Derrick
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- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
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- 5,085
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- 5
This is a nice notebook for business work. It’s been designed with portability in mind, hence its size, the sturdy carry bag, built-in Wi-Fi and an extra nine-cell battery.
Hmm. Sleek. Pretty. Solid. Nice. That about sums up the XPS M1330.
It’s not a hard conclusion to reach: this laptop certainly looks and feels right when you first use it. Thanks to the backlit LCD and every port moved to the side, the M1330 has a slim profile.
It’s not the thinnest of notebooks, but is a bit thinner than other notebooks in its league. This league happens to be a pretty beefy one. In terms of hardware, the XPS can really only be outdone with cosmetic improvements: a bigger LCD or more input options.
If you’re looking for a top-end laptop that orbits the R25,000-and-more planets, here’s a serious contender.
You can pick up the M1330 for cheaper. A no-thrills-or-frills model on Dell’s Website starts just shy of twelve grand. It’s still not a bad deal. It has a 1.5GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive. However, this can be upgraded to a 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, a 320GB hard drive and a GeForce 8400M GPU to replace the integrated Intel graphics chip.
If you want to make sure you get value for your money, opt for at least 3GB of memory and Vista Business Edition. In fact, take this configuration, jack up the memory to 4GB, and you have the model sent to SACM for review.
As you can gather, the Dell XPS M1330 left a good impression. The finish, inside and out, is nice and durable, while the media buttons at the top of the keyboard and the slot-loading CD/DVD+/-RW drive add a dash of slick to round everything off.
The touchpad is perhaps a bit too small: something broader would have been nice (but that’s nitpicking). Slightly more critical, though, is the lack of ports. There are only two USB ports, which in terms of the slim design makes sense, but still feels like too few.
Apart from a VGA port, you can also run an HDMI display from the machine, but there’s no S-video and no converter cables to output to composite. Sure, HDMI used to be the next big thing, but every TV set has that yellow video port. Still, these problems are subjective.
The most important element missing from the M1330 is a memory card reader, something that ought to be as standard on a laptop as grime on an Internet café computer’s keyboard (a card reader is part of the product specifications on Dell’s Website, but didn’t come included).
Hmm. Sleek. Pretty. Solid. Nice. That about sums up the XPS M1330.
It’s not a hard conclusion to reach: this laptop certainly looks and feels right when you first use it. Thanks to the backlit LCD and every port moved to the side, the M1330 has a slim profile.
It’s not the thinnest of notebooks, but is a bit thinner than other notebooks in its league. This league happens to be a pretty beefy one. In terms of hardware, the XPS can really only be outdone with cosmetic improvements: a bigger LCD or more input options.
If you’re looking for a top-end laptop that orbits the R25,000-and-more planets, here’s a serious contender.
You can pick up the M1330 for cheaper. A no-thrills-or-frills model on Dell’s Website starts just shy of twelve grand. It’s still not a bad deal. It has a 1.5GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive. However, this can be upgraded to a 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, a 320GB hard drive and a GeForce 8400M GPU to replace the integrated Intel graphics chip.
If you want to make sure you get value for your money, opt for at least 3GB of memory and Vista Business Edition. In fact, take this configuration, jack up the memory to 4GB, and you have the model sent to SACM for review.
As you can gather, the Dell XPS M1330 left a good impression. The finish, inside and out, is nice and durable, while the media buttons at the top of the keyboard and the slot-loading CD/DVD+/-RW drive add a dash of slick to round everything off.
The touchpad is perhaps a bit too small: something broader would have been nice (but that’s nitpicking). Slightly more critical, though, is the lack of ports. There are only two USB ports, which in terms of the slim design makes sense, but still feels like too few.
Apart from a VGA port, you can also run an HDMI display from the machine, but there’s no S-video and no converter cables to output to composite. Sure, HDMI used to be the next big thing, but every TV set has that yellow video port. Still, these problems are subjective.
The most important element missing from the M1330 is a memory card reader, something that ought to be as standard on a laptop as grime on an Internet café computer’s keyboard (a card reader is part of the product specifications on Dell’s Website, but didn’t come included).