My 9300 review

I received mine last Wednesday and have been using it ever since.

My config:

PM 1.86Ghz
512mb
80gig fujitsu 5400
nVidia 9800
wifi a/b/g
bluetooth
sony DL burner

This laptop was assembled in Ireland.
First thing I noticed when I opened the box:
There were some dirty finger prints and sticky tape on top of the protective stickers on the back of the panel and around the keyboard and track pad. I noticed a large gap where the white plastic meets the balck bottom casing on the right side close to the pmcia slot. I applied some pressure and it snapped into place! I guess that summarizes quality control at Dell Ireland!

When I powered up the laptop I noticed two things: the fans instantly kicked in and the first white I saw on the screen was a nice white!
I love the glossy look, for me it gives a liquid impression, especially with blacks.
Screen: After some testing, I found out that I have the LGP screen. Yes, I notice the sparkles especially when I put up a uniform white or light green or red or blue background. It is a bit annoying but boy is the color rendering good. I compared it to a Sony xbrite screen. I put them side by side so I could make a direct comparison. The xbrite is clearly brighter than my 9300 screen, no questions about that. But frankly, the xbrite is not that much better, even when considering the LGP sparkles. I really have no problems living with this screen and I am not curious enough and dont envy those that have the samsung screen. Thats because I made a comparison with what is known as one of the best screens in the market today, the sony xbrite!
I notice a faint high pitch buzzing sound coming somewhere from where the screen panel attaches to the main body. I was told that this is normal and is caused by the inverter. I have heard it before on other laptops and I find it kind of annoying.

Fans: I find the always on fans a bit annyoying but this can be controlled by fangui although I have yet to figure out how to set the fans to kick in when it reaches a preset temperature. Apart from that, the laptop remains amazingly cool. I tried a demo version of far cry for a while and not once did the fans kick into high gear. I find that a huge improvement over my previous 8600.
The bottom gets warm but not hot. On the other hand, I have a friend who has the 9200 so I had the occasion to play around with it for a little while. It runs noticeably cooler than the 9300, thats for sure!

The keyboard: In short its awesome! Very close to the Thinkpad keyboards, I just love it.

Overall build: Huge improvement over the previous plasticky Dells. No creaking which is a big plus for me. Also, I love the design and find it more appealing than the Vaio. I also like the fact that it comes with 6 usb ports and the SD reader.

If you have any particular questions not covered here, let me know and I will try to answer them!

As stated above, mine has the WUXGA screen and that option has the glossy coating on the screen just like the Sony xbrite. In terms of brightness, its clearly not as bright as the Sony. As to how much brighter the sony is, if you where to reduce the Sony screen brightness by two notches, I think that would give you a good indicator as to the brightness of the 9300 display. Remeber, the Sony uses two bulbs to light up its display which explains its superior brightness.

I have had two Dell laptops prior to this, the last one being an 8600 with a Samsung display. I can say that my current 9300 display is superior to that of my 8600!