Dell Studio 14z: Thin and Light Done Right
by Jarred Walton on October 20, 2009 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Dell Studio 14z Overview
There's plenty to like about the design and appearance of the Studio 14z, although we are unfortunately treated to yet another laptop with a glossy plastic chassis. If you were hoping the Studio 14z would match the MacBook in that area, you'll be sorely disappointed. In order to get MacBook aesthetics, no need to spring for the much more expensive Dell Adamo, but then you're competing with MacBook Air rather than the standard MacBook. The short story is that in terms of aesthetics, the Studio 14z can't match up to Apple, but (depending on configuration) it can save you some money.
Given the limited real estate on a 14" chassis, Dell still manages to cram in quite a few features. One of the better features is dual digital outputs: one HDMI and one DisplayPort connector are available. If you don't have a DisplayPort LCD, you'll need an adapter, but you can always buy such an LCD from Dell. You also get Gigabit Ethernet, three USB ports -- one does double duty as an eSATA port -- and mini FireWire. Dell doesn't include a flash reader by default, but you can purchase a flash reader accessory that plugs into the ExpressCard/34 slot.
When you compare the Studio 14z with your typical netbook, it's easy to understand Dell's frustration with netbooks. The Studio 14z has a better keyboard, it's tons faster than any Intel Atom system, it can play games, and it still delivers reasonable battery life. By comparison, netbooks feel small and have difficult to use displays (1024x600, we're talking about you). We're not particularly pleased with the default 1366x768 LCD, but we're happy that Dell offers a $50 upgrade to a 1600x900 display. Given the choice, we would take the Studio 14z over any netbook in a heartbeat. The catch is that netbooks can still offer twice the battery life in a lighter package, for less than half the price. We definitely wouldn't recommend using a netbook as your only computer, but the 14z can fill that role for most people.
The 14z keyboard has a good layout, with all of the important keys easily accessible. Dell hasn't changed their typical layout in some time, but it's obvious that effort went into designing a good keyboard. We wish we could say the same about other manufacturers, but far too often we find strange decisions in terms of which keys to provide in which to relegate to special Fn+key combinations. Our impression is that Dell has done usability studies and come up with a good layout, and we have no complaints. As an added bonus, an extra $25 gets you LED backlighting on your keyboard -- great for when you need to use the laptop in low lighting conditions.
There are a couple areas where the 14z could still be improved. Of course there is the aforementioned glossy plastic chassis; obviously that's a cost cutting measure, but we would be very pleased to see a return of matte plastic at the very least -- along with matte LCDs. We don't know what the upgraded LCD is like, but we can also say that the default LCD leaves a lot of room for improvement. It's plenty bright, but like many other inexpensive laptops it has very poor contrast ratios. We wouldn't even qualify the Studio 14z as an "inexpensive" laptop, considering many users will spend over $1000 once they add a few desirable upgrades, so it would have been nice if Dell would have sprung for a better display. We also wish Dell could have figured out a way to include a second SO-DIMM slot; 3GB RAM should be sufficient, but 4GB would be better in the option to upgrade to 8GB in the future would be great. Finally, access to the hard drive requires a lot more work than most laptops, making end-user upgrades more difficult than necessary. Some people will definitely want to upgrade to an SSD, and there's potential to break some of the plastic chassis elements if you're not careful.
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beastyben1 - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
the speakers are the best I've had in a laptop. very loud and clear.BPB - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Got this a few months ago for my daughter and we have been VERY happy with it. I believe we went with an 8400 CPU, and I do think as mentioned they were offering higher than the 8600 option mentioned in the article. My daughter got her's in pink, by the way. I guess they got rid of that color option. We went with the higher res screen and backlit keyboard. Again, very, very happy with it.beastyben1 - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
I've owned this laptop since August.Everything is perfect, except the worst touchpad drivers I have ever used. Sticks, freezes just terrible. Must use a mouse. Otherwise I love it. T6500, 8-cell, 1600X900 LED.
FATCamaro - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
How do you people accept this kind of junk. I'm glad I switched to Mac once I started buying laptops.The0ne - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
Your single interpretation of defect means absolutely nothing in regards to the quality of the laptop. Having said that why in the world you any one of you start a "mine is better than yours" or "Mac is better than Windows PC" debate? It's pointless and childish.You're going to have to face that fact that there is NO SINGLE product made without defects. There is no Quality system that will give your 100%, and no TPS doesn't either.
But you all know this and yet lower yourself to this type of discussion. I wouldn't mind so much if this was in other tech sites but I don't like it on Anandtech where there are typically very knowledgeable and respectful users.
And lastly I'm 100% sure none of you voicing your opinion is not even in the industry or manufacturing/logistic to know what you're saying other than Google-ing. Trust me when I say this, there are no perfect product. What you call junk isn't junk and what you hail as the mightiest is not either. All you can do is try to Google, or what I call it research, as much as you can and hope that what you paid for isn't in one of the bad ones made.
Eagle17 - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
I have a macbook pro with the santa rosa chips. I have frequent problems with it. I am on my third battery (at $130 ea) the backlit keyboard does not always light up anymore, only 2 usb slots, a funky not always works hold two fingers and press the button for right clicks. The OS is so/so I would be just as happy with linux since there are not many native macos applications that I find usefull.the unit is all aluminum which at first glance makes it seem very sturdy however in the three years i have owned it the lid has started to stick and requires more force to open. And like most modern laptops it does get blistering hot.. the metal case just makes that worse.
The led backlit screen is very good though. that is the one thing i really like about this device. maybe the only thing.
JimmyJimmington - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
"And like most modern laptops it does get blistering hot.. the metal case just makes that worse."I don't know what you mean by "most modern laptops." If a laptop is too hard to put on your lap then it's poorly designed.
Eagle17 - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
sorry I mean the last few C2D laptops I have had (2 hp 8xxx series, the macbook pro, and a lenovo t500) they all get pretty hot althought the macbook is the worst.both of my atom based netbooks are just fine though. (acer 9in and asus 1005ha)
Pirks - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Junk? My Alineware notebook pwns any MacBook Pro and dances on its unicorpse, including the top of the line MBP 17, because it has faster hardware. The Alienware's trackpad is shitty, you're right on that, PC trackpads are mostly shit these days compared to Macs but my Alienware still plays all my games REAL fast while MBP craaawls slooowly given same resolution and detail settings... so to each his own. When MBP starts playing games as fast as my Alienware then I may think about it, but it'll never happen, alas. At least not with Jobs at helm.beastyben1 - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
like Macs are not subject to faults? I'd much rather have this. my .02.