Dell XPS M1210 may be one of the best power 12.1 inch laptops out there
by yusakugo - Written: Apr 24 '07
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Pros: Size, portability, power for size, overall design, durability
Cons: Heavier than competing 12.1 and 13.3 inch notebooks, expensive versus 14.1 and 15.4 laptops
The Bottom Line: The M1210 excels in all the duties I put it through and provides easy portability. I couldn't ask for anything more. The price is worth it
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| yusakugo's Full Review: Dell XPS™ M1210 (M1210S18) PC Notebook |
I haven't written much of any notebook reviews in a while now. I hadn't bought any new notebooks for the past two years actually. With a complete overhaul of the notebook computers in the house, I bought a loaded Dell Inspiron 1705 17 inch notebook, HP Pavilion dv9233 17 inch notebook, and this particular one... the Dell XPS M1210. The two 17 inch notebooks were to replace aging notebook systems at home while the M1210 was going to be my portable toy... although it has turned out to be much more.
While I purchased the Dell Inspiron and HP Pavilion brand new, I purchased the Dell XPS M1210 from the Dell outlet center since Dell has long stopped offering coupons that can be applied to XPS level systems. I've had this unit for a month... and it is my favorite notebook to date.
Unless you are a serious gamer (this applies to anyone who plays games that require a serious graphics card), this system will appeal to a wide audience as it can provide more than enough computing power for the masses especially if there is an emphasis on portability. The major problem is the price for even an entry level version of this computer can get you a fully loaded 14.1 or 15.4 inch laptop that will outperform for the same price.
Short Take
Although the M1210 is still graphically underpowered versus my other two 17 inch laptops, the M1210 has been the system I used the most. The combination of power, good graphical capabilities, easy portability, and good battery life make this notebook a winner in my eyes.
Being from the Dell's XPS line, XPS notebooks are a bit more solid in construction, more consistent with performance, and more robust in graphical capabilities. However, you pay a premium compared to 14.1, 15.4, and even 17 inch notebooks available on the market. In fact the XPS line prices closer to the boutique high end gaming notebook market where spending 2 to 3 grand on a serious gaming level notebook is considered cheap.
The M1210 is a well designed notebook with a minor gripe from me regarding the extended battery design and the questionable Dell Support history. I give the notebook a hearty recommendation although I warily look at Dell's Phone and Email Customer Support.
Price
I purchased the M1210 in March 2007. This was a refurbished unit originally built and sold on February 2007 and returned to Dell within a month. This was classified as a Dell Certified Refurbished system since it was turned on and used. I paid $1499 before sales tax. I got $75 back when I complained that the system did not come with the noise-isolating earbuds in the package. Dell Customer Service claimed that they are an extra accessory that you have to pay for... even though it is mentioned on my original purchase page and on their M1210 information page. Regardless, the Customer Service rep didn't put up a fight and offered me $75 instead. Overall, I paid $1530 out of pocket before my 5% back from my credit card and 3% back from fatwallet kicks in.
The price of this setup with a 1 year warranty is $2069 for a brand new unit when I checked the day I purchased this laptop. I will list the full specs of this system in the next section.
Specs
My M1210 notebook came with:
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 processor (2.0GHz dual core processor with 4MB L2 cache and 667MHz memory support)
2 GB of 667MHz DDR2 (PC-5300) RAM
80 GB 7200rpm hard drive
8x DVD writer with dual layer support (also writes CD-R/RW)
geForce 7400 graphics card with up to 256MB of memory (64MB integrated and 192MB shared with system memory)
12.1 inch LCD display capable of 1280x800 resolution
Bluetooth 2.0 compliant card (model number 355)
Draft-N wireless Wi-Fi card (1500 Wireless card)
Integrated 1.3 MegaPixel camera and microphone
Integrated WiFi catcher
Integrated WiFi antenna
Windows Vista Home Premium
12-month Norton Internet Security subscription
9-cell extended battery
Note that you cannot configure notebooks through the Dell Outlet, they are preconfigured to returned Dell stock.
Styling and Casing
The dimensions of the notebook are 11.7"x1.2"x8.7" Weight of the base configuration with a 6-cell battery starts are 4.37 lbs.
The majority of the outer casing is made from a magnesium-alloy and painted black. The rest is a heavy gauge plastic either gray or silver in color. If you choose the integrated webcam and omni-directional microphone, this is attached to the top of the screen. The webcam does rotate 180 degrees. A heavy gauge plastic is used for the housing of the webcam and microphone. There are no switches or levers to open the notebook like on many 14.1, 15.4, and 17 inch notebooks. When closed, the notebook exterior casing is almost entirely black. The interior casing of the notebook has a silver and grey two tone color scheme. The full sized keyboard also has a nice silvery color to it as well. Overall, the notebook is very solid feeling and comfortable to carry.
Although there is no latch to hold the cover/screen closed, the hinges are pretty tight so it doesn't fly open in transport. The front end of the notebook holds the media control buttons (play/pause, mute, increase volume, decrease volume, skip forward, skip backwards, and stop) which have nice blue glow at all times. Below the media buttons are two headphone jacks (allowing you to connect the M1210 to a 5.1 surround sound system) and a microphone jack. The speakers for the system are located below the screen. The touchpad is small but functional. It has a good amount of drag and the touch pad buttons are of a good size. The keyboard is a full sized and very comfortable to type on. The keyboard has very good tactile feedback which makes the keyboard that much more of a pleasure to type on for a touch typist like me. There are three buttons above the keyboard which are the MediaDirect button, Power button, and Camera button. Also above the keyboard are the keyboard and wireless status lights. On the right hinge is the power light, hard drive light, and battery light.
On the left side, you have a modem jack (RJ-11), 2 USB 2.0 connectors, S-video out jack, exhaust vents, wireless off/on/WiFi Catcher switch, the Wi-Fi Catcher LED, ExpressCard slot, and the external part of the hard drive housing.
On the right side, is the optical bay, 5-in-1 memory card reader (SD, MMC, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, xD-Picture card formats), mini-IEEE 1394 connector, 2 USB 2.0 connectors, and the VGA port (you cannot use this port for the VGA security cables as it lacks the side metal screws).
On the back, you have the Network jack (RJ-45), battery area (the 6-cell is flush with the casing I think while the 9-cell extends a quite a bit past the casing), AC adapter connector, and the security cable slot.
Air intake to help cool the computer comes from underneath the computer... you had best remember that.
In My Use
Playing with the M1210 for a month now, my only complaint is that Windows Vista Home Premium is a bit slow to load and isn't compatible with some of my favorite programs (like my Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 and Adobe Photoshop CS). Windows Vista seems to load as much crud as possible into your system based on the specs it detects. I just haven't bothered with the optimization of the Vista but it annoys me that some of my older programs are not supported in Vista. I can't even use my Adaptec GameBridgeTV unit with any of my Vista notebooks! On top of that, many of the drivers for some hardware are less feature rich as their Windows XP counterparts.
On the notebook itself, I was able to install my older Office 2003 software without issues.
No appreciable differences in running Office 2003 versus my Inspiron 6000 or the Inspiron 1705 notebooks.
I ran a couple of movies on the system the first time with the AC adapter attached. I ran The Incredibles which looked well... incredible (as good as my Inspiron 6000)! The speakers can fill a small room although lack a bit in depth of the sound. Overall the speakers were louder than my Inspiron 6000. I also ran Curse of the Golden Flower which looked fantastic (although not as good as on my Inspiron 1705... the color rendition on the M1210 seemed to be better than my Inspiron 6000. Ghosting was minimal to nonexistant versus the Inspiron 6000. Battery life on pure movie playback was about 4 1/2 hours although a bit longer if you went through MediaDirect instead of Windows Vista (up to 5 1/4 hours). This is based off a screen setting of 20% and allowing the system to determine appropriate processor speed on the fly.
I've run Rise of Nations, Rise of Legends, Civilizations 4, and Galactic Civilizations II without any problems. I had some graphical problems with these games on my Inspiron 6000 such as stuttering of the graphics and extreme slow down if there are many units on the world map. World of Warcraft worked fine as well... no real difference from my Inspiron 6000 although given World of Warcraft is graphically less complicated, it is not a surprise. I have not tried graphically intense programs like Command and Conquer 3, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, F.E.A.R., or Supreme Commander.
Connecting through a NETGEAR WGR614 b/g router was easy and stable. Transmission of data was more consistent than with my Inspiron 6000.
Screen
Well, it is a 12.1 inch screen that has 1280x800 resolution. The screen can get pretty bright although not to the level as larger notebooks. It has a glossy coat (the TrueLife glossy coating). The response time seems to be pretty good as ghosting in fast games and fast motion seemed to be minimal. I had no problems with the screen overall.
The screen dimensions are 6.43"x10.28" (HxW) making the 12.1 inch screen. Maximum resolution is 1280x800 at 16.7 million colors. Refresh rate 60Hz. Viewing angles +/-40 degrees horizontally and +10 degrees/-30 degrees vertically. Pixel pitch is 0.204 mm.
Speakers
Basically a stereo speaker setup with the speakers under the 12.1 inch screen. The speakers have a 4 ohm resistance.
Battery Life
With the 9-cell extended battery, the system lists up to 4 1/2 hours of runtime (through Windows Vista) although I more typically got 3 1/2 hours with WiFi and Bluetooth on and the screen at 20% brightness during my typical use of the laptop which includes playing computer games. Dell claims up to 7 hours of runtime with all power saving features enabled and maximized.
The battery has a button to tell you an estimate of the power left in it. A 5 bar LED panel telling you 20, 40, 60, 80, or 100% charge.
On the extended battery, this battery extends a good thumb width from the back of the notebook. The battery is also held to the notebook at 4 points... 2 of them fairly thin. While the notebook casing is a strong magnesium alloy, the battery housing is made of plastic. While I haven't had a problem, it does worry me.
Wi-Fi Catcher
The M1210 has a built in Wi-Fi sensor that can operate with the lid closed. The switch has a wireless on and off setting. When you depress the switch past the on setting and let it spring back, it activates the Wi-Fi Catcher. What happens is that the LED next to the switch with change colors to show the strength of WiFi networks in the area. Solid green means a strong WiFi signal is present. Flashing green means searching for networks. Solid Yellow means a weak WiFi signal is present. Flashing red means no signal is present in the area.
When the computer is on, a window showing available networks pops up. Settings can be changed in the BIOS and in the Quickset program through Windows.
Heat
Because of the smaller size and upgraded components, the M1210 generates a decent amount of heat. While it is nothing like that of notebooks in the past, it is definitely noticible.
Warranty and Dell's Customer Service
As I've been purchasing computers from Dell over the past 10 years... Dell's Customer Service has significantly worsened other the years. However, the Customer Service for Dell can be excellent at times or just plain rotten. The only thing the Customer Service is consistent with... is being inconsistent. Of note is that any XPS system has a dedicated XPS technical support number which seems to be slightly better than the standard Dell technical support number.
In the End
A fine notebook if you're willing to pay extra for the quality and power in a small package.
The competition mainly is Lenovo, Sony, and HP in the mainstream market unless you're looking for a gaming level notebook (there are tons of small companies and the boutique PC makers). Sony charges quite a bit more for similar hardware specs but their designs feature the much stronger carbon fiber casing which makes the notebooks even lighter and much tougher on the outside. As I said, you're paying the price for it though. HP seems to have the more interesing alternative 12.1 inch notebook. Their tx1000 series runs off the AMD Athlon 64 x2 processors and a rather good integrated nVidia graphics chip (GeForce Go 7150 chipset) which provides enough power for the casual user and costs a decent amount less than a similarly equiped M1210. The fact that the tx1000 has the option of fingerprint security, touchscreen capability (and tablet capability), and a more flexible screen makes it a flexible and interesting choice. I haven't researched Lenovo's designs personally.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1424
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 12 inches
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
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