I confess. I don't celebrate Christmas. Not for what it truly stands for at least. Though that doesn't mean I don't get to indulge in the fun part of it, presents! Recently, I made a purchase at a certain website, under my mom's full consent of course, it's her money after all. It isn't really a Christmas gift but I'm treating it as one anyway to get myself into the festive mood.
Now, I'm not going to go around the bushes(or the Christmas tree lol) any further so let's get straight to the point.
This arrived in my mailbox a few days ago. I can't really remember the exact date. Kind of lost track of time after SPM, you know. Well, as you would've already guessed from the picture, or my previous post, it is the L502X aka the DELL XPS 15 Sandy Bridge. As you wouldn't have already guessed though, I customised the original specs a little. The standard 1366x768 res display was replaced with a full HD 1920x1080 one. I also up the Wireless Card from the Intel Centrino to the Centrino Advanced.
As for the rest of the specs, I'm just going to run through them a bit. So let's start under the hood. This laptop is running on the Win7 Home Premium 64bit and powered by a 2.2GHz Intel Core i7 2670QM with turbo boost technology. Along with it, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB HDD. In the graphics department, there is the NVIDIA GeForce 540M with 2GB of dedicated memory capable of streaming 3D videos to a 3D enabled TV via the HDMI port. On the 3DMark11, the XPS 15 scored 1006, better than the category average of 846.
On the outside, the design of the laptop is more industrial unlike it's sleek descendant the XPS 15z which focuses more on aesthetics. Despite that fact, the XPS 15 however is no slack in appearance. It impresses with an anodised aluminium lid and brushed black metal keyboard surround. I really like the subtle white backlighting touches. Other than that, the 2.1 JBL Speakers I think are mind-blowing especially with the bottom mounted sub-woofer and complements the aforementioned 1920x1080 display very well when streaming 1080p movies. The laptop weighing in at about 6.6 pounds is considerably heavy. I had a pretty hard time carrying it around. Though with it's dimensions, the XPS 15 fits perfectly into most laptop bags.
Through first impression, I think this laptop really integrates style and substance into a package. Although the battery life isn't that convincing, I don't see it as much of a problem as I don't plan on moving it a lot. Well, there is much more to explore before I can actually make a solid conclusion on this laptop. Tomorrow is boxing day so do share with me what you got for Christmas in the comment section below. Keep posted! And Merry Christmas!
