Dell Studio 17 (where / how to buy)

FloatingVoter

I'm thinking about buying a Studio 17 laptop from Dell. I can customise the starter package here to include a Core i5-520M (2.4 GHz, turbo boost to 2.93 GHz). Between upping the hard disk to 500 GB (7,200 rpm) and the memory to 4 GB I'm left with a price tag of about €900 with a one year standard warranty. Increasing the warranty to include 4 year in-home hardware support puts the bill at €1115.
Just wondering would I do better elsewhere or is buying direct from Dell the best option as opposed to what I might get in PC World, Petes etc.

Shzm

I'm in the same boat at the moment with a Studio 15. Trying to buy a Dell without an Irish registered credit card is a pain in the hole..

Anyway, have a look at that hard drive upgrade, I noticed it's cheaper to buy an additional hard drive from somewhere like dabs.ie than it is to actually upgrade the standard one through Dell.

FloatingVoter

re the hard drive, I'm aware its over the odds...(I already have a 1TB external HD anyway). Its just I have college access to Win 7 Professional 64 bit. So what I lose to Dell on the upgrade, I'm saving with the OS. Thats why I need the 4 GB on board too. Thanks for the input anyway....hopefully my little AIB flexible friend will be alright.

Shzm

Ah grand. Yeah i've spec'ed up something similar with the 15 (had a 17" laptop before, too big for a laptop imo). €906 for the i5 540m, 4gb ram, 1080p monitor, and the 4 year inhouse repair thingo.

If you haven't already, there's a 5% discount code on bethrifty.ie/dell

FloatingVoter

Shzm wrote: »

Ah grand. Yeah i've spec'ed up something similar with the 15 (had a 17" laptop before, too big for a laptop imo). €906 for the i5 540m, 4gb ram, 1080p monitor, and the 4 year inhouse repair thingo.

If you haven't already, there's a 5% discount code on bethrifty.ie/dell

Thanks, Shzm. I'd forgot about discount vouchers. Looks like I owe you one:)

Duggy747

I've a Dell Studio 17, bought it from their site and did the customising thing too.

It's a standard model besides having 4GB RAM, Windows 7 64Bit, 250GB HDD (I didn't really need a big HDD as I already have 2TB of storage.), and an ATI Radeon HD 1650 1TB (Will run pretty much most games on Medium / High, others not so well because of their dislike of ATI chipsets)

This all came out to €800 on the button. Took ages for it to be delivered, though. 3 weeks it took but that was just before Xmas so I'd blame it on that.

I'd recommend formatting it as soon as you get it, a lot of useless software on it.

Other than that it's a fine laptop, nice big clean screen and quality sound coming from it. The Sub, which is under it, really gives it a boost.

BlandKitten

I have a Dell Studio 17, and one thing I'd say is a necessity is a good gfx card. Without it, that big screen becomes somewhat redundant.

Also, if you can, get it second hand. I bought mine a year ago for about €300 and it still does me grand. There wasn't a thing wrong with it and it saved me a helluva lot of money.

Davey Devil

I bought a Studio 17 recently and had to send it back. The fan was driving me mad. With only light use the fan comes on in bursts every few minutes. I just couldn't get used it. In fairness they did give me a full refund. Great laptop apart from the fan issue.

Thread on the Dell forum for others who have suffered:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19321860.aspx?PageIndex=1