Dell XPS M1530
January 25th, 2008
The Dell XPS M1330’s near-perfect combination of powerful performance, stylish design, and go-anywhere mobility elevated it to one of our favorite notebooks of 2007. Now Dell follows up that gem with the XPS M1530, which packs in everything that we liked about the M1330 (mobile broadband, discrete graphics) and adds a larger display and a Blu-ray drive. In short, the XPS M1530 one-ups its excellent little brother, giving Dell yet another killer machine in its stable.
Arrayed about the perimeter of the system are three USB 2.0, ExpressCard/54, FireWire, S-Video, VGA, Ethernet, an 8-in-1 memory card reader, Dell Wi-Fi Catcher, dual headphone jacks, and HDMI for exporting video and audio to a big screen. Dell also includes a remote control that allowed us to control our media from up to 10 feet away effortlessly and a pair of loud earbuds that delivered crisp audio. Should you wish to wish to forgo the earbuds, the stereo speakers offer loud, but tinny sound.
Much like the Dell XPS M1330, the M1530 packs a lot of horsepower. A 2.2-GHz Intel Next Generation Core 2 Duo processor, working in tandem with 2GB of RAM (expandable to 4GB) and a 160GB 5,400-rpm hard drive, produced an outstanding PCMark05 score of 5437—only the Lenovo T61p’s 5,693 score surpassed it. The Dell XPS M1530 handled all our day-to-day productivity tasks (checking e-mail, surfing the Web, editing some photos) with aplomb.
Nvidia’s GeForce 8600M GT graphics card (with 256MB of video memory) notched a very good 3DMark03 score of 7261—nearly 3,000 points higher than the average mainstream notebook. The Dell XPS M1530 churned out a decent F.E.A.R. score of 45 frames per second on autodetect mode, which dropped to 23 frames per second with the settings maxed out. The discrete graphics were more than capable of handling Vista Home Premium’s transparencies and Windows Flip 3D and should be suitable for all but the most demanding gamers.
Despite the powerful graphics card, the system’s 9-cell battery held its charge for 3 hours and 24 minutes on a DVD rundown test—a full hour longer than average.
The system comes preinstalled with Adobe Photoshop Elements, Microsoft Works 8, Dell Media Direct 3.3, the Dell Connect remote diagnostic and repair service, 10GB of Dell DataSafe online backup, and Absolute Software’s CompuTrace Lojack Theft Protection (free for one year) for tracking down the notebook should it be lost or stolen.
Priced at $2,219, the Dell XPS M1530 isn’t cheap, but with the high price tag comes a wealth of productivity and entertainment tools that are well worth the heavy coin, as the machine packs in just about everything you’d want for work and play. If you don’t need a Blu-ray drive or mobile broadband, you’ll still get a great notebook for a little over $1,500.