Dell Studio XPS 16
With the Studio XPS 16, Dell has raised the bar for multimedia laptops. It offers design touches and features that could easily let it command a higher price, yet it starts at an affordable $1,199. Our test configuration, with an upgraded screen, faster processor, and other goodies, comes in at a still-reasonable $1,804. If you’re in the market for a laptop with a screen in the 15.4-to-17-inch range, you can begin—and likely end—your search right here.
The first thing you’ll notice about the XPS 16 is its striking design. The lid is a tasteful combination of glossy black and silver with a wide band of genuine leather trim near the spine. The overall look is distinctive without being flashy. As with all desktop replacements, the XPS 16 is not bantamweight, but at 6.4 pounds (6.5 with the extended battery), it’s certainly portable enough for occasional travel.
Thoughtful design touches continue under the lid. The roomy keyboard has a superb feel and features a pleasant white backlight (adjustable to three brightness levels) that shows through the characters on the flat key tops. A full contingent of touch-sensitive multimedia and volume controls glow white behind a glossy strip above the function keys. The touch pad is roomy, and its buttons are responsive.
But the real star is the 16-to-9-aspect-ratio, 16-inch screen. This 1,920x1,080 panel features next-generation RGB LED backlighting that Dell claims is capable of displaying 100 percent of the available color gamut as opposed to the 40 to 60 percent available from other panels (including that on the MacBook Pro, according to Dell). We didn’t count to make sure the XPS screen displayed all 16.7 million colors, but we can attest to the fact that we’ve never seen colors so vibrant from a laptop. Reds, greens, and blues are rich and well saturated, making the XPS 16 a pleasure to use for digital images, video, and games.
The screen is also noticeably bright, with a rating of 300 nits (versus 200 nits for a typical 15.4-inch laptop screen). It delivers a wide 130-degree viewing angle, making the XPS 16 suitable for sharing. As with all high-resolution panels, default text in dialog boxes and the like is pretty small, but on the XPS, it's amazingly crisp; this is a fair trade-off for the lack of Blu-ray writer in our test unit (our configuration can only read Blu-ray discs not write to them). The multiformat Blu-ray ROM/DVD-R/W is the slot-loading variety, which we like; Dell says it will offer optional Blu-ray writers once component makers offer slot-loading reader/burners.
Watching a Blu-ray copy of Live Free or Die Hard was a treat on the full 1080p screen. The 8ms panel handled action scenes with no discernible motion blur, and dark scenes did not lose shadow detail. In games, effects such as explosions and fire were especially vibrant, thanks to the rich orange and red hues the screen can reproduce, though in F.E.A.R. we noticed dithering artifacts in gray shades that should have been a smooth gradient.
The XPS 16 features a down-firing subwoofer as well as stereo speakers that flank the keyboard. Audio fidelity is very good but not best-in-class. At moderate volumes, music, movies, and games sound rich, with plenty of bass, but push the volume past halfway, and you soon reach the limits of the speakers—we noticed lots of clipping and distortion. Dell noted that production units will employ a different (and better) subwoofer than the one on our preproduction unit, but that won’t clean up the sound of the midrange. All told, the HP HDX and Toshiba Qosmio G55 deliver better sound.
Port selection on the XPS 16 is top-notch. You get two standard USB ports, one powered USB/external SATA (eSATA) combo port, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, FireWire, VGA, LAN, microphone, and two headphone jacks. You'll also find an ExpressCard/54 slot and an eight-format memory-card reader. Bluetooth and wireless broadband (from your choice of carriers) are optional, but 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity is standard.
Hard drive choices include 5,400rpm drives up to 500GB in capacity or 7,200rpm units up to 320GB (as on our test unit); a 128GB solid-state drive is also an option. The XPS 16 supports up to 8GB of fast 1,067MHz DDR3 SDRAM.
Our build came with the standard 4GB of RAM and the Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 CPU (a step up from the stock P8400). The only GPU choice is the midrange ATI Mobility Radeon M86XT with 512MB of memory. With the exception of graphics performance and battery life, the XPS 16 is the best-performing mainstream notebook that's come through our labs in recent history (though keep in mind, the mainstream category includes sub-$800 15.4-inch systems); overall, the XPS 16's performance is appropriate for the price and better competes with notebooks in the desktop replacement, or 17-inch, category.
The XPS 16 scored 3,598 on Futuremark's PCMark Vantage and 5,170 on Cinebench 10. It needed just 6 minutes and 42 seconds to complete our Windows Media Encoder test and 4 minutes and 15 seconds for our iTunes conversion trial. To put those numbers in perspective: Among models in our tested configuration’s $1,800 price range, the XPS 16 was generally a tad faster than the Alienware M17 but slower than the Acer Aspire 8930G and MSI GX720-033US, all desktop replacements, and there are no comparable mainstream notebooks of late anywhere near this price. A six-cell battery is standard, and a nine-cell unit will also be available. We tested with the latter, and the XPS 16 lasted 2 hours and 6 minutes on our DVD rundown test, which is very good for a desktop replacement but about five minutes shorter than average for a mainstream notebook.
The ATI GPU helped the XPS 16 deliver a score of 5,243 on Futuremark's 3DMark06 (at 1,024x768 resolution) and a Futuremark 3DMark Vantage score of 1,252 on the Performance preset, which blow other mainstream systems out of the water but are below average for desktop replacements, which include high-end gaming rigs. In real-world use, however, you should get at least some gaming enjoyment out of the machine. We saw a decent 29 frames per second (fps) on F.E.A.R. at 1,400x1,050 resolution, though we had to drop back to 1,280x800 on the more demanding Company of Heroes test to get a playable 31.3fps.
The XPS 16 ships with Vista Home Premium (Vista Ultimate is a $150 option) and a generous 15-month subscription to McAfee Security Center. You also get 2GB of online storage through the Dell DataSafe Online service and Microsoft Works (the version without Word). For security, the XPS 16 does away with a fingerprint reader in favor of the FastAccess facial-recognition software for password-free logins. Dell backs the XPS 16 with a one-year warranty.
If you want to own a mainstream/desktop-replacement notebook with cutting-edge features without breaking the bank, the Dell Studio XPS 16 is an excellent choice. Opt for the high-end screen and Blu-ray drive, and you’ll have a multimedia machine you can love for years to come.
Price (at time of review): $1,804
www.dell.com