Dell Studio 17 vs Dell XPS

[zachbb]

Hello

I am looking for a desktop replacement, but hesitating between two laptop models: the Studio and the XPS. I watch a lot of movies, play games, but it is mainly a work PC (graphic design, ms word, web design, etc.)

To me the Studio (oddly) has a nicer screen (LED), larger harddrive, etc. but the XPS has dual video cards, which is a big plus (Im guessing)

These are the specs for both of them. Which would you choose? Is the 200 euros extra on the price of the XPS worth it?


€1855 Dell XPS M1730
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 (2,50 GHz, L2 of 6 Mb, FSB 800 MHz)
Screen: UltraSharp™ WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT 17,0" with TrueLife™ and 2MP intrgrated webcam
RAM: 6144MB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (1x2GB + 1x4GB)
Harddrive: 500GB Serial ATA (5400RPM) Hard Drive
Video Card: Double NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8700M GT 256 MB with NVIDIA SLI

€1623 Dell Studio 17
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-820QM mobile (1,73 GHz, turbo up to 3,06 GHz, cache L3 of 6 Mo)
Screen: LED Full HD (1 920 x 1 080) 17,3" with TrueLife
RAM: 6144 Mo de mémoire bicanale SDRAM DDR3 à 1333 MHz [1x4096 + 1x2048]
Harddrive: 2 SATA Drives for 1TB (2 x 500 GB), 7 200rpm
Video Card: Carte ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 1 GB

So what do you think that I should get?
Please help - very confused! 😱

 

[fazers_on_stun]

I too was looking at the Studio 17, but with an LED backlight touchscreen which only does 1440 x 900 resolution, and with the ATI 4650 card. However after reading about Dell pulling an Apple and banning complaining users & deleting their posts on the Dell forums, due to faulty or defective components, I've decided to wait a bit. Anandtech has a pretty good laptop roundup on their main page that you might be interested in reading.

Now as for the XPS, my brother bought a 1730 a year ago and has had to ship it back to Dell at least once, and probably again. Apparently the NIC keeps dropping the ethernet connection after a few minutes of being idle, and he has to reboot to restore it. He's gone through the BIOS upgrade route and driver updates with Vista with no luck to date, and Dell support is kind of a joke...

Anyway, have you checked the THG graphics charts to compare the 460 vs. 8700M?

 

[zachbb]

I'm really not sure what to go with. Many of the XPS specs seem worse than the Studio specs. The harddrive is smaller and slower.

I have tried to find comparisons of the graphics cards and proccessors with no luck. Can anyone who knows about this please comment?

 

[HansVonOhain]

This XPS is the older model. Newer models are much better, more reliable, but I never buy Dells, HPs, etc. I buy ASUS, very reputable company.