Dell XPS L502X: buying experience and personal experiences

This article may be of interest primarily to those who are looking for a good multimedia laptop.

Purchase

It so happened that about 3 months ago I had the opportunity to buy a laptop in the United States. Those interested are aware that prices are much lower there than in Russia (I live in St. Petersburg), and the choice is greater. In particular, all three manufacturers, of which I was interested in laptops (namely, Lenovo, Sony and Dell), offer you the opportunity to independently determine the configuration of your laptop and ultimately get exactly what you need. Sony has little to choose, Lenovo has good configuration options, and Dell can select almost everything =)
')
This is my third laptop. The first was HP Compaq 6510b purchased at the end of 2008 (also in the USA, via eBay). The second is the Lenovo Thinkpad Edge 14 purchased in October 2010 (they wrote about it on Habré, and this article played an important role in the selection). A good laptop at a great price, and even with a matte screen =) It's hard to explain why, but it didn't work out for me with the Edge. Perhaps, I subconsciously expected from him the build quality of the T series, although for that kind of money, it was probably stupid of me.

When the opportunity to change the Edge turned up, I began to look at what was on the market. It was just then that the new T420 and T520 laptops from Lenovo were expected to be released, and since I had the opportunity to touch the previous series (T410 and T510), I was thinking of taking exactly one of them. When they appeared on the Lenovo website, I was very disappointed by collecting what I wanted (Core i5, 1080p FHD display, 4-6 GB RAM, embedded video), and seeing a price of about $ 1,300 at that time ... They even ask for the camera Pay extra $ 30!

A small remark. I do not have the opportunity to put a desktop PC at home, so I needed a full replacement in the form of a laptop.

Sony didn’t have any decent options, and then I turned my attention to Dell, namely the updated XPS 15 model. For $ 999 (!) A model with a Core i7 2630QM, 6 GB RAM, GeForce 525M, 1080p FHD display and 750 hard drive was offered GB The difference, as they say, is obvious.

Now a few words about the process of buying. The plan was like that. I pay money for the laptop with my bank card, the laptop is delivered to my friend in the US, and he sends it to me. After talking with three different representatives of Dell's sales support (for loyalty), and making sure that they accept payment cards issued not in the US, I got down to business. After collecting my model, I paid the required amount, and literally immediately saw that the order status changed to Canceled.

You guessed it, what was the matter? That's right, they do NOT accept non-USA bank cards. So believe after this people =)

Two subsequent orders, for which my friend was already paying, were canceled due to the fact that Dell entered its address in the “black list”. And only for the fourth time everything turned out - after he called Dell and confirmed that he was indeed a US citizen, his address was unblocked. I transferred money to him with PayPal (3.2% commission, if memory serves me). During that time, while all these peripetias lasted, the model for $ 999 left, and I had to take the same one, only for $ 1099 (there is a Blu-ray player in it, which I don't need). It, by the way, is now (4th in the list ).

Fortunately, the problems are almost over. Almost because Lufthansa lost the luggage of the person who carried him to Russia, but delivered him the next day, safe and sound =)

Hint: you should look for discount coupons before you buy. I saved about $ 80 with their help.

Personal impressions

So, what did I get for $ 1200 in total:

Processor: Intel Core i7 2630QM (Sandy Bridge Architecture)
Memory: 6 GB DDR3 1333MHz
Video: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 525M 1GB graphics with Optimus
Hard Drive: 750 GB SATA (7200 rpm)
Screen: 15.6 FHD B + RGLED TL (1920x1080)
Drive: reads Blu-ray (never tried it yet), writes CD / DVD
Connectors: on the right - a microphone, headphones (2 outputs), USB 2.0 / eSATA port; on the left - USB 3.0; on the back are HDMI, Ethernet, mini DisplayPort, Kensington, and another USB 3.0; front card reader
Optional: keyboard backlight, Creative SoundBlaster X-FI MB 1.2 sound card, Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1030 & Bluetooth 3.0
Weight: about 3 kg

What can I say? For more than 2 months that I use this laptop, I have never regretted my choice.

I will begin, perhaps, with the display. I did not see such bright, saturated colors on any laptop screen! The difference with the Thinkpad Edge is simply colossal. A feature of this display is that the backlight uses LEDs in three colors (instead of one, as in most displays).

The second time I was shocked when I turned on the song on YouTube and heard SOUND. JBL speakers with a subwoofer, coupled with a sound card from Creative naturally blew my mind =) Before that, I had no idea that a laptop could produce this. It is simply impossible to describe, it needs to be heard.

You can evaluate the performance on the screen below.



I ran Starcraft 2 on it at maximum settings and native resolution. Everything worked great. However, if you plan to play games, then you should probably take a model with a GT 540M and 2 GB of memory.

From enjoyable. Large and comfortable touchpad, quite comfortable backlit keyboard. Even though I type blindly, sometimes it really helps me out (remember how I poked at night on the Thinkpad Edge in search of the right key). There is a touch panel for adjusting Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and display settings, as well as the keyboard backlight and audio settings.

It almost doesn't work for me from the battery, so I can't say anything concrete here. They write that a standard 6-cell battery gives about 3 hours (optional, you can take a 9-cell).

Some people do not like the design, but it suits me perfectly, so that, as they say, “all the markers are different in taste and color”.

The only disadvantage would be that the screen is glossy.

Summary

I recommend =)

For those interested

A full review can be read, for example, here or here .

Photos can be viewed here . The video is here .