Yet Another New Guy With A Review (And Dell Backpack Pics)

So, I finally got my laptop after waiting almost a month. The quick rundown;
-IXPS-G2,PM 770(2.13GHZ)
-17IN TRUE LIFE,WUXGA,GWVA,IXPS-G2
-2GB,DDR,533MHZ,2 DIMM,IXPS-G2
-256MB NVIDIA GEFORCE 6800 ULTRA,IXPS-G2
-60GB HARD DRIVE,7.2K,IXPS-G2

The first thing is y'all are probably gonna laugh at me for buying the memory from Dell in its bloated price. The laptop pretty much is completely maxed out with all the bells and whistles and the complete care four year warranty. I had some rather nice connections and ended up paying less then I have seen some people pay for the 2 gHz with 1 gig of memory and only a one year warranty. But yes, I could have saved another couple hundred bucks, but in the end, I don't have to worry about it anymore.

Anyways, onto the important part, the review.

This is my first real laptop and it was bought as a desktop replacement. I am not a huge gamer, but I do a lot of work with photo/video editing and rendering. I have read these forums for the last couple of weeks in anticipation and to learned about other people's experiences.

The laptop is very sturdy and feels very solid as other people have reported. I do have the LG screen, and yes, it does sparkle, but you really have to look to see the sparkles. I haven't yet adjusted any of the display settings since I am still waiting on my Avia disc, so I am sure when that comes the sparkle will be a non-issue. There is minor light leakage at the bottom middle of the screen, but it's nothing annoying to me. I concur that is probably has something to do with the heat being generated there, because it is noticeably warmer there then anywhere else. The video card has no problems using external monitors (I have a dual 19" setup for my desktop, and each monitor has two inputs, allowing my to have a spare monitor for both computers) and is capable of expanding the desktop to an external monitor. Trust me, if you have never dealt with dual monitors, once you do, you'll never understand how you could cope with a single one. I figure it's also a good way to preserve the screen for portable applications. The viewing area on the XPS is the exact width of a 19" monitor and I run the monitor at 1920x1440 and the XPS can handle it like it's nothing.

As other people have said, the thing is utterly silent. Compared to my desktop I can't tell this thing is on. The speakers sound surprisingly good on their own and amazingly loud for a laptop. Amazing what a dinky "sub woofer" really can do for the sound. Again like most people, I like the keyboard, wish they had included a num pad with all that room, and dislike the touch pad since I have always been an "eraser" guy with my old laptops. But it really won't matter as I will use an external mouse all the time.

As far as games go, the only "graphic intensive" game I have is Battlefield 1942 and it runs at full resolution, all options on without a problem. As far as other bookmarks go...

Aquamark 3 - Don't remember the exact score, but it was 67,xxx something.
3DMark03 - 11869 (With 76.41 drivers)
3DMark05 - 5085 with old drivers but a clean install of XP Pro
With the updated 76.41 drivers I got a score of 5184

Now, the one thing I haven't seen reviewed here and another very large aspect in why I got this laptop is its use as a Home Theater PC. I have my own home theater set-up (See a work in progress picture) and I wanted a computer that I could use in this room for a variety of reasons. First off the video card is obviously good enough to do full 1080p video. I purchased four of the IMAX WMV HD discs and they are very impressive on the laptop screen. I have yet to hook it up to my theater, but it should be pretty good looking. While there are only about 10 or 15 high definition DVD's on the market I know in the future they are going to become more standard. I would like a machine that will be capable in the years to come(With the upgraded DVD/Blueray/whatever is going to come out drive of course)

I don't recall seeing any good pictures of the Dell Backpack, so here they are.




I like the bag. It's big and somewhat squarish, but it will hold more then enough stuff and everything I can think of you would need. It's definitely comfortable and well made with a good amount of padding and protection. Probably the only other thing I might look into is the Viper Sleeve when it comes out, but I really don't need another bag.

And it's the same as everyone else's, but hey...


Anyways, if you have any other questions, want any other pictures, etc, I'll do my best to answer them. This website has been vastly helpful with the new toy and am glad I have read up here about many things.

My manly hand and a coke can sitting on top.



It's pretty darn big, but hey, I don't mind that at all Also, as it's been mentioned, the top of the laptop really is not how I imagined it to be. For some reason I was thinking the black plastic where the XPS lights are was a lot higher then the rest of the lid, but it is really not. As people ahve said, IT looks a lot better in person then pictures do it justice.

Just a good ole Microsoft USB Optical.

I attempted to buy a Belkin USB switch so I could switch between my laptop and desktop but I am having issues getting it to work. I am trying to share a USB hub that has both a keyboard and laptop as well as a few other things but it won't allow me to switch between computers.

I look into a bluetooth keyboard mouse combo, but it sounds like you can't switch between computers at will without rebooting the machiine. I'll have to play more, or try a switch that allows me to share multiple USB devices instead of a single one.

It's not going to be dedicated to the room, but it will be a capable addition. I already have an upconverting stand alone DVD player and everything I need for watching movies. With a capable laptop such as this though, I can watch HDTV content, play games, surf the internet, etc. as well. There are programs out there that will let it be a universal remote as well, which would allow for a very gucci setup since I use a rather extensive array of X10 products. Being wireless capable it's nice to be able to just tote it in and out. As far as media goes I already have another desktop machine in my living room that is dedicated to playing and distributing MP3's and the such over my "conventional" stereo setup throughout the rest of the house.

It does stretch the screen out and makes it slightly funny looking. I would expect most new games will have widescreen support since it is becoming much more the standard then the exception. At home I'll play on my desktop monotir at 1920x1440 so it won't be stretched out there. On the road though, it will be distorted which is noticable, but you can live with it. I have been researching into solutions and will report back if there are any good ones that I can find.

Nah, so far it's excellent. As I mentioned in the first post, I really have never had a top of the line computer ever. My desktop isn't bad for what I use it for, but I have never had something that just laughs at whatever I throw at it (Essentially)

I'll have to play around with it quite a bit more (Photoshop and DVD quality video rendering are two things I am very interested in) to see how it will do. The one thing I am lacking right now is a 200 gig firewire drive that I get tommorrow. That will become my main personal hard drive and will be the place I install my graphic/video software to allow for quicker rendering times.

Well ran the tests agian (After really not doing anythign special to the laptop)

3DMark05 clocked in at 5212 and Aquamark was a 69,906.