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Guitarist Rob Reid Reviews His Dell Studio 15 I am a professional musician by trade so I needed the laptop mainly for recording purposes. Because I am mainly recording classical solo guitar, my recording programs aren't as memory/processor intensive as I'm sure someone using a full pro-tools setup are, but my programs definitely like to use up memory and power. So it was important that the Studio 15 be able to cope with these challenges. Along with my music work I am also a part-time writer and do a lot of typing and the Dell definitely fills my needs in this category! The specifications of my laptop are as follows, it has a Hi-def, 15.6 inch LED widescreen display that is crystal clear, Intel CoreTM i3, 3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz, ATI HD5470 Mobility RadeonTM Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator, Intel High Definition Audio 2.2, 500GB SATA 7200 hard drive, blu-ray slot load drive, wireless, built in camera, 8-in-1 Media Card Reader, 2USB 2.0 ports and a lithium Ion battery. I lucked out in that the one I purchased came with the blu ray drive, but I think the standard for most of them at the price I paid is a CDRW/DVDRW drive. That would have been fine for my needs anyway. The DELL website claims that the battery will provide up to 5 hours and 31 minutes of battery life but I have yet to see this. Maybe this is if you are just doing some simple word processing, but whenever I am watching a movie or using recording software the typical life I get tends to be in the 3 hour range. That is still quite an improvement from my old Acer Aspire 5570! My favorite features are definitely watching the high quality blu-ray on the LED screen and the HDMI port so that I can use the laptop as a blu-ray player with my television. I didn't think I would use this feature much at all but the video quality of blu-ray is absolutely amazing! The new Intel processor seems to work great as well and speed is never an issue for me. I was a little concerned about getting used to windows 7 but so far the transition has been painless, it handles drivers beautifully and always looks after the updates and such, as long as it wasn't Vista I really didn't care! I would've been happier to see a bit longer battery life but you can only expect so much when watching movies or using memory intensive applications so it's pretty much what I expected. Another thing I'm not so crazy about is the keyboard, to me it doesn't have the greatest response and for any extensive typing I usually plugin my wireless keyboard. Again this is a small issue and definitely wouldn't stop me from recommending this particular laptop. All in all the Dell Studio 15 is highly recommend for someone looking for a laptop that will be useful for many different applications including classical guitar music recording. If you'd like to hear some of my work please visit myspace.com/robreidguitar. By Rob Reid for Cheaperlaptop.com Wednesday, July 14, 2010 - That'll Do Nicely - My Dell Inspiron 15 - Diggin' My Dell Vostro 1500 Despite Dodgy Battery - Dell For School? The Inspiron 17R in Peacock Blue - Dell Inspiron 11Z - Dell Mini 10 - Review of the Dell Inspiron 1545 More - Dell laptops and netbooks - Site map |
