XPS-2!!! Best Gaming Laptop Evah!

[CptTripps]

Ok, I may be a sucker for gaming laptops but I just ordered. I sold my previous 9100 which was maxed out completely with 3 year complete care warranty for $2,000 (loss of $300). When I ordered it was $3500.00 with 25% off that stacked with my EPP's 12% for a total of 37% off. So it was shipped to me for $2300.00, not a bad return on an almost year old laptop.

I went with...

2Ghz
1 Gig
60GB @ 7200rpm
Intel Wireless B\G
CD-RW\DVD (I don't need 2 DVD Writers)
3 Year warranty with Complete Care

Total to me shipped after the $500 off and my 12% EPP discount is...

$2699.08

Basically I spent $700.00 to upgrade my laptop to the XPS2, not to bad me thinks.

 

[Looney]

Wow that's sweet. Where did you get the EPP? I know my company doesn't have it, but i'm wondering if i know anybody who's company does. How did you find out?

 

[CptTripps]

My EPP is provided by my company. If you are a contractor, you may want to check if the company your contracted through has an EPP program. Contractors can sometimes use them. The cool thing about mine is they actually purchase it for you on a 2 year 0% interest loan. They will only loan me $2000.00 so the extra $699.08 came out of my pocket, but; beings I just sold the 9100 that still leaves me with $1300.00 in pocket, a faster laptop and only $38.00 out of each paycheck, not too shabby.

 

[trikster2]

cpttripps

Great deal

After the initial release the XPS-2 seems to increased in price by a couple hundred. Probably, given the initial reviews, dell has way more orders than it expected, one site claimed 10,000 more......

 

[StealthPants]

I'm hoping that by holding off buying for a month they will offer a free upgrade to 1gb of RAM.

This looks a nice machine. I was originally thinking of the 9300 but the xps seems to offer more for the money.

Hopefully all the flashing lights can be turned off as im not interested in buying a mobile disco

Also what resultions can the xps do ? I dont like the highest one as it will make the text too small. I use 1280 x 1024 on my monitor, what would the equivilent be on a widescreen ?

 

[imported_Woody]

Just reading through this thread and I wanted to comment on the mobile version of the 6800Ultra.....

A lot of people seem to complain that it only has 12 pixel pipelines instead of 16 like in the desktop card.

This isn't as much a limitation as many people would think. For one thing it performs more than adequately for any games out there in it's native resolution and tests have shown that clock speed can have a greater impact on performance over the number of pipelines when all else is equal.

I am running an X800Pro (12 pipes) on my desktop and it runs HL2 at max quality settings very smooth at 1280x864 with a Barton CPU.

It's an amazing price for that Dell. I wouldn't bother with the 770CPU over the 760 for $270. Definately get the 1GB RAM and the 7200rpm HD. Anyone want to buy my one year old M6805 with ATi 9600? It plays HL2 at 800x600!

 

[trikster2]

Originally posted by: StealthPants
I'm hoping that by holding off buying for a month they will offer a free upgrade to 1gb of RAM.

This looks a nice machine. I was originally thinking of the 9300 but the xps seems to offer more for the money.

Hopefully all the flashing lights can be turned off as im not interested in buying a mobile disco

Also what resultions can the xps do ? I dont like the highest one as it will make the text too small. I use 1280 x 1024 on my monitor, what would the equivilent be on a widescreen ?

Stealthpants

If you don't like the high res stay away from the XPS-2. It's only available in 1900x1200.

I better choice of you is the 9300. Similar chasis, no gigabit, 6800 NON ultra but it has a 1440x800 screen available.

 

[StealthPants]

you cant select resolutions below that ?

 

[trikster2]

Yes

But quality sucks if you run an LCD panel in anything lower than the "native" resolution.

I use a 1900x1200 screen on my 15.4" WUXGA Lattitude D800. Quality is very bad at any res less than 1900x1200. Text looks very fuzy.

If you want to get an idea go spread a thick layer of vasiline on your screen and see what it looks like. If you don't mind that get the WUXGA screen and run it at WXGA resolution.

 

[StealthPants]

thanks, I guess ill have to think about it. Dont know why they have a resolution that high if it makes it hard to read the screen.

Guess ill have to go look at a sony vaio or a toshiba with that resolution to see if it will be an issue or not for me.

 

[Looney]

Personal preferences... some people find it too small, other people love it.

I run 1920x1200 on my Sony GDM-FW900, and i usually need to increase the font size in whatever i am reading (i also sit further away from my desktop monitor than i do my laptop) ... but there isn't a single thing i can think of that i read regularly that i can't increase the fonts easily.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: trikster2

If you want to get an idea go spread a thick layer of vasiline on your screen and see what it looks like. If you don't mind that get the WUXGA screen and run it at WXGA resolution.

You obviously have never had an LCD before. Changing the screen resolution doesn't exactly make things more blurry... it's because LCDs have fixed pixels, and when you change to different resolutions, it may look a little odd because of the way the pixels are fixed, but it doesn't get blurry like that.

 

[trikster2]

> Changing the screen resolution doesn't exactly make things more blurry.
> You obviously have never had an LCD before.
uh yes it does. And yes I have. I run two LCDs at work (Samsung 210T, Dell 1704FP), one LCD at home (Plannar PX191), and have 4 laptops with LCDs (XGA to WUXGA). When I run at lower res's than native everything looks blury/fuzzy/sucky. Maybe I'm overly picky, or you are misunderstanding what I mean by blurry, or you have never used a good LCD with DVI. When I say smear vaseline on the screan I mean a thin transparent layer, not big gobs like you use with your boyfriend.

JK

But you know what I mean...

 

[LackofVision]

Depends on the quality of the monitor of video card doing the scaling. Some do it great. others suck. It doesn't have much to do with the quality of the LCD itself, but in the quality of the chip that does the scaleing.

If you go to half resolutions, if your monitor natively does 1600x1200, you will be able to do 800x600 perfectly.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: trikster2
> Changing the screen resolution doesn't exactly make things more blurry.
> You obviously have never had an LCD before.
uh yes it does. And yes I have. I run two LCDs at work (Samsung 210T, Dell 1704FP), one LCD at home (Plannar PX191), and have 4 laptops with LCDs (XGA to WUXGA). When I run at lower res's than native everything looks blury/fuzzy/sucky. Maybe I'm overly picky, or you are misunderstanding what I mean by blurry, or you have never used a good LCD with DVI. When I say smear vaseline on the screan I mean a thin transparent layer, not big gobs like you use with your boyfriend.

Except this is what you said: If you want to get an idea go spread a thick layer of vasiline on your screen and see what it looks like.

You're so full of sh1t.

 

[trikster2]

> If you go to half resolutions, if your monitor natively does 1600x1200, you will be able to do 800x600 perfectly.

I don't have a digital camera but my 210T (native 1600x1200) looks like garbage at 800x600

HardCore> So I mispoke. I guess canadians never make errors? No I don't think monitors at non-native res look like a thick layer of vaseline, I probably was thinking take a thick gob or something.

So I'm full of sh1t? Is that the canucks response to anyone that does not agree with them? I'm just trying to give some information here for people trying to decide if they want a 1900x1200 display and think they will get good quality running it at a non-native resolution.

If you don't trust my opinion read up on the issue your self. Here's a good whitepaper from NEC:

Nice NEC whitepaper discussion non native resolutions

Two expansion methods yield a full screen image with the least amount of image degradation.
Each has unique advantages and disadvantages:

Digital Smoothing character result (Blurry)
The digital smoothing technique requires the manipulation (or dithering) of pixels adjacent to the text to give
individual letters a smoother look. The image remains equivalently sized, so no size distortion occurs. But, the
dithering may cause the image to appear blurry since the crisp edge of the text that LCDs are known for has
been compromised.

Pixel Doubling character result (Chunky)
The pixel doubling technique results in text getting thicker on one side. However, the focus stays clear since there
is no dithering and no loss of data, color or information.
Although shown horizontally, digital smoothing and pixel doubling occur both vertically and horizontally. Due to the pros
and cons of each method (some of which are subjective), operation of fixed matrix displays at their native resolutions is
always recommended.

In essence, there is no optimal way to show a non-native resolution in a fixed matrix display.

Hardcore: Changing the screen resolution doesn't exactly make things more blurry... it's because LCDs have fixed pixels, and when you change to different resolutions, it may look a little odd because of the way the pixels are fixed, but it doesn't get blurry like that.

 

[LackofVision]

800x600 on a 21 inch monitor isn't going to look good, even on a crt. The point is, unless your lcd's scaling support is really crappy, 800x600 on a 1600x1200 screen is pixel perfect, no dithering, no distortion, no smearing, etc.

That each pixel is huge and makes the image blocky isn't a fault of the lcd, its caused by the 4x4 pixels being to big on a monitor that size.

The loss of quality is also offset the higher the native resolution of the lcd is. A 17' 1920x1200 display should be able to display lower resolutions much better than say a 1280x1024 display can, simply due to the much smaller and additional pixels it has to build the image. Again, its up to the manufacterer not to cheap out on the quality of the scaling.

I'll agree that you should always, whenever possible, run your lcd at it's native resolution for the best picture quality. If you need to run at a lower resolution to say, game at an acceptable frame rate, then going to half the dimensions should get you the best picture quality possible with exception of the native.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: trikster2
HardCore> So I mispoke. I guess canadians never make errors? No I don't think monitors at non-native res look like a thick layer of vaseline, I probably was thinking take a thick gob or something.

LOL wtf? Now why the hell would you need to bring nationality into this? LOLOLOL man you're an idiot.

So I'm full of sh1t? Is that the canucks response to anyone that does not agree with them? I'm just trying to give some information here for people trying to decide if they want a 1900x1200 display and think they will get good quality running it at a non-native resolution.

No, i never said it'll be the same as native resolution... it looks odd like i said in my post.

Hardcore: Changing the screen resolution doesn't exactly make things more blurry... it's because LCDs have fixed pixels, and when you change to different resolutions, it may look a little odd because of the way the pixels are fixed, but it doesn't get blurry like that.

[/quote]

LOL nice, except you take everything out of context... 'blurry like that' i said. It does get blurry in the text, but again, that's because of the fixed number of pixels... it just doesn't get blurry to the extent YOU CLAIM it to get.

Again, it's so obvious you've never had an LCD before, or used one in out of resolutions.

 

[CptTripps]

Posted under the I9300 post...

Little bit of research regarding the 1920x1200, glare, and interpolation

My post is at the top of page 6 in anyone would like to read it. All about the 1920x1200 Truelife screens.

Just a little research done here. Was mainly for the people interested in the 9300's as they have the option to not get the 1920x1200 truelife, but also for XPS2 folks who might be worried about gaming at less then 1920x1200 or in regards to glare. I just figured I would try and find out what the people who have actually seen this screen think.

 

[trikster2]

CptTripps. Great link. I think I referenced it earlier in this post.

Thanks for contributing actual information vs opinion (unlike other posters)

"The Inspiron XPS Gen 2 has a 17" LCD, with a native resolution of 1920x1200. We found this display to be surprisingly adept at interpolating lower-than-native resolutions. The typical blur associated with running an LCD below its native resolution wasn't very pronounced when viewing the Windows desktop and while gaming at lower resolutions, blurring was hardly noticeable at all."


I think the key words are "wasn't very pronounced" and "hardly noticeable at all".

Different folks have different standards. I hate anything but 1900x1200 on my 15.4" Lattitude D800 (Oh wait that must be a CRT, I've never used an LCD), but other folks have said it is just swell.

If you look at the nec whitepaper I posted, unless dell discovered a new algorithym (possible I guess) there has to be either blurryness or blockiness. It's simple straightforward graphics fact, either you blur or you block.

Maybe the ultra high res mitigates/lessons the blurring? That's a real posibility.

For now I'm holding that trigger finger until a few people like you have their 9300/XPS-2 and let us know how you like it.

 

[CptTripps]

Originally posted by: trikster2
If you look at the nec whitepaper I posted, unless dell discovered a new algorithym (possible I guess) there has to be either blurryness or blockiness. It's simple straightforward graphics fact, either you blur or you block.

Maybe the ultra high res mitigates/lessons the blurring? That's a real posibility.

For now I'm holding that trigger finger until a few people like you have their 9300/XPS-2 and let us know how you like it.

I agree 100%, I don't believe there is a way of avoiding interpolation, but; I would guess having the extra pixels on a 1920x1200 could help out in that department.

I sold my previous 9100 which had the WUXGA and yes, I did indeed notice it though more so in some apps than others. UT2K4 @ 1280x800 was gorgeous, EQ2 at the same res just looked blurry. Doom3 @1024x768, HL2@1280x800 and Joint Ops1024x768(using widescreen option) were also good performers. I wouldn't say any were perfect but I was very suprised that some handled it better than others. The only one that truly bothered me was EQ2 (that game just bothered me period) cause I could watch the wife play on the desktop and it was so crisp and clean looking.

Anyway, yeah....

 

[kingnick]

 

[kingnick]

Hello people i need some help. I'm in the market for a new laptop i need help choosing which one is better. In this corner i have the Area-51m 7700 with an intel p4 3.6 and in the other corner i have the dell xps2 with the mobile centrino. Can somebody help me on making a decision on which one i should buy?? Thank you whoever responds i appreciate it.

 

[manko]

Originally posted by: kingnick
Hello people i need some help. I'm in the market for a new laptop i need help choosing which one is better. In this corner i have the Area-51m 7700 with an intel p4 3.6 and in the other corner i have the dell xps2 with the mobile centrino. Can somebody help me on making a decision on which one i should buy?? Thank you whoever responds i appreciate it.

If gaming is important to you, the XPS 2 is the best choice. I think the XPS 2 also beats the Alienware on battery life and weight.

IMO, the only reason to go with the Alienware is if more than 50% of your use on the machine will be heavy-duty graphics rendering, video encoding or some other type of computational heavy lifting. The XPS 2 will do fine at those tasks, but the P4 will have an advantage there. If you want the best gaming performance available or are mainly using your computer for general tasks other than I mentioned above, the XPS 2 is the way to go.

 

[kingnick]

thanks manko appreciate the feedback i do want it for gaming and office apps so i will pick it up thx again.