Dell XPS M1530 and Dell XPS M1330 Notebook Review
Dell XPS M1530 and Dell XPS M1330 can be called as pseudo high-end systems if Biometric Fingerprint Reader is not one of your requirements. Unless Biometric Fingerprint Reader is high in your requirements list, don’t even consider buying XPS M1530 or XPS M1330. It’s better to go for T5550 or T7250 processor based notebooks like Dell Inspiron or Compaq Presario than these two. Lets see why is this so..
Processor:
Both XPS M1530 and XPS M1330 come with Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo Processor T5750. The only difference between T5550 and T5750 is that T5750 has a clock speed of 2GHz whereas T5550 has a clock speed of 1.83GHz. FSB (Front Side Bus) is same, 667MHz in both the processors. It would have been a real value-add if Dell had installed a processor which has 800MHz FSB like T7250 and that would have brought dramatic improvement in processor speed. You can customise it with T7250 as Dell allows processor customization. But it'd cost you extra Rs.2072 (Approx $52).
Chipset:
XPS M1530 comes with Intel® 965PM Chipset and XPS M1330 comes with Intel® 965GM Chipset. This is the only difference between XPS M1530 and XPS M1330.
Difference between Intel® 965PM and Intel® 965GM:
- Intel® 965PM does not have Integrated Graphics on motherboard. That’s the reason why XPS M1530 has a separate NVIDIA Graphics Card (128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS) and XPS M1330 does have Intel Graphics card on the motherboard itself.
- Intel Clear Video Technology is also not available on Intel® 965PM because it doesn’t have onboard graphics.
- Intel® 965GM Chipset has Power Management on board whereas Intel® 965PM doesn’t have it.
All Dell Inspiron (and Compaq Presario) notebooks come with Intel® 965GM Chipset. So from both the Processor and the Chipset perspective, there is no value-add in XPS series compared to Inspiron series.
Biometric Fingerprint Reader is the only new feature in XPS M1530 and XPS M1330 compared to Dell Inspiron 1525(Rs.42,900). XPS M1530 is priced at Rs.49,900 and XPS M1330 is priced at Rs.51,900. You’d be paying this extra Rs.9000 (compared to Inspiron 1525) for the Biometric Fingerprint Reader. In fact, Dell Inspiron 1525(Rs.42,900) is faster than XPS series because it has T7250 Core 2 Duo Processor. And it’s cheap also.
The good thing is that Dell allows customisation of many components(Processor, Monitor, Memory, and Hard Drive). But sadly, it doesn't allow customisation in OS. Microsoft Windows Vista is mandatory. Biometric Fingerprint Reader is also mandatory. But its understandable as it's embedded hardware. They could have given customization for the OS. Dell is a big player. It could have chosen not to be part of Microsoft's dirty marketing. Some day Microsoft will pay heavy price for this strategy of suppressing their own successful products for the sake of their junk new products. It followed the same strategy when migrating from VC6 to Visual Studio 2005. There also there are thousands of successful enterprise products which are still in VC6 and Microsoft refusing to support for VC6.
Seems like you don't have access to the higher performing editions of the M1330.
My M1330 has a T7500 CPU which runs at 800MHz FSB and 2.2GHz CPU speed.
The T7500 is no Penryn processor, but that is also available for the M1330, as well as for the M1530 I belive, which provides CPU speeds like 2.6GHz (T9500).
An M1330 system with specs like this will cost you about $1800,
I have no idea what Rs. means, seems to be some currency not used in Europe.
Your opinion may be valid for customers in your own country where the available options seems to be less than they are elsewhere, for example in Europe and USA.
XPS M1330 doesn't have the option of T7500 in India while it does have other processor options like T7250(extra $52), T8100, T8300, T9300, and T9500. But its better and economical to upgrade the processor of the Inspiron than of XPS.
At the current configuration, the price of Rs.51,900 would be equivalent to $1300 and this configuration is not worth paying $1300.
I agree, price/performance-wise it may make more sense to choose a model from a different series of Dell notebooks today, or even from a different producer alltogether.
XPS is the design & performance series from Dell, and therefore may cost a little more in some configurations than similarly equipped other laptops.
When I bought my M1330 about 6 months ago there weren't many alternatives when it came to portability and performance in that size. Maybe I'd choose a different laptop today, but the M1330 is still a solid performer, and today it competes with the Lenovo X300 and is often compared to the MacBook Pro by many customers, which is a larger and less portable computer of a different type, but which has a similar performance level.
XP Pro x64 installation guide for Dell XPS M1530 and M1330
laptops (PDF file, english version):
www.megaupload.com/?d=Q91K2A1S
XP Pro x64 drivers for M1530 and M1330:
www.megaupload.com/?d=RFPO0TP7
Regard.
The Dell XPS M1530 has quite alot of competition now a days. Even from it's own company, Dell, they have to compete with the Dell Studio series.
But I still think the XPS is a great deal for such a powerful laptop.