Customer Reviews

Dell Studio XPS 1640 15.6-Inch Obsidian Black Laptop - Up to 3 Hours 8 Minutes of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Okay, so how many laptops can you find with a 15.6" screen, 1080p resolution, and a decent graphics chipset for under $1000? Not many! This laptop met all three of these needs for me. It came with enough RAM that I don't need to upgrade it until the 8GB of SODIMM modules become ridiculously cheap. The video chipset M96XT (AKA Radeon 4670) has pretty decent performance [...]. There are just way too many other laptops out there that have 1080p screens and an Intel GMA chipset, or low resolution 1280x800 screens with decent video chipsets. This laptop has both high resolution and a good chipset.

I recently took it to a LAN party to play Team Fortress 2 and it ran beautifully with all the settings turned up to high (60fps+). My last laptop died because the CFL backlight failed, with the LED backlight that should never be a problem. It's also super bright. I usually have it set to a quarter of the brightness and it's still pretty bright.

If you don't like the disk I/O speed (I think it's fine) you can always put a SSD in this as it's a standard SATA disk drive. There are USB ports on the left AND one eSATA/USB on the right, so you can use either one.

My laptop actually did have a gigabit network adapter (not the 10/100 listed here) but no jumbo frames support :( Typical with Broadcom.

Oh, and Windows 7, 64bit is amazing. You have the full 4GB of system memory and 1GB of video.

Cons?:
No scroll lock button, no pause/break button. Not sure how if there is some hidden Fn shortcut to get these. But who uses these really? There's no Fn num-pad, but really, I never used that. The wireless enable/disable switch is a capacitive touch button right above the keyboard. It's easy to accidentally hit it and turn the wireless off and not realize it.

This Dell Studio XPS 1640 was a very good buy. Its battery lasts a little less than three hours when browsing the web and some light work in Word with the help of Dell Extended Battery Life. All the newer games I've tried have very acceptable framerates with most settings at High. Om most older games such as Oblivion and The Sims 2 I can leave the options at Very High and I haven't found any noticeable slowdown.

I also do all my programming and college work in this computer and I'm very happy with it.

Purchased this computer a few weeks ago for my son who is heading to college and we have been very happy with it. Sleek, responsive, and able to handle gaming and media applications with the well-above-average video card, memory, display and processor combination. All for under $1000.00? Impressive. A fingerprint magnet, which bothers some, but is not a big deal to me. Battery life is average compared to the other laptops I have owned, but acceptable, and I am confident, but admittedly have not looked, that an aftermarket upgrade at battery is available. I have seen complaints that it runs hot, but have not experienced that, at least not hotter than any other laptop with a dedicated video card running during intensive applications and certainly not uncomfortably so. The fan is partially blocked by the monitor, but does its job, and for long sessions of gaming I would recommend a secondary cooling device for any laptop. I have also seen at least one review indicate that the video card was not good for gaming, but other independent reviews of the specific card and pc configuration, and my own experiences, refute that, this pc was built with demanding gaming in mind, while not sacrificing portability or versatility.

I have only one beef with the purchase. Amazon no longer price guarantees its products. This machine dropped in price $35.00 shortly after I purchased it (within a week). I still had it, unopened, and contacted Amazon about a price credit, and was basically told to pound sand. The most frustrating thing about that was I could have simply returned it for a full refund under the 30 day return policy for unopened computers, and bought another one at the new price, discounting my price savings by the 15 dollars or so in return shipping costs (I do not think the return policy covers that), and when I pointed that out to Amazon, I was invited to go ahead and do that. To me, it appeared Amazon was effectively banking on the fact that I would not go through such hassle for such a "small" savings. And they were correct, but only because I did not want to be empty handed for my son's 18th birthday. So they won my business with a good price on a great machine, but lost my respect as a company for such poor customer service. I make many internet purchases, and absent a serious reason to do so, will not be shopping at Amazon in the future.

EDIT REVIEW - after I wrote this it got me worked up all over again so I contacted Amazon a second time and low and behold I was given a 35 dollar credit! While they deserved the smack on the nose with a rolled up paper they got for how I was treated the first time, they likewise deserve a treat and an attaboy for eventually doing the right thing. Amazon you have won back my business.

Very nice laptop. I shopped obsessively. I looked at many different laptops in this size/power class and ended up with this one. I'm very pleased with its looks and performance, especially for the price. The 1920 x 1080 screen is very nice. The keyboard has a nice feel. It gets warm but not excessively hot. My only complaint is with the optical drive, it is very noisy and it seems to spin up for no apparent reason sometimes. This is a desktop replacement for me and it also needed to run 3D games reasonably well. It runs Half Life 2 with everything cranked and runs my Realflight 4.5 Simulator very well also.

This is the first Dell i purchase since ever, I was expecting the experience i received when i got this great PC, and i got it.

Pros: Light, excellent performance, great LED display (It has better resolution than the M17X from Alienware), i love the glowing buttons, strong case, GREAT MULTIMEDIA PERFORMANCE.

Cons: Lack of cases and Backpack's for this size of Laptop, Glossy finish leaves fingerprints all over the PC, it is hard to keep it without them, When playing a few games it gets very hot (Dirt 2 on Medium graphics), because of Dell applications it takes a while to get it started.

It has a great value, i purchased this laptop at a great price and i received more than expected, A+ purchase, will get another Dell like this one when i get my next purchase.

The only thing im waiting to find is the leather finish from the case, never able to find it!

This laptop is powerful enough to run Star Wars: The Old Republic at a playable framerate, so its gaming capabilities are not too shabby. Make sure you're running the latest drivers available for it before stroking out about non-functional devices. In particular, the HDMI out can be finicky until you realize that it needs a Realtek driver specifically for HDMI audio out AND the ATI driver for the video.

Major issues:

The lid/screen: I recommend getting a piece of felt or sliding the bag the laptop comes in over just the lid area to protect the screen from the keyboard when its closed. If you don't, you WILL get scratches on the acrylic cover over the screen. This is a design compromise Dell took, and a bad one if you ask me.

Power adapter: If you look around for reviews of this laptop, there are a lot of unhappy folks about the way it throttles the system back, often making games and media unplayable/unwatchable. This is 100% due to the inclusion of a 90W power adapter as shipped. The first thing you should do is find the Dell replacement 130W adapter for this machine, (or hammer Dell support to send you one, politely mentioning "throttling"). This will prevent most if not all of the CPU slowdown issues. There are other solutions, just keyword Dell XPS 1640 throttling and you'll find them.

Heat: It runs pretty warm. This is due to the CPU/GPU sharing a heatsink and fan. Simple solution: Get a laptop cooling pad. Really, isn't your shiny new computer worth less than 50 bucks to keep the hardware cool? Of course it is.

Fingerprint NUCLEAR ELECTROMAGNET: Yeah, it develops fingerprints insanely quickly. Be prepared to wipe it down A LOT.

Unless you just have to have the Dell Dock, get rid of it as soon as possible as it really slows down the system after login.

All in all, it's a really nice laptop that's really pleasing aesthetically with very good performance.

I've had this computer for over two years. I upgraded my screen so it's the 1080p fancy one.

Pros
* Nice screen (I should hope so for an additional $400)
* Keys are lit
* Fast and powerful (I have upgraded GPU too)

Cons
* Screen is reflective like a mirror so good luck doing work where there is natural light (eg: airport)
* The whole laptop has a shiny finish so fingerprints collect
* The speakers have a large mesh-type surface that just gets full of dust/dirt over time
* Runs hot!
* Came with Vista - that's probably not the case now but it sucked at the time
* Heavy

So as you can see not too many problems for me. The aesthetic cons and screen reflectivity are what gives this laptop a four star. They're quite obvious faults that I knew were problems the moment it came out of the box ~ they're just stupid mistakes.

All in all not bad. Note: if you buy this laptop used then its battery likely should be replaced. At this point mine lasts about an hour on battery with no music or video, no wifi, screen at the dimmest, etc.

I purchased this laptop 8 months ago. Since then Dell has replaced the LCD, and 2 new motherboards. Something just keeps going wrong where i get a completely black screen ... the vidcard goes bad, which is attached to the motherboard. BUT the Dell service is actually exceptional, they are fixing it as needed for free, and nearly the next day.

That aside, its an amazing machine! Gorgeous display, the light-up keyboard is one of the best i have seen, and a very functional machine!

My one complaint is that it heats up like crazy! Not even mentioning the underneath, i mean even the top of it! Where your wrist sits when typing gets very hot. This is a known issue with this machine. But in my opinion, its worth it. I have to question the life of a machine that runs this hot though ...

I upgraded everything possible on this machine because im a frequent gamer (well, the only game i play is Warcraft...). Dont expect this machine to be a beast in there! I have to adjust in-game video settings to lowest possible, and even then im at around 2-5 FPS in 25man content ... to anyone who doesnt know, this is not even playable. The reason for this, i later found out, is the onboard vidcard. Its a very capable card for anything but gaming. Mine has the ATI Mobility card and it sucks.

This might sound like a negative review but its not. Most people are not trying to game on this system, those people will love this machine to pieces.

BONUS: when you buy this pc from Dell you get a "premium" level of service. Separate phone number and everything! Any issues, and they don't even question it ... within 2 days you have a repair guy sitting at your dining room table with new parts in hand.

excellent laptop, bought it as a gift and has proven itself to be everything a laptop should be. great for gamers and people really into downloading tons of music, the speakers are great! still surprising us with new things it is capable of doing! awesome!! totally love it!

If you are a student who needs one laptop for your scholastic works, this is for you. Just buy Microsoft Office, and install on it, and its ready to use.