Dell Studio 15

Full Review

Part of Dell’s premium Studio laptop series, the new Dell Studio 15 (1558) is a 15-inch mainstream, all-purpose laptop for home entertainment use. The laptop has a 15-inch screen, an Intel Core i5-450M processor and discrete ATI Radeon HD 5470 graphics.

Looks and Design
Dell hasn’t changed much with the new Dell Studio 15’s design compared to the older Studio 15 (Artist Edition) laptop. Our review unit had a dark glossy screen lid and glossy silver palmrest and touchpad highlighted by a subtle chainlink pattern. Although the two-toned color scheme looks good on the Dell Studio 15 laptop, its dark glossy screen lid attracts fingerprints and smudges easily. You can’t do away with the gloss but we recommend picking a lighter shade to hide the smudges -- Dell offers nine different screen lid color and design options to customize your Studio 15 laptop with -- much more than its cost-sensitive Inspiron laptop range. Nonetheless, the Dell Studio 15 is a good-looking premium laptop for home use.

One of the best things about the Dell Studio 15 laptop is its keyboard.

The Dell Studio 15 laptop sports a dropped central hinge -- a design element unique to the Dell Studio laptop range -- is very well built, and weighs 2.6-kg with a standard six-cell battery onboard.

Usability
The Dell Studio 15 (1558) laptop has a 15.6-inch widescreen LED-backlit display with a 1366x768 resolution -- upgradeable to full-HD 1920x1080 while customizing your purchase on Dell’s website. The Studio 15 laptop has a glossy bright screen which gave no trouble while reading text or watching movies, and it has average viewing angles. The screen’s bezel has a 2MP webcam -- better than the 1.3MP webcams found on most laptops -- and microphone at the top which comes in handy during videochats over skype.

One of the best things about the Dell Studio 15 laptop is its keyboard -- optional backlit upgrade available. The Studio 15’s keyboard has full-sized, well-defined keys that have a fine finish on top and are superb to type on. The keyboard’s keys are tightly knit, aren’t flat-top like the ones on the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG, and one of the best we’ve seen on a mainstream laptop. The keyboard’s only drawback is it doesn’t come with a dedicated number pad -- the Gateway NV59C includes this. The touchpad has a fine finish -- unlike the glossy palmrest around it -- and good to work with, no complaints.

Hardware Specs & Features
The Dell Studio 15 laptop comes with an Intel Core i5-450M 2.4-GHz processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB hard drive (7200rpm) and discrete ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 graphics (1GB) -- better processor, faster hard drive but inferior graphics compared to the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG. The Studio 15 has one of the best hardware building blocks among the laptops featured in our Top 5 Mainstream Laptops list.

In terms of features and connectivity options, the Dell Studio 15 (1558) laptop impresses. The laptop has an 8x slot-loading DVD writer (upgradeable to a Blu-ray BD-ROM) and includes three USB ports -- one of them doubles up as an eSATA port. HDMI, Gigabit ethernet, FireWire, VGA ports, ExpressCard slot, multicard reader, headphone and microphone jacks are placed around the Dell Studio 15 laptop’s edge. Wireless connectivity standards like Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1 are also supported on the Dell Studio 15 laptop. No other laptop in our Top 5 Mainstream Laptops list can boast of all these features.

The Dell Studio 15 laptop has integrated stereo surround speakers with a subwoofer -- a pair of Creative EP-630 in-ear earplugs are also thrown in. You also get a year’s free Dell DataSafe online data backup service up to 2GB. The laptop comes with a 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium operating system and six-cell battery.

Performance
Needless to say, the Dell Studio 15 performs very well. It sailed through our synthetic benchmarks; it got a  WorldBench 6 score of 105 -- same as the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG and better than the Dell Inspiron 14R and Dell Studio 14 Artist Edition laptops. Multitasking with regular home applications is a breeze, so is watching 720p and 1080p HD video files on the Dell Studio 15 laptop -- its 15.6-inch does a very good job displaying visuals. The Studio 15 laptop’s onboard sound isn’t as good as the MSI GT660 but we reckon it’s still one of the best onboard audio on a mainstream laptop below Rs. 50,000 -- the speakers are situated in a horizontal strip between the Studio 15 laptop's keyboard and screen -- better than Dell's Insprion laptop range. Overall, a very good home entertainment experience for a laptop.

The Dell Studio 15 laptop’s discrete ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 graphics performs better than the one on the MSI CX420, Gateway NV59C, and Acer Aspire 5740G -- it got a 3D Mark 06 score of 4518. This isn’t as great as the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG’s ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics. FarCry 2, at 1024x748, DirectX 9 mode, no AA, and ‘High’ settings, registered 29.4 fps -- barely playable. With low expectations and at low settings, casual gamers won’t be too mad with the Dell Studio 15 laptop. Throughout our testing, the Studio 15 did a good job keeping the laptop's thermals down and heat wasn't an issue.

The laptop’s six-cell battery lasted just 1 hour 10 minutes through our battery tests -- at high performance preset and full-screen brightness. This is low compared to other laptops featuring in our Top 5 Mainstream laptops, but forgiveable to an extent given the Dell Studio 15’s internal hardware -- a pretty quick processor, RAM and hard drive combo. Having said that, on a single charge, you should be able to extract just under 3 hours of browsing the Web on a conservative power plan on the Dell Studio 15 laptop -- acceptable for a home entertainment laptop.

Bottom Line

The Dell Studio 15 laptop sells a price of for Rs. 48,400 on Dell’s website. For that price, you get a premium home entertainment laptop that’s very well built with extensive features, has very good hardware and offers decent overall performance. Reasons to buy the Studio 15 over the Inspiron 15R is the choice of screen lid, extensive custom upgrade options, and superior onboard audio and performance.

The Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG edges past the Dell Studio 15 in our Top 5 Mainstream Laptops list due to its superior graphics performance and portability. Buy the Gateway NV59C if you want a better looking laptop with a dedicated number pad, but the Dell Studio 15 is superior on all other counts. It may not have the best battery life, but we highly recommend the Dell Studio 15 if you’re eyeing a premium 15-inch laptop for predominant home use with decent onboard sound.