Dell Has Impressed Me

A while back I mentioned the new laptop I helped my friend pick out. Earlier this week it arrived, and as of yesterday we opened it. The Dell XPS 17 that he ordered performed much better then I expected to be honest. Everything was pre-installed, including all those annoying dell drivers, After booting up, we made sure to remove the annoying Dell drivers, as well as Mcafee and Roxio Creator. Freed up quite a bit of space.  We were a little disappointed with the fact that Steam was suppose to come pre-installed at no extra charge, but it would seem Dell forgot to do that. It only took us about half an hour to get the computer to where we wanted it to be. We installed the normals: Google Chrome, Pidgin, Skype, and Steam. Then, we updated the graphics drivers, and updated Windows itself. I usually use Microsoft Security Essentials, mostly because it is free and does a great job. My friend prefers to use Malware Bytes. I have never used this, but he says it is lighter (takes up less space) and does the same thing as MSE. In my opinion, what ever floats your boat. 

His specs were good, coming in with an Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia 555M 1GB graphics card, 6 GB RAM, a Samsung solid state drive, and a half terabyte Toshiba. His boot time was about 12-15 seconds, which is still really fast. I have to keep reminding him that he has to install more stuff to the hard drive and less to the SSD as the SSD will get slower the more it fills up, as well as die quicker. The computer only really got hot when we started gaming, but that was no big deal as the ventalation took care of most of the heat. Overall this is a great product, and I am quite surprised at how well it performs considering Dell's track record. I would recommend this computer to someone looking to an affordable gaming laptop.

~Dave

Building a Laptop

Image from Dell's website.

A friend of mine is getting a new laptop for which he would use for work, and maybe a little bit of gaming. He had a price range, and after hours of searching with him we hit the laptop that would fit the price range. The laptop was the Dell XPS 17. Now, as a precursor I was not so fond of allowing him to buy a Dell. See, when I used to own a Dell, they were horrible. However, according to my friend, dell has really upped their quality in recent years, and have also been named #3 in customer satisfaction.

So what were some of the items my friend was looking for? Well, for starters, it had to have an Intel Core i7 processor. Next, it had to have Nvidia graphics, he doesn't like ATI (not to mention the fact that they have driver issues). If possible, he wanted a SSD boot drive and a Hard Drive for storing information. Finally, it had to be affordable and portable. The XPS met all the requirements while still being affordable. It doesn't compare with something like Origin or Falcon Northwest, but for the money you will get a very decent laptop that will probably last you 3-4 years. 

~Dave