The Bottom Line
Pros
- Very Large Hard Drive
- 4GB of Memory
Cons
- Fairly Expensive
- Bright LCD Panel Prone to Glare and Reflections
Description
- Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 Dual Core Mobile Processor
- 4GB PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory
- 320GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
- 8x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner
- 15.4" WXGA+ (1440x900) Wide LCD Display With 2.0MP Webcam
- NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT Graphics with 256MB Memory
- Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11a/g/n Wireless, Bluetooth
- Three USB 2.0, FireWire, HDMI, ExpressCard/54, 8-in-1 Card Reader, Fingerprint Scanner
- 14.1" x 10.3" x 1.4" @ 5.8 lbs.
- Vista Home Premium, Works, SB Audigy HD, McAfee Security Center
Guide Review - Dell XPS M1530 Thin and Light Notebook PC
5/26/08 - Dell's XPS M1530 is a surprisingly powerful thin and light notebook. Based around the Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 and equipped with 4GB of PC2-5300 DDR2 memory, the system has no problem running pretty much any application that can be throw at it with the Vista operating system. It is even a decent mobile PC gaming platform thanks to the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics using GDDR3 memory.
Users will have plenty of space to store applications and data on the system thanks to the large 320GB hard drive includes with the system. While it isn't a huge jump over the more common 250GB drives found in this price segment, it does offer more. A dual layer DVD burner burner is standard, but users can opt to spend a bit more and get a Blu-ray combo drive.
Speaking of graphics and video, the Dell XPS M1530 has a surprisingly bright and colorful display. It uses a slightly higher 1440x900 resolution over the more common 1280x800 for a 15.4-inch panel. It uses a glossy coating that makes it great for watching videos within indoor environments. The problem is that this glossy coating makes the XPS M1530 almost unusable outside. It tends to cause signficiant glare and reflections that make seeing the image in bright environments quite difficult.
As with all Dell systems, there is a fair amount of customizing that can be done with the XPS M1530. Users can pick between four different colors and even the option of including an HSDPA or EVDO cellular WAN card into the system. Of course, Dell's systems is already on the higher end of the price spectrum for a thin and light laptop and extra features can rise that price even higher.
