Since I've written this for another forum (in response to a private conversation with a fellow web designer/gamer interested in the Inspiron 8600), I thought you should have my review and tips here as well:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
(as sent as a PM to zoji)
(snip - private conversation)
If you do decide to go with WUXGA, here are some modifications I have made to my system to make things more readable. Again, in hindsight, I'm actually GLAD I went with WUXGA (although my eyesight isn't as perfect as it used to be) because of the extra screen real estate. The modifications actually make things quite bearable. Here they are:
The DPI was set to 110dpi (115%) (didn't like how big 120dpi was.) Then I went to make the following modifications:
Active Title Bar: 23, Tahoma 9
Active Window Border: 1
Caption Buttons: 18* (Default icon size for Systray and QuickLaunch)
Icon: 32, Tahoma 9
Icon Spacing (Horizontal): 51
Icon Spacing (Vertical): 48
Inactive Title Bar: 23, Tahoma 9
Inactive Window Border: 1
Menu: 20, Tahoma 9
Message Box: Tahoma 9
Palette Title: 18, Tahoma 9
Scrollbar: 18
Selected Items: 20, Tahoma 9
Tooltip: Tahoma 9
These settings were typed in in that very same order. After you Apply/ Reboot, and if you go back to check the settings, you'll see that they aren't what you typed in (odd, isn't it?) As long as you type in the numbers as shown above, you should be fine. After that, I save the settings as a Theme (eg. WUXGA 110dpi.Theme)
Now, because you have modified the DPI setting, IE automatically turns on High-Res mode where it'll automatically increase everything by the specified % (in this case, 10%.) That's not much of a problem, EXCEPT: Web graphics get resized as well, causing annoying distortions. The solution straight from Microsoft itself (actually, opposite of what MS suggested): Turn off High-Res mode. Here's how:
I've created two registry files so that you won't have to do it manually:
IE - High-Res Scaling (for higher dpi) - Disable.reg:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Main]
"UseHR"=dword:00000000
IE - High-Res Scaling (for higher dpi) - Enable.reg:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Main]
"UseHR"=dword:00000001
----------------
Double-click on either Registry file to make the appropriate change. For me, as said, I DISABLED HR.
So, with my WUXGA screen, all the Windows dialog boxes, MS Office apps, Dreamweaver (which is somewhat unaffected by the DPI change), etc. are readable. The only problem is that web pages that have fixed fonts (eg. using style sheets where font size=9px instead of using font size=xx-small) can become a problem to read (but still readable) when the fonts are very small. On pages that use font size=xx-small (instead of fixed fonts) such as my current project, [link edited out - PM me for the link, if you want to know], you can go to View > Text Size > Larger, and the page becomes very readable without affecting the original layout.
I've read that MS is aware of this "fixed font size" problem and Longhorn may alleviate that.
Sorry for having typed so much, but I think that this could be useful for you should you decide to go with WSXGA or WUXGA.
WUXGA isn't so bad with all these settings.
In terms of gaming, some of the newer games actually support widescreen modes, such as America's Army, Far Cry, Battlefield Vietnam. If you have a game that doesn't support the widescreen aspect, you can always go into the video driver settings and ask it to not scale screens, adding black boxes to the left and right of the screen. Think of it as a "vertical letterbox."
I've been able to play the afore-mentioned games at their somewhat lowest settings. This should change once the memory and hard drive arrive this Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, paid at almost no discount (Crucial 5% coupon is available. Killed by CA tax. Directron.com has 2% off available for the hard drive if a friend who has placed an order within the past 60 days has referred you (for you, that would be me.)) I figured, why look for savings if it'll be written off anyway? I came to the realization that by looking for deals, you're actually shooting yourself in the foot to reach the Standard Deduction amount.
I also grabbed that fan control utility for the i8600 to test out the fans. The left fan (CPU presumably) whirrs loudly at High (just like a desktop PC's fan.) Not a problem. Turn the middle fan (presumably for the video card) to High or Slow and I heard rattle sounds as if the fan was dying/ needed an oiling. I'm going to contact Dell to have it replaced.
Photoshop runs nicely even at 384MB RAM and 5400RPM HDD (that's an assumption.) Have had several blue screen crashes with Windows XP Pro, but I haven't reformatted enough yet to investigate what's causing it. Probably one of the myriad of software I have running.
Wireless Intel 802.11b/g works pretty well. It picked up more signals around the neighborhood than with my Gigafast PCMCIA 802.11b card (based on the Realtek chip.)
Keep in mind that the track stick ("nipple"), parallel, serial, and infrared ports are missing. Keyboard feels extremely sturdy (probably because the "nipple" is gone.)
8x DVD burner works with Nero 6, Alcohol 120%, and DVDShrink (to rip DVDs.)
Sound is pretty good. It sounds full and more clear than any laptop I've ever heard, although it'd have been nice to have a JBL set in there with better bass.
I like that battery check feature at the bottom of the laptop where you can check its charge without turning on the system.
In case you weren't aware of it (as the manual has no mention of it), there's a built-in microphone just above the Caps Lock LED.
QuickSnap cover was a breeze to take on and off (I suggest you look at the included pamphlet. My original method of getting it off wasn't as easy.)
System feels pretty cool on your laps. No real heat issue.
What else would be useful for a fellow web designer to know? Oh, Photoshop CS had absolutely NO problems with the DPI scaling and loaded up fairly quickly.
DVDs look nice as well. Try enabling that CLEV (or whatever it's called) feature of PowerDVD 5 where it'll scale a full-screen movie into a widescreen aspect. I'm amazed how it was done. Just a little of the top and bottom were cropped. That very same feature (CLEV?) can also take a widescreen movie and size it to take up as much of your screen as possible.
Laptop's pretty light -- lighter than my older Sony Vaio PCG-F480.
Battery life: while surfing the web, it managed to crank out 4.5-5 hours.
Oh, ATI has already released/ announced the Mobility X600. I'd think that you should expect the 9700 to be part of i8600 soon.
Benchmarked the Toshiba display (identified by Knoppix Linux as "LCD5000") with PixPerAn (it's in German.) Readability passed level 7 but failed level 8. That's very good. I didn't do the benchmark on the Hitachi.
Laptop doesn't fit the FAR Dicota bag that was featured on PCClub not too long ago. Darn. I liked that bag too. I'll be heading for Fry's sometime this week to look for a Targus bag made for 17" screens.
If you plan on wiping out Dell's configuration with your own Windows XP Pro, here are some more tips:
You don't need to install the drivers for the Modem, Iomega USB Floppy, or the "USB" device that shows up in Device Manager. Simply update your Windows with Windows Update and it'll automatically have support for the Modem and Iomega USB Floppy. For the "USB" item (I assume that's the USB 2.0 controller), go back to Device Manager (after the updates) and ask it to "re-install" the driver. It'll find it.
Originally, I had Dell QuickSet installed to change the DPI settings and appropriate Theme settings, but found that if you do it manually (as shown way above), it's better. QuickSet is also used to control the power schemes. Well, I installed SpeedSwitchXP instead. It's far better as it can monitor the CPU Load and CPU speed in real-time and adjust the Pentium-M dynamically.
To improve your gaming performance, use Omega's ATI driver instead. I MAY overclock the video card with its included ATI Tool automated overclocking utility. The included Multi-Res software is nice too: it allows you to quickly change the resolutions as quickly as the QuickRes utility that came with Windows 98 (but disappeared from Windows 2000.) Also, the latest Omega driver supposedly fixes some of the bugs that plague the i8600 (according to the forums I've read.)
Hope all of this helps.
Michael
----------
From an even earlier review (the day I got the WUXGA and still had the WSXGA+ Hitachi in posession):
Update on WSXGA+ display vs WUXGA:
WSXGA+ was a Hitachi, as reported earlier.
WUXGA I received is a Toshiba (identified as "LCD5000" by Knoppix Linux)
Previously, I also stated that I had a difficult time finding any ghosting on the Hitachi screen until I enabled "Show Content While Dragging."
Strangely enough, the WUXGA Toshiba was in the same exact situation: no noticable ghosting until "Show Content While Dragging" was enabled.
Since I haven't found any reports on the Toshiba WUXGA screen being bad, I have concluded that the ghosting that occurs while dragging a window must be "acceptable" by most people (I'm surprised nobody really noticed it.)
Since the Hitachi WSXGA+ and the Toshiba WUXGA performed similarly, it is my conclusion that Dell must have finally fixed the Hitachi WSXGA+ LCD problem. With the Belarc Advisor, I found that the Hitachi screen was made in April 2004. I think it's safe to assume that any WSXGA+ screen produced after that date should be good.
The original laptop with the WSXGA+ screen developed a power-on problem over the week, an occurrence I have seen somebody else on the Dell forums report. It became such an annoyance that I was only able to get the computer to start the POST process and boot into Windows 1 out of 9 times! Thankfully, the WUXGA doesn't have that problem (yet), but I have noticed that the power button has to be pushed harder to turn on the laptop. That's not a biggie..
Memory Upgrades: apparently, Dell laptops are picky about which type of memory they will accept. So, if you're going to buy memory from a third party (to avoid Dell's outrageous prices), be SURE that it is compatible with your laptop. I have narrowed down my choice to Crucial.com and am awaiting for a coupon to show up. 1GB DIMM as of now is roughly $420 shipped. Kingston, on the other hand, charged an outrageous $650! (Dell, over $900)
WUXGA screen isn't too bad. It takes some getting used to. Nonetheless, I'm glad I picked that screen as it now gives me the choice of more screen real estate whenever I need it, important when I do web design and curriculum development. To give you an idea of how wide WUXGA is: you can have two browsers open, each with a document 800 pixels wide. In other words, it's like having two 800x600 monitors side-by-side.
Video driver: Grab the Omega display drivers (available for both ATI and Nvidia cards) -- they enhance the drivers for gaming and its author is supported by ATI's driver team. Indeed, I saw a considerable increase in America's Army and Battlefield Vietnam.
Battery life vs Performance: Grab SpeedSwitch XP (it's free.) It allows the program to monitor the load of the processor and adjust its speed accordingly, helping to maximize battery life while ensuring you get the performance you need. This, of course, can be adjusted. I prefer this program over Dell's QuickSet program. To get even longer battery life, ensure that you go to the Options and have the program check the CPU Load and Actual CPU Speed periodically. It can make better calculations this way, although it'll slightly (very slightly!) slow down your computer.
I'm still disappointed that the new revision of the Inspiron 8600 has the paralle, serial, and infrared ports -- and the track stick (the "nipple") between the B, V, and G keys -- removed. I really needed the Serial port (for configuring Cisco devices and connecting the Garmin GPS) and the track stick is my preference over the touch pad.
Overall, I'm happy with both the EXCELLENT service received by Dell customer service (and I made sure the department manager knows about this representative) and the performance of the laptop. It indeed is a good mix between a high-performance gaming laptop with a long-lasting battery life. I surfed the web on battery for about 4.2 hours. Gaming, on the other hand, lasted about 1.5 hours.
One last tip before I sign off on this thread: If you want to have your LCD last as long as possible, try to keep your LCD brightness as low as possible. If you keep your LCD on the highest brightness level at all times, its life will be cut shorter.
Good luck to those of you purchasing an Inspiron 8600. It's a great buy.
Michael
PS: As a reminder, I don't think you'll have to worry about the inferior Hitachi WSXGA+ displays any more. Other forums have also reported that their Hitachi screens seem to be up-to-par now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
(as sent as a PM to zoji)
(snip - private conversation)
If you do decide to go with WUXGA, here are some modifications I have made to my system to make things more readable. Again, in hindsight, I'm actually GLAD I went with WUXGA (although my eyesight isn't as perfect as it used to be) because of the extra screen real estate. The modifications actually make things quite bearable. Here they are:
The DPI was set to 110dpi (115%) (didn't like how big 120dpi was.) Then I went to make the following modifications:
Active Title Bar: 23, Tahoma 9
Active Window Border: 1
Caption Buttons: 18* (Default icon size for Systray and QuickLaunch)
Icon: 32, Tahoma 9
Icon Spacing (Horizontal): 51
Icon Spacing (Vertical): 48
Inactive Title Bar: 23, Tahoma 9
Inactive Window Border: 1
Menu: 20, Tahoma 9
Message Box: Tahoma 9
Palette Title: 18, Tahoma 9
Scrollbar: 18
Selected Items: 20, Tahoma 9
Tooltip: Tahoma 9
These settings were typed in in that very same order. After you Apply/ Reboot, and if you go back to check the settings, you'll see that they aren't what you typed in (odd, isn't it?) As long as you type in the numbers as shown above, you should be fine. After that, I save the settings as a Theme (eg. WUXGA 110dpi.Theme)
Now, because you have modified the DPI setting, IE automatically turns on High-Res mode where it'll automatically increase everything by the specified % (in this case, 10%.) That's not much of a problem, EXCEPT: Web graphics get resized as well, causing annoying distortions. The solution straight from Microsoft itself (actually, opposite of what MS suggested): Turn off High-Res mode. Here's how:
I've created two registry files so that you won't have to do it manually:
IE - High-Res Scaling (for higher dpi) - Disable.reg:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Main]
"UseHR"=dword:00000000
IE - High-Res Scaling (for higher dpi) - Enable.reg:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Main]
"UseHR"=dword:00000001
----------------
Double-click on either Registry file to make the appropriate change. For me, as said, I DISABLED HR.
So, with my WUXGA screen, all the Windows dialog boxes, MS Office apps, Dreamweaver (which is somewhat unaffected by the DPI change), etc. are readable. The only problem is that web pages that have fixed fonts (eg. using style sheets where font size=9px instead of using font size=xx-small) can become a problem to read (but still readable) when the fonts are very small. On pages that use font size=xx-small (instead of fixed fonts) such as my current project, [link edited out - PM me for the link, if you want to know], you can go to View > Text Size > Larger, and the page becomes very readable without affecting the original layout.
I've read that MS is aware of this "fixed font size" problem and Longhorn may alleviate that.
Sorry for having typed so much, but I think that this could be useful for you should you decide to go with WSXGA or WUXGA.
WUXGA isn't so bad with all these settings.
In terms of gaming, some of the newer games actually support widescreen modes, such as America's Army, Far Cry, Battlefield Vietnam. If you have a game that doesn't support the widescreen aspect, you can always go into the video driver settings and ask it to not scale screens, adding black boxes to the left and right of the screen. Think of it as a "vertical letterbox."
I've been able to play the afore-mentioned games at their somewhat lowest settings. This should change once the memory and hard drive arrive this Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, paid at almost no discount (Crucial 5% coupon is available. Killed by CA tax. Directron.com has 2% off available for the hard drive if a friend who has placed an order within the past 60 days has referred you (for you, that would be me.)) I figured, why look for savings if it'll be written off anyway? I came to the realization that by looking for deals, you're actually shooting yourself in the foot to reach the Standard Deduction amount.
I also grabbed that fan control utility for the i8600 to test out the fans. The left fan (CPU presumably) whirrs loudly at High (just like a desktop PC's fan.) Not a problem. Turn the middle fan (presumably for the video card) to High or Slow and I heard rattle sounds as if the fan was dying/ needed an oiling. I'm going to contact Dell to have it replaced.
Photoshop runs nicely even at 384MB RAM and 5400RPM HDD (that's an assumption.) Have had several blue screen crashes with Windows XP Pro, but I haven't reformatted enough yet to investigate what's causing it. Probably one of the myriad of software I have running.
Wireless Intel 802.11b/g works pretty well. It picked up more signals around the neighborhood than with my Gigafast PCMCIA 802.11b card (based on the Realtek chip.)
Keep in mind that the track stick ("nipple"), parallel, serial, and infrared ports are missing. Keyboard feels extremely sturdy (probably because the "nipple" is gone.)
8x DVD burner works with Nero 6, Alcohol 120%, and DVDShrink (to rip DVDs.)
Sound is pretty good. It sounds full and more clear than any laptop I've ever heard, although it'd have been nice to have a JBL set in there with better bass.
I like that battery check feature at the bottom of the laptop where you can check its charge without turning on the system.
In case you weren't aware of it (as the manual has no mention of it), there's a built-in microphone just above the Caps Lock LED.
QuickSnap cover was a breeze to take on and off (I suggest you look at the included pamphlet. My original method of getting it off wasn't as easy.)
System feels pretty cool on your laps. No real heat issue.
What else would be useful for a fellow web designer to know? Oh, Photoshop CS had absolutely NO problems with the DPI scaling and loaded up fairly quickly.
DVDs look nice as well. Try enabling that CLEV (or whatever it's called) feature of PowerDVD 5 where it'll scale a full-screen movie into a widescreen aspect. I'm amazed how it was done. Just a little of the top and bottom were cropped. That very same feature (CLEV?) can also take a widescreen movie and size it to take up as much of your screen as possible.
Laptop's pretty light -- lighter than my older Sony Vaio PCG-F480.
Battery life: while surfing the web, it managed to crank out 4.5-5 hours.
Oh, ATI has already released/ announced the Mobility X600. I'd think that you should expect the 9700 to be part of i8600 soon.
Benchmarked the Toshiba display (identified by Knoppix Linux as "LCD5000") with PixPerAn (it's in German.) Readability passed level 7 but failed level 8. That's very good. I didn't do the benchmark on the Hitachi.
Laptop doesn't fit the FAR Dicota bag that was featured on PCClub not too long ago. Darn. I liked that bag too. I'll be heading for Fry's sometime this week to look for a Targus bag made for 17" screens.
If you plan on wiping out Dell's configuration with your own Windows XP Pro, here are some more tips:
You don't need to install the drivers for the Modem, Iomega USB Floppy, or the "USB" device that shows up in Device Manager. Simply update your Windows with Windows Update and it'll automatically have support for the Modem and Iomega USB Floppy. For the "USB" item (I assume that's the USB 2.0 controller), go back to Device Manager (after the updates) and ask it to "re-install" the driver. It'll find it.
Originally, I had Dell QuickSet installed to change the DPI settings and appropriate Theme settings, but found that if you do it manually (as shown way above), it's better. QuickSet is also used to control the power schemes. Well, I installed SpeedSwitchXP instead. It's far better as it can monitor the CPU Load and CPU speed in real-time and adjust the Pentium-M dynamically.
To improve your gaming performance, use Omega's ATI driver instead. I MAY overclock the video card with its included ATI Tool automated overclocking utility. The included Multi-Res software is nice too: it allows you to quickly change the resolutions as quickly as the QuickRes utility that came with Windows 98 (but disappeared from Windows 2000.) Also, the latest Omega driver supposedly fixes some of the bugs that plague the i8600 (according to the forums I've read.)
Hope all of this helps.
Michael
----------
From an even earlier review (the day I got the WUXGA and still had the WSXGA+ Hitachi in posession):
Update on WSXGA+ display vs WUXGA:
WSXGA+ was a Hitachi, as reported earlier.
WUXGA I received is a Toshiba (identified as "LCD5000" by Knoppix Linux)
Previously, I also stated that I had a difficult time finding any ghosting on the Hitachi screen until I enabled "Show Content While Dragging."
Strangely enough, the WUXGA Toshiba was in the same exact situation: no noticable ghosting until "Show Content While Dragging" was enabled.
Since I haven't found any reports on the Toshiba WUXGA screen being bad, I have concluded that the ghosting that occurs while dragging a window must be "acceptable" by most people (I'm surprised nobody really noticed it.)
Since the Hitachi WSXGA+ and the Toshiba WUXGA performed similarly, it is my conclusion that Dell must have finally fixed the Hitachi WSXGA+ LCD problem. With the Belarc Advisor, I found that the Hitachi screen was made in April 2004. I think it's safe to assume that any WSXGA+ screen produced after that date should be good.
The original laptop with the WSXGA+ screen developed a power-on problem over the week, an occurrence I have seen somebody else on the Dell forums report. It became such an annoyance that I was only able to get the computer to start the POST process and boot into Windows 1 out of 9 times! Thankfully, the WUXGA doesn't have that problem (yet), but I have noticed that the power button has to be pushed harder to turn on the laptop. That's not a biggie..
Memory Upgrades: apparently, Dell laptops are picky about which type of memory they will accept. So, if you're going to buy memory from a third party (to avoid Dell's outrageous prices), be SURE that it is compatible with your laptop. I have narrowed down my choice to Crucial.com and am awaiting for a coupon to show up. 1GB DIMM as of now is roughly $420 shipped. Kingston, on the other hand, charged an outrageous $650! (Dell, over $900)
WUXGA screen isn't too bad. It takes some getting used to. Nonetheless, I'm glad I picked that screen as it now gives me the choice of more screen real estate whenever I need it, important when I do web design and curriculum development. To give you an idea of how wide WUXGA is: you can have two browsers open, each with a document 800 pixels wide. In other words, it's like having two 800x600 monitors side-by-side.
Video driver: Grab the Omega display drivers (available for both ATI and Nvidia cards) -- they enhance the drivers for gaming and its author is supported by ATI's driver team. Indeed, I saw a considerable increase in America's Army and Battlefield Vietnam.
Battery life vs Performance: Grab SpeedSwitch XP (it's free.) It allows the program to monitor the load of the processor and adjust its speed accordingly, helping to maximize battery life while ensuring you get the performance you need. This, of course, can be adjusted. I prefer this program over Dell's QuickSet program. To get even longer battery life, ensure that you go to the Options and have the program check the CPU Load and Actual CPU Speed periodically. It can make better calculations this way, although it'll slightly (very slightly!) slow down your computer.
I'm still disappointed that the new revision of the Inspiron 8600 has the paralle, serial, and infrared ports -- and the track stick (the "nipple") between the B, V, and G keys -- removed. I really needed the Serial port (for configuring Cisco devices and connecting the Garmin GPS) and the track stick is my preference over the touch pad.
Overall, I'm happy with both the EXCELLENT service received by Dell customer service (and I made sure the department manager knows about this representative) and the performance of the laptop. It indeed is a good mix between a high-performance gaming laptop with a long-lasting battery life. I surfed the web on battery for about 4.2 hours. Gaming, on the other hand, lasted about 1.5 hours.
One last tip before I sign off on this thread: If you want to have your LCD last as long as possible, try to keep your LCD brightness as low as possible. If you keep your LCD on the highest brightness level at all times, its life will be cut shorter.
Good luck to those of you purchasing an Inspiron 8600. It's a great buy.
Michael
PS: As a reminder, I don't think you'll have to worry about the inferior Hitachi WSXGA+ displays any more. Other forums have also reported that their Hitachi screens seem to be up-to-par now.
Thanks, Stu. Widescreengamingforum.com seems like another forum to bookmark 
