Well, after being a loyal Toshiba user for the last 7 years, I was tempted into buying a Dell when upgrade time came around this again.
Despite appalling post-order/pre-delivery customer service, having my order cancelled, then replaced, and waiting 7 weeks instead of the original 2 weeks promised by Dell when I ordered, my patience paid off today when my new Studio 1558 arrived!
My job demands that I have a fast, reliable machine, and with that in mind, when it came to configuring the machine to my specification, I ended up almost doubling the base price, which gave me the following spec:
- Intel® Core™ i7-820QM Mobile Processor (1.73GHz, turbo up to 3.06GHz, 8MB L3 Cache)
- Genuine Windows® 7 Professional, 64bit
- 8 gigs 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM
- 500GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
- GB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD5470 Graphics Card
- DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD)
- 15.6in Widescreen Full High Definition (1920 x 1080) WLED with TrueLife
- Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Backlit Keyboard
- Intel® Wireless LAN 6200 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n card
- 2.0 Mega pixel Integrated Web Camera
- Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi MB
First impressions are great! It feels well built, and looks the business. I’m particularly pleased with the optional back-lit keyboard, which makes life a bit easier in poorly lit conditions, and the performance monitor in the task manager shows 8 (yes 8!) processors, which I’m assuming means that each of the quad processors are dual core – I’m looking forward to see how this speeds things up when running applications like Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere!
I have already run into a couple of issues associated with moving from 32 bit to 64 bit however. I guess I should have done a bit of research up front, but anyway…
- Cisco VPN Client is NOT supported. If you need VPN access, you need to find an alternative method, such as NCP Secure Entry Client
- Adobe Flash Player – There is no support for 64 bit browsers, so you have to use 32 bit IE or 32 bit Firefox if you want to view Flash based content.
- Aptana, my JavaScript, CSS and jQuery weapon of choice, doesn’t yet have full 64 bit support. You can install in into Eclipse, or install the 32 bit version only.
- So far, I’ve had no joy with a 64 bit version of Firefox, but have got the 32 bit version installed instead.
I’m sure I’ll find a few more problems, but so far, so few. Fingers crossed that none that arise are deal breakers!
More to come as I use the 1558 more, but for now, I have to stop writing and carry on installing software, so I can use my new toy at work tomorrow.
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