Dell XPS M1530 laptop

Is this the ultimate gaming laptop?

Reviewer: Stephen Patrick
Review Date: 21 January 2008
Manufacturer: Dell
Price as reviewed: £849
Latest price: compare

Our score

9/10

See more with this score

Reader score

2/10

Full Review

21 January 2008 - When Dell announced it would be overhauling its premium notebook brand, the XPS line, with an ultraportable in the form of the XPS M1330, the company was clearly on to a winning formula. So, it comes as no surprise this latest model is exactly the same in styling but with a larger screen.

The reason the M1330 works so well is that it’s a true powerhouse machine wrapped in a super-light and portable chassis. By adding a larger 15.4-inch Super-TFT screen you take a fair degree of portability away from the concept, but thankfully, the M1530 remains a great machine.

The reason we like it is the sheer quality of the build. The magnesium-allow body feels robust and extremely solid and because it’s brushed, it feels great to the touch too.

The 2.7kg weight is still portable enough to carry around on a regular basis and the thin body makes it easy to carry too. As with the previous model, you can choose between a black or red matt finish, on the lid, open it up and the trim is silver and black.

The silver keyboard, however, is what really makes this notebook a joy to use. Dell has been accused of producing poor keyboards in the past but all is forgiven with the M1530. The keys are well spaced and are so comfortable to the touch that even the most boring report you have to write will feel better for it. This may sound like exaggeration but this is clearly the best keyboard Dell has released on a notebook.

As with all Dell notebooks, you can choose the specification that best suits your needs but the review sample we were sent was clearly middle of the range but still managed to pack more than a powerful punch. With an Intel 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7250 and 2048MB of memory there is more than enough power to run multiple tasks at the same time.

Running Windows Vista Home Premium, we found it loaded quickly and when we used it out and about for a couple of days, we found it reliable and fast.

While the battery life isn’t as efficient as on the M1330, we still managed to get a little over 3 hours from the machine. This was rather surprising, as the 15.4-inch screen has a double-strength backlit, which makes it great for movies as well as playing games but can be a drain on battery life.

When it came to playing games, the M1530 uses the Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB of dedicated memory, which is great for playing most games without having to turn the features off.

Extra features consist of a slot-loading DVD rewriter as well as an HDMI-out port. There is even a biometric fingerprint scanner on the main body.

Verdict

If you liked the styling of the XPS M1330 but felt it a little too small for everyday use, the XPS M1530 is the machine for you.

It has the same great build quality and a specification that puts other machines of this price to shame.

However, what impressed us most, was the felt that you really feel as though you’re holding something impressive in your hands and that’s not something you’ll find us saying regularly.

Comments

I have a dell XPS for over 2 weeks now, and I have to tell you - it sucks!
External appearances may decieve you, and thats what the Dell XPS 1530 does. It looks cool from the outside. But when u start using it, I have to tell you I detest it.

One of the worst design features of the Dell XPS is the keyboard. It really sucks! cannot imagine anyone designing a keyboard that is worse.

Contrary to what has been said on this review, it is not comfortable to use at all. Another bad design feature is the touchpad. It is so poor that sometimes even when u tap it repeatedly it does not work. So is the scroll bar on the touch pad. it sucks as well!

Add to that windows Vista - which is an even worse product, it takes forever to boot up (even on core 2 due 2.4 Ghz and 3 GB of RAM) which is what I have.

Overall Iam really dissapointed on this product - and I feel chated that I spent 750 £ on a crap like this.

I would suggest people to buy a Mac instead, it would be a much better experience that using Dell. Posted by Sam, UK
Oh dear Sam. I am sorry to hear that you feel "chated" about your Dell laptop!

Did it ever occur to you that there might be a technical fault with the product (and don't say it doesn't happen with Mac's because it does!) and that calling Dell to help?

In my opinion though Mac's as a whole are like working with a kids toy and they are designed as such.

Your experience is certainly not typical of my experience and people that I know of who have an XPS laptop. The keyboard is an excellent keyboard. The keyboard design though is down to personal preference as different laptop makers do different designs so if you like Mac keyboards then that is your choice.

My experience of the Dell XPS M1530 is that it extremely well designed and has a good solid quality feel to it. The spec of mine is a C2D 2.4Ghz with 2GB RAM, 250GB hard disc, Nvidia 256MB 8600M GT graphics card and it has an excellent screen (I went for the 1440x900) which is clear and bright.

Judge from other reviews as well and you will find that the M1530 is truely a great laptop and makes a Mac look like something from a toy shop :) Posted by Charles, UK
Sam, you say it "sucks", i am thinking of buying one, could you actually go into abit of detail..what is actually wrong with the keyboard except sucking? Posted by Tom, UK
I have had my XPS M1530 for about three months now and have to say i am extremely happy with this laptop! (unlike sam it would seem...)

I have the 2.2ghz T7500 with 256mb 8600M GT graphics card, 250gb HD, 4GB Ram and 1600×1050 screen resolution. This high resolution screen is truly amazing, and i can watch full 1080p films in crystal-clear quality.

Overuse has never been a problem, and it never seems to struggle keeping up with any application which may be running (i often use it to play games, including Crysis, on medium graphics, and COD 4 on full)

the touch-sensitive media buttons are also very stylish, and have to be pressed slightly harder than on some other laptops. I love the way how they pulse blue in a mexican-wave type way every time you turn the laptop on.

the slot loading CD Drive is also a very nice addition to the overall feel to the laptop and makes the other pop-out ones feel horribly old-fashioned. the drive does make quite a lot of noise when ejecting a cd however,but this is just nit-picking

Overall i would say that this is an excellent piece of kit, and the perfect laptop for work or games, and by far outclasses my friends’ machines. I would highly recommend this laptop! Posted by Will, UK
I bought my XPS M1530 5 months ago and I have to say that I am very pleased with this machine. I can't stand to use other computers now that I am so used to the performance, comfort, and style of this laptop. Not even my wife's brand new mac. Posted by Robert, USA
sam, you are a degenerate, illiterate idiot. myself and my whole skwl (Bishops- South Africa) have the m1530, and it is better than those apple pieces of shit. go back to Kindergarden. I personally don't feel "chated".

hahaha, what a retard!!! Posted by robin (sam is a dick-face), South Africa
Hi Milan! Posted by Mole!, Bishops
Hi Chris! Posted by Picho grandijobla mzxingxi, Kayeeleetsha
@robin Does your school teach you to be respectful to others? It's ironic that you mention "Kindergarden" and then blurt out childish insults.

My experience of the M1530 is that it does indeed have a poor quality keyboard. If you don't notice this or can't contrast it with a better keyboard that's another matter. Compare it with a mid to high end Vaio (either type of keyboard) and they run rings around the competition.

Saying the Macbook/Macbook Pro is a toy is ridiculous. A vastly larger percentage of Mac users are professionals or entrepreneurs and know their stuff. Look at how many of the most influencial people in tech opted for a Mac. Even the Mac OS runs rings around Vista which has been confirmed by practically every magazine and reviewing site, even the PC ones. Calling it a toy when it's crafted out of a solid block of aluminium instead of screwing together flimsy plastic parts is daft.

I'm a PC user. I hate Vista in every regard and consider it lipstick on a pig. Microsoft have no common sense when it comes to interface design whatsoever. Therefore I've been considering switching fully to the Mac for a while. The things that currently put me off about the Mac are the slightly substandard keyboard (too resistive) and very poor key layout (missing keys,tiny Enter key, tiny arrow keys) - Contrast it to any high end Vaio and you'll see. And the new trackpad needs more work too. It feels too resistant to me, and plenty are complaining about the loud clunk it makes when depressed.

So are Macs perfect? Far from it. Are they toys? Grow up and quit with the childish hate mongering. Posted by Anthony, UK
I have had my M1530 just about six months, the keyboard is hell ! .

I had my backspace key come off and the Engg had to come out to replace the entire keyboard as, in time the space key nor the letter keys would not work. In his opinion it's the design of the keyboard and I agree. If you caught the keys on it's edge...they come off.

I owned a Sony Vaio prior to this...hell it was great machine..lasted for four years with regular servicing.

Vista.. does not allow the machine to operate to it's optimum. I got it changed to..XP a month ago and now it works flawlessly.

On the whole it's good machine with great specs but the very minor faults are creating a set back.Though, I would still recommend another user to buy it...on making the changes as ,given the price of the product it's a good machine.

Posted by Angie, UK
@Anthony
I guess i missed that article where all the world's professionals and entrepreneurs, who "know their stuff," endorsed mac. link please? Posted by RandomPcUser, U.S.A.
@RandomPcUser
Hahahahaaa.......I thought I was one of the aforementioned professionals. But I don't use Mac, and I write stuff like "hahahaaaaaaa...." Posted by Dawie, Zim
Now, there's got to be a competition-winning comment somewhere in there!
It's nice to see a bit of a debate, just a shame about the insults. Posted by adamryder, United Kingdom
Sorry, after reading all these reviews i had to make a comment of my own. The Dell XPS is an excellent design overall.

If you want a Mac equivalent, then look to spend at least 1000. Apple overprice their items to start with because their target market is 'professionals'. I like windows due to the versatile nature of the OS.

Back to XPS, peformance is excellent even after a year. Although this is down to disabling irrelevant services and startup programs and doing a system scan using Ace Utilities once in a while to clear junk files and registry. Vista boots in about 20secs. Keyboard, well its personal preference and mine is nice and comfortable! screen is clear, bright and sharp at 1440x900 and the brightness adjustment makes reading in the dark easier.

The included remote is a joy to use when playing music or watching videos or using windows media centre. Overall an excellent piece of hardware and excellent laptop even when compared with most brands.

Spec: T7500 2.2ghz, 3gb Ram, 250gb HDD, Ge force 8600M GT, fingerprint, 2mp camera, Bluetooth, slot dvd-rw drive Posted by Leo, UK
"mac" o r wrong at alll
i m haveing same laptop M1530 since 2008 and i m not haveing any
single problem,, and think about is't servise it provide us servise with in
24 \h so i thing u r wrong all the way.. Posted by pratik, INDIA
Here are my thoughts so far on the M1530. Am I really happy with it? The answer is...kinda. Truth be told, the machine itself is great. It looks great, feels great, the keys are tactile, maybe not the best kind of keyboard but I'll tell you this, if someone is complaining about the keyboard as a serious issue then don't take them seriously. It types keys when you hit them, and I've yet had any real complaint with it. Most of my complaints will be coming from Vista. And just for the record, I play no favorites when it comes to PC v Mac, but after using my roomie's macbook vs my own, aside from disliking the layout, they're incredible. He can run photoshop CS4, several tabs in safari, garageband, and other applications at the same time flawlessly, and he's only got 2 gigs of ram vs my 4. The only time the word flawlessly is ascribed to Vista is how consistently it frustrates. And as for my machine's specs, I'm running Vista 64-bit with an Intel Core2 Duo T8300@ 2.4GHz, 4 GB ram, with an NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT, 256 dedicated video memory. Ok, here goes:

Dell advertises this as a gaming laptop, and I'll briefly go over a few games that I play:

Audiosurf- plays fullscreen with no problems. It's really, really nice.

Couter-Strike 1.6- I have the biggest complaint about. It's really unplayable, and it's sad, because it's over ten years old and Vista can't run it properly. I'm going to see if I can update the chipset drivers and hopefully that'll help. Basically, I can't aim anywhere if I'm doing anything other than running. This means if I'm crouching, walking, strafing, I can't turn the mouse to aim. If anyone knows a possible solution to this, that would be amazing.

Warcraft III- no complaints yet, and boy does it look good.

The other complaint i have, and I think it's valid, is that for some reason the typing is always laggy. No matter what program I'm in, it always stutters like the framerate is suffering. It's especially annoying when you're trying to backspace something. And no, I don't type too fast.

As far as the other errors in Vista goes, they're too many to count. There are a katrillion icons, and it comes pre-installed with way too much software. It's unstable because Gates chose beauty over brains; even then it doesn't meet up to Mac's OS. If you go to your task manager, you'll behold an amount of programs taking up a tragic amount of memory that are unfortunately essential to run Vista. In particular, the fingerprint scanning suit will surge and take up over 200M of memory, almost single-handedly locking up 4 GIGS OF RAM (how asinine is that?) Oh, and it takes about 1.56 of my RAM just to RUN Vista. Really, Bill Gates? I have to wonder how much I might be enjoying this if it had XP on it. Anyone out there have a reason why I shouldn't? Oh, and the stock webcam is pretty bad, as well as the built in mic. The mic especially shouldn't be a problem, as the one on my four year old dell works great, but there's bad feedback on the sound recording no matter what you do.

All in all, Dell has made a solid laptop. Too bad the mass-produced OS on it is truly a disgrace, and Gates should be ashamed of himself. It's obvious that he has tried to imitate Apple's simplistic OS, which only has 100,000 lines of code to it (vs Vista's 50 million). This makes it hard to write viruses for macs, and I'll be honest, I would've had no problem choosing a Mac over this. A mac's OS might be simpler but, unless you need intellectual affirmation by running an overly-complicated, frustrating and error-prone OS, go with a Mac. Who doesn't want simpler? If you have your heart absolutely set on a PC, go ahead and grab this one. If everyone's Vista sucks, then at least your computer will look prettier than everyone else's. Posted by Doug, USA