Dell Studio 1555 review

My experiences of the Studio 1555

Thought I would add my personal experiences of the 1555 as I bought one when they came out a couple of months ago.

I wanted a good all-rounder that would act as the hub for my startup home recording studio as well as something I could take places with me to do the usual surfing, writing, movie watching and gaming. On all those scores it has proved to be a really good buy.

So far my 1555 has dealt with the hard grind of driving Abelton Live and the recording gear very well, no grumbles just good solid performance. The gaming experience has been good too. Ok, so you can't whack Crysis up to full spec but if you dial things down a bit I've yet to play a game that felt it was suffering on the laptop. My fave TF2 looks and play great though the touchpad is no use at all for gaming. Movies also look good and the sound quality is great, even through the laptop speakers which quite impressed me. Good selection of ins and outs too. Two headphone outputs is quite nice for sitting on a plane or train watching a movie with your friend.

On the down side the screen is a little bit reflective at times, but that is probably my main complaint. The other thing I don't particularly like is the touchpad. It is ok, and I admit I've never liked them anyway but I have found it a bit tricky to set up to the point where I'm happy using it. Certainly the default set up was a real pain.

One thing I would disagree with the PC Pro review over is I don't find the build quality questionable at all. Maybe the reviewer was unlucky or I was lucky? Mine is solid and feels robust and I've even got used to the 'flying wedge' shape, definitely an acquired taste but I like it!

I was fortunate enough to get a very good deal on a Dell offer that brought the cost down to £580 inc VAT and delivery. And that included a slightly better spec than the review version here - a 500gb HD, the longer life 9-cell battery which is proving fantastic, and even a nice dark blue lid ;-). I also got a free return flight to New York thanks to a promotion Dell had on at the time. I am thinking I should take the lappy with me as a little thankyou...

Overall, given the deal I got and the experience so far my Studio 1555 is proving to be an excellent laptop!

By hevster on 28 Aug 2009

not for a Winter sports enthusiast

I loved everything about the 1555 until I look at some skiing photos - these have a really bad purple tinge which once you are aware of this colour cast it becomes slightly apparent in other non-snow scenes. I had no issues at all with build quality, I like the keyboard, screen brightness, sound is excellent but I need to look at skiing pictures and edit skiing videos and I can't live with that purple tinge, and I did look at several 1555 screens. By comparison my M1530 has a delightful screen (1440*900 CCFL) reproducing colurs very accurately.

By downland on 19 Oct 2009