Dell Studio 17: When Gaming Isn't Enough
by Dustin Sklavos on August 26, 2010 12:10 AM ESTBattery Life in a Desktop Replacement
If you aren't expecting much out of the battery of the Dell Studio 17, you're probably right not to. This is a massive 17-inch notebook; in addition to feeding that large screen, the battery also has to power a processor with a 45W TPD and mainstream-class mobile graphics. Dell seems to have been cognizant of this in opting to ship the Studio 17 with a 9-cell battery standard (a 6-cell battery that sits flush with the unit is also available.) Let's see how it fares.
In practice, Dell is able to get far more running time out of this notebook than we expected they would. While it's true that this notebook has the advantage of a 9-cell battery, its relative battery life is nonetheless quite good given the components inside and larger screen. Dell has managed to get a 17" screen, 45W Intel mobile quad-core, and a decent GPU to produce battery life comparable to AMD machines running off of integrated graphics: no mean feat to be sure. Granted, AMD's latest Danube and Nile platforms improve the situation, but Clarksfield processors have never been very battery friendly.
The only question mark is really just how important this kind of useful battery life is on a machine this big. Sure, it's great that it can handle surfing the internet for more than four hours, but the thing weighs nearly eight pounds, and it's mighty wide. The best case I can suggest is that it would be useful for any kind of on-the-go media work, where you need a monitor or just powerful hardware that can run on the battery for a substantial amount of time.
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Dustin Sklavos - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
It's my understanding the most recent BIOS should've fixed the fan issue. I don't really have that problem with mine.Lingyis - Thursday, September 2, 2010 - link
well, the technician came but wasn't able to fix it so dell is sending me a replacement machine in 10 days or so.i hope the one i currently have just happens to be a lemon.
that aside, the screen is incredible. i'm seeing purple colors i've never seen before on a computer screen. deep blues are also nice.
battery life is definitely short... will see if the replacement machine does better.
Lingyis - Wednesday, September 15, 2010 - link
Well, i got my replacement. It has the exact same issue.Are you sure you don't have a fan problem?
My test case is actually your website. Using Internet Explorer, go to anandtech.com, and cycle through the "latest post" graphics. Does you fan come on every time you click on the "Next" triangle?
Because on mine, and both of mine that I got in the mail, the fan goes on reproducibly. You click, the picutre cycles, the fan goes on for 2 seconds, goes off. You click again, same thing happened again.
I tried it on a bunch of other computers and laptops none seem to have that issue.
Even if it's an IE issue, the fan still comes on way too much. Like as it goes through setup, the fan would come on quite a bit, but again, only a few seconds at a time.
On this newest Studio 17 I just received, I imagine the BIOS is up-to-date, just as my last Studio 17. So I haven't checked, or maybe I'm too upset to bother, so maybe I'll eat my words tomorrow when I contact customer support and a BIOS update fixes things.
If not, I'll try my best to get my money back from Dell, which is unfortunately because I am really liking the screen and I've gotten used to the keyboard. I spent $1500 on this (maxing out most specs) and I'm not going to be happy with the annoying fan.
Lingyis - Thursday, September 16, 2010 - link
Okay, so the replacement machine has the exact same issue and couldn't be fixed. So I'm returning for a refund. Which is too bad because I'm really starting to like the machine, but the fan is too annoying to bear.bijeshn - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
Quote:"Thankfully, you can toggle them back to being proper function keys in the BIOS. ..."
You don't have to take the trouble of going to BIOS to change it. You can toggle them in the Mobility Center itself.
AnnonymousCoward - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
It is an atrocity for Dell to only put 1360x768 in Inspiron 15.6" models. They might as well include 256MB RAM and call it a day. I still love my D610 screen, a 14.1" 1400x1050.When a $255 netbook has a 10.1" 1024x600, midrange Dells with crappy resolution are pointless.
The cheapest Dell 17" has 1600x900 for $530. 1920x1080 brings it up to $850!
Another "WTF" is, didn't Dell get the memo about SSDs? Give an X25-M 80GB option for +$150.
seapeople - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
Yes, it's amazing that Dell, alone out of all the manufacturers of computers, uses a 1360x768 screen on 15" laptops. You'd think that since nobody else uses such a screen, Dell wouldn't dare think about using it. This is fully Dell's fault, a blame attributable to no other. Considering that they don't even make LCD panels, I'm sure they had to look far and wide to find these ultra rare, uncommon, not very often used 1360x768 panels. You'd think they'd take the easy way out and just put on the same resolution panels as everyone else. But no, not Dell.tvdang7 - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
my studio xps 16 only gets about 2-2.5 hours of internet usage or about 2 hours with video play back. with a 9 cell. i do not get how the studio 17 gets about an hour + more than it with equal specs.JarredWalton - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
That's about in line with what I tested on the Studio XPS 16 back in the day:http://www.anandtech.com/show/2746/10
My guess is that the RGB LED backlighting (even at 100nits) uses more power than white LEDs. It's also likely that in the past 18 months Dell has managed to tune power requirements such that the latest laptops use less power than their older counterparts.
tvdang7 - Monday, August 30, 2010 - link
mine is wled not rgb. so we have about equal specs except that i have the 5730 video card which draws less power than the 4650. So its blowing my mind.