Dell XPS M1530 Midnight Blue 15.4" Wide-screen WSXGA LCD Display with Truelife and Integrated 2.0MP Webcam Notebook

by Dell XPS M1530

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• ASIN: B001A3L2BW
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,747 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 22, 2008

Product Description

INTEL CORE 2 DUO 2.0GHz Processor, 15.4" Wide-screen WSXGA LCD display with TRUELIFE and 2.0MP integrated webcam, 4 GB Dual Channel DDR2 667MHz RAM, Slot Load 8X DVD +/- RW double layer write capability, HIGH SPEED Intel 4965AGN Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-Card, 250GB SATA Hard Drive 5400RPM, 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT Graphic Card, Windows Vista Home Premium, Midnight Blue Casing With Microsatin Finish, 2 YEARS FULL WARRANTY.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do not purchase a Dell, July 18, 2009

By 

T. Hubbard - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dell XPS M1530 Midnight Blue 15.4" Wide-screen WSXGA LCD Display with Truelife and Integrated 2.0MP Webcam Notebook (Personal Computers)

I hope that by my writing this I can prevent at least one person from buying from Dell.

I am furious with Dell and the runaround I have received this last month of trying to get them to repair my year old, under warranty and expensive laptop. Dell was easy to reach and very attentive when it came to purchasing the laptop, but they were impossible to reach, unhelpful and downright resistant to fixing anything once there was a problem.

After owning my Dell XPS 1530 for about a year it completely and suddenly died (it had been crashing periodically for a month beforehand). I sent Dell two e-mails requesting help with this problem before the computer completely died. I received an auto response from Dell but never anything else. I have been calling and writing and waiting for Dell to repair my laptop for 33 days now and I still have a non-functioning XPS 1530 on my hands.

I was contacted a few days after I reported the dead laptop to Dell by a service tech and made an appointment with them. The appointment was a four hour window in which I was to wait for them to show up at my home to repair the computer. I took a half day off from work and waited. They never came.

I then made a second appointment for another tech to come to my home and took a second afternoon off from work. This time, it turned out Dell had ordered the wrong disk drive. The tech also said that the outer plastic case needed to be replaced as it was warped and cracked due to the laptop overheating. I was blatantly told by this tech that overheating of the XPS laptops was a huge problem for Dell. I have since Googled Dell and overheating and I find endless results. The tech replaced the memory and hard drive and said they would be back in two days with the correct disk drive and plastic case.

It's 33 days later I am still waiting for someone to finish repairing the laptop.

I have made over 17 calls to Dell all with frustrating results. In my month of dealing with the non-existent customer service at Dell I have spent 12.32 hours on hold (I started to keep track after my first seemingly endless call), I have been transferred from person to person, and in the process my calls have been disconnected over a dozen times (sometimes after I had been waiting for over an hour). I found the English of some of the Dell reps to be so bad that communication was impossible (you will not be dealing with anyone in the United States), my e-mails have never been replied to, and so far I have missed two days of work waiting for techs to repair the laptop. I am looking at missing a third if they ever show up with the part. It has been an endless runaround with zero results or satisfaction.

It was finally around day 20 of this fiasco that I found out that the disk drive has been on back order all this time, but no one ever bothered to call me to inform me of this. Nor did Dell offer to send me a new computer while I waited even though they had to replace everything but the screen on my laptop.

At this point I am finally speaking with someone in the US about replacing the computer but my thought is why would I want another XPS 1530 that will have the same overheating problems? I have zero desire to go through this again let alone ever deal with Dell again in my life.

If you have read this far and are still considering purchasing a Dell, please Google Dell and overheating you will find endless articles and commentary on this issue. In fact if you Google Dell and anything bad you will find that there are ten times more issues than there are positive reviews. Also, if you look closely at some of the better reviews, Dell has sponsored them.

I did find an already a settled class action lawsuit against Dell for my problem however I missed the application deadline by three months.
[...]

All I want is a working computer and Dell has been nothing but a faceless behemoth that has taken my $1,500 and wits end.

Do not buy from Dell, you will be regretful.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Utter garbage; Poor perormance with Vista and Windows 7; Dead Battery, electric shock from AC power; Dell won't stand behind it!, February 4, 2010

By 

Perryworks Interactive "Yoav P" (New York, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dell XPS M1530 Midnight Blue 15.4" Wide-screen WSXGA LCD Display with Truelife and Integrated 2.0MP Webcam Notebook (Personal Computers)

I am a professional designer and needed a powerful machine that can get the job done. In the past I loved Dell's reliable product and support, but it seems that over time they have decided to take a shortcut on the only thing that kept business customers like me coming back.

It started by calling Dell and asking to purchase their "Complete Care" warranty. I purchased a 4 year plan to the tune of $476. Almost half the cost of the machine. I should have been suspicious when they tried selling me an extra battery for a 2 day old computer.
I only agreed to purchase the warranty after the salesman promised me a $75 in Dell Dollars (that I can "use to purchase another battery"). Hmmm... Months go by and my Dell Dollars never arrive. The salesman does not respond to his emails and all calls to Dell end up in India, where customer service is real "business class". They say that since I have no proof of the deal they won't give me my Dell Dollars - as if it's my burden of proof. (and beside, my partner purchased her warranty on the same phone call and got her Dell Dollars). 18 emails later I gave up and processed a $75 chargeback with my credit card on that transaction. I got my money.

The computer came with a poorly designed unreliable Windows Vista on it. It was so bad that I was OK downgrading it to the 9 year old Windows XP, but Dell wanted $100 for that downgrade license. Why should anyone be rewarded for a bad operating system?

I then traveled the world with this machine. It seems that the "international" adapter doesn't work properly. In France, UK, Israel and Italy (all 220V countries) the stainless still pad would electrify me. My sister with the smaller M1330 had a similar problem. I called and got it replaced, and of course was again prompted to buy another battery - maybe it messed my original one up?

I upgraded to Windows 7. It now overheats and the fan constantly complains. Many Bluetooth devices not recognized, it's slow and merely useless. Dell tells me to call Microsoft. Excellent service for my $475 plan.

And then it came, within a month of this machine's birthday the battery surprisingly went one day to not holding a charge anymore. Coincidence? I think not. Given the reviews all over the Internet for these batteries I can only believe that Dell makes them intentionally to quit working just after the warranty expires. Why does it matter if I bought a very expensive 4 year plan? - because Dell excluded the battery from the "Complete" care program. They should call it "Incomplete Care". You see, the battery is the single most profitable part in the notebook computer, and this is also why Dell is trying to push it on you in every call or email you make.

Just a few months ago, my girlfriend's Dell Inspiron started popping up messages about critical battery within days after being able to hold charge for 3 hours. We called Dell support 4 times and in each time we had a technician "diagnose" the laptop remotely and then telling us that they have a sale on batteries. I decided to investigate this personally and found out a small BIOS fix. I flushed it with the fix and what do you know? No need to battery.

Dell then refused to give me a new battery. I responded by giving it a much deserved rating and critique on their web site. I immediately was contacted by Dell's representative that apologized for my troubles and offered to resolve the issue. Someone from India called me to argue on Dell's behalf that they have the right to make shoddy batteries and not cover them in a $476 warranty, but she would be delighted to SELL me another battery. Are you kidding me?

And now at the age of 14 months, pixels in my screen are dying.

On the up side, I can tell you that I took the decision to move on from PC altogether after 18 years and 8 years of Dell. I want service, battery that lasts and a company that takes responsibility for their products. I am sick of rewarding bad behavior with my hard earned money. STAY AWAY FROM DELL!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Overheating Issues that left my legs with 2nd degree burns, October 4, 2010

By 

Jeanne M. Wray "loveu2" (Flower Mound, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dell XPS M1530 Midnight Blue 15.4" Wide-screen WSXGA LCD Display with Truelife and Integrated 2.0MP Webcam Notebook (Personal Computers)

So I've always bought Dell. Customer loyalty and all that. I purchased a Dell XPS M1530 in January 2008. I had mainly used Dell desktops before that. I did use a few laptops, also Dell, which my husband handed down to me each time he bought a new laptop. I do a lot of photo editing on my laptop and use both Photoshop and Microsoft product (not so much). When I would run Photoshop or when I was gaming, (higher processor/fan usage), my system would crash. I was so involved with what I was doing, I would ignore the burning I felt on my thighs (from using a lap top on my lap). Why would anyone think they could not rest a laptop on their lap?
I received a postcard in the mail the other day regarding a class action lawsuit against Nividia, I disposed of it. Admittedly, that was an ignorant move on my part.

I called Dell and had chat sessions with them on about 5 occasions regarding the heat coming out of my laptop, the burns on my legs, etc. They suggested I purchase a cooling fan. I did, although I thought this a ridiculous thing to have to do. In fact, I went through 3 fans. Then, my 9-cell battery died. No warnings. Just stopped charging when plugged in. And of course, even if you have your laptop plugged in, the main power source defaults to the batter and when the battery begins to run low, does not change power source to AC automatically. The user needs to remove the battery if s/he wants to solely rely on AC power.

Basically, the machine runs hot. It only has 3 usb ports so you need to buy an adapter for that as well. It has served it's purpose, although it has left scars on my legs and so many crashes due to overheating issues, I've lost a lot of time using this laptop.

I would not recommend it.