Got my Dell Inspiron 13z today

£522 and:

- Black
- 13.3" LED screen
- Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor ULV SU7300 (1.3GHz, 800MHz, 3MB)
- 3GB DDR3 1066MHz (1x 1GB, 1x 2GB) (max support 6GB) (will remove 1GB, add 2GB)
- 320GB 7200rpm (low band config has 5400rpm 250GB) (will change to a 64 or 128GB SSD)
- Intel X4500MHD gfx (top band config has nVidia G105M 512MB which must be coupled with the 8cell battery)
- DVD/RW drive (considering the thickness of this I'm surprised they squeezed this in!)
- 5rs 9mins run on 4 cell battery with Express charge (8cell available for 11hrs run)
(Express Charge charges the battery back to 80% in 60 minutes)
- Wireless G (N available at £31 extra) (will add an Intel 5300 N card which I have bought already if/when it arrives)
- Win7 HP x64 (will change to fresh Win7 Pro x64)


Box is surprisingly small - smaller than the HP Compaq 311c and this is a bigger notebook!

Straight out the box it's very light, it feels lighter than the HP did in fact even though the figures say otherwise - it's the lightweight plastics Dell use perhaps but it doesn't feel cheap or fragile either.

The touchpad is textured and not smooth like the palmrest is, it is a Synaptics touchpad and is lag free =] I cannot stress enough how nice this touchpad is to use. We have XPS laptops at work which we program with and it feels just as smooth and responsive as those.

The DVDRW drive is a HLDTST (LG) GU10-N and the HDD is a Western Digital Scorpio Black edition (link) - pretty neat having a top end Black edition in there instead of the usual eco drives!

The HDD is also partitioned quite nicely, 60GB for OS, 10GB for recovery and 230GB for user documents.

The keyboard is completely flat but is ridged and the keys appear to be standard size so no issues with small keys etc.

The left/right mouse buttons are not clicky buttons but are seating above rubber contacts so have good travel and good feel, just like other Inspiron and XPS models.

The overall thickness of the 13z is superb especially when considering that it has a DVDRW drive. It is thinner than the HP Mini 311c and does not get thicker at the back. It is very slim. Only downer is the bag I bought for £25 is 1" too small so I will put that along with the 1GB DDR3 module in member's market in a moment and buy a new bag!

Moving on to the RAM, it comes with 2GB stick of an unheard of brand and 1GB Samsung. I installed my Kingston DDR3 2GB to total 4GB.

I'm currently installing a fresh copy of Win7 Pro x64 as I have no intention of leaving the Dell pre-installed version of Premium on there.

I really like the little touches, the power block is the newer flat style block so easily compact, it will be even more compact when I buy one of those folding UK plugs as I have a clover shaped lead which I have shortened. Also the power cord's plug that has a glowing ring is neat and the BIOS options to change the Wireless on/off button behaviour so you can have it disable/enable all wireless and networking or selective.

The screen is glossy, as glossy as my Hazro 24" and colours seem vibrant so far although that's going by the Windows Install screen blue shades

Updated the pics over a late dinner!






















(on bottom = Asus 15.4" X58L)





Update*

I've posted some thoughts towards the end of the thread but probably worth adding some pros/cons here after using it for a whole day and night.

Pros:
- Lightweight.
- Thin from front to back (unless using the 8cell extended battery).
- Super smooth Windows 7, the speed of a desktop in fact.
- Trackpad is amazing response wise and the size is very good. Scrolling is accurate too.
- Screen brightness is uniform, no bleeding noticed.
- Express Charge is a nice feature.
- Local HD content plays smoothly even if it's not GFX accelerated as I found on one movie (The Matrix @ 1080P).
- Flash 10.1 BETA works on all but one site (iPlayer) with CPU usage of around 30%.

Cons:
- According to Windows the battery from charge on day one was 2.45hours in high performance mode, I will test with the default balanced mode and with Extended Battery enabled in Dell Quickset utility.
- There is no [PAUSE/BREAK] key unless i have gone blind I only used this to access system properties page, now i have to right click my computer to get to it!
- The current Synaptics driver doesn't have middle click like some other Dell laptops have where you press both mouse buttons to get a middle click, would be nice to have!)
- There is no HDD activity LED that I could find, only the combined Power/Battery status LED.
- Vertical viewing angles are average, horizontal is fine though, no different to any other netbook from what I've seen.
- Gonna need to keep a microfibre cloth to hand to wipe smudges off the glossy screen and lid/palm rest

I'm tempted by the Dell Extended battery now actually, I know it will raise the height by another inch but that may be a good thing depending on where it's being used. Unless Dell do a 6cell that will fit this....

Nice pictures! I'm impressed with the battery life. My Vostro 1500 has never been great with battery. Do you have any 1080p MKVs to try out?

I do indeed, still configuring my settings and software though but will try them tonight

I will also try the Flash 10.1 BETA as the 4500MHD should be able to handle GPU decoding for FlashHD.

looks nice, i went with a HP dm3t due to 10hrs battery life, but no optical drive.....

nice that it has a black drive in there also.

would you mind running 3Dmark06 and PCmark and post your numbers on this thread....
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1471759

Thanks

I've not got Those benchmarking apps to hand but will give them a run when I get a chance to DL them most likely over the next few days - at present I'm getting everything up to speed.

Just played some HD content and everything is smooth as silk both on screen and out via HDMI.

720P and 1080P .mkv movies use around % CPU using DXVA in MPC-HC.

thanks.... no rush....

just good to have data for people when they google search SU7300 or SP9300 benchmarks.... as of now there is not much that comes up

Understandable! The only way I found a 13z review was to buy it myself and review it myself

Thankfully I don't want to return it lol so money well spent

Nice pictures. I will have to wait and see how much this thing will cost when its available here in the states.

A couple years ago I would've loved something like this... But now I can't help but think "how much smaller and lighter would that thing be without a DVD-ROM drive?"

Very nice photos, btw. I wish I could do that.

Btw, is it 1366x768 resolution?

That's a sharp portable.

I wish more laptops would innovate on the design of the PSU like dell and apple do.

what camera are you using by the way?

those are such pretty pictures; the quality is amazing

yeah great pics....

Hey thanks guys,

I used my Canon 40D with 430EX remote flashgun and 17-55 EFs lens

I did wonder too about the thickness had it not had a DVDrw as I do already have a USB DVDRW drive on my desktop PC but I am also wondering if Dell will out some kind of secondary battery where you can remove the DVDRW drive and replace the slot with the secondary battery giving extra power as opposed to using the 8cell extended battery which does stick out by another inch or so at the back!

I've been using it all night now and even when GPU acceleration was not possible for one movie (The Matrix HDDVD rip at 1080) The CPU did hover around 80-90% mark and the video was still perfectly smooth. I think this is due to the current Intel drivers for the 4500MHD not supporting all the HD formats but everything else I had worked fine.

Battery life. My understanding is that these lithium ion batteries requires a few charge cycles before they reach their peak correct? I used it in bed last night and the battery meter was saying 2.45hours from full charge but this was in high performance mode. I guess I should be using balanced mode and install the latest Intell Quickset which enables extended battery life.

Also the Express Charge feature is nice, can charge the battery to 80% in 60mins.

I just need to find a bag now that fits this as my 12.1" Belkin messenger bag is an inch too small!

shurcooL yep it is 1366x768.

Thanks for the 1080p test! Hmmm I think my next laptop will be 13". Possibly this one.

I've asked Dell about the extended battery if they do a 6cell version, I would like one but don't really want the 8cell for its extra size unelss absolutely necessary.
I'm hoping new battery tech comes out next year though!

Hoping....

the new Asus ul20vt and the HP dm3 t or z are both good 13" thin and lights also. but they lack an optical drive...

Windows Experience Index:



And PCMark05: 2588