drivers.
- Application - Conexant D110,HDA,MDC,v.92,modem DLD.1.21 A04
- Installs advanced modem features. I do not use the modem, and if I did I would not need advanced features. I also observed on the factory install that this runs a few background processes which consume resources.
- Application - Creative Labs Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy ADVANCED HD Audio for Vista 2007-05-16
- This is an XP to Vista upgrade for people that purchased the Sound Blaster audio option. I did not buy this option.
Re-enable UAC and System Restore if you like these features.
That's it.
9.0 Final comments
I am very pleased with my decision to purchase the M1210 and would not change anything. Thanks again to the members of this forum for helping with my purchase decision.
Cheers
