- Average user rating:
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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9 out of 13 people found this review helpful
2.5 stars
"Incomplete as a computer."
Pros: Screen, keyboard, speed
Cons: Audio sucks, customer support, PC Express card slot only
Summary: I purchased the M1710 to use for content creation. It?s a good computer, but one and part of me loves it and a bigger part of me hates it. Dell, with a complete lack of wisdom, has created a computer that will not record decent sound and will not record any streaming audio. You cannot record What You Hear is What You Get sound. I have worked with their "conflict resolution" people to get this issue figured out one way or another. It seems that Dell and a few other manufacturers have decided to use a SigmaTel audio chip that has a horrible S/N (signal to noise ratio), so that when you try to record anything, the background noise level is almost equal to the input level. And the only thing you can input into the computer is a microphone. And that?s not even good enough for using Vonage. The signal is that bad.
Dell, what have you done???? And reviewers, what have you done as well??? No reviews I have read ever mention audio and audio quality. Maybe reviewers should look at a whole computer and not just run a benchmark of games or Photoshop. Check the whole of a system and not just the frame rate running Doom. I would have considered an M90 as an exchange, but found out it uses the same SigmaTel chip and has the same limitations. The reviews are a disservice to end users and Dell has created a headache that many will discover long after their ?grace? period to exchange their computer has come and gone.
There is a workaround for this problem and it's an external sound card. If Dell had thought about engineering, you could have bought a Creative ZX PCMCIA sound card, but there's only a PC Express slot only and NOBODY makes PC Express sound cards for anything. Early adopter is fine, but too early leaves you hanging by a thread.
The M1710 only rates a 5 and it got that because the rest of it is fine. Multimedia means SOUND and video. Pay attention, Dell. Your problems are just beginning, if you continue like this. Engineer systems that take everything into account, including sound.
- 4 replies to this review
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The sygmatel card driver waist of space whatever its called is installed into expensive dell systems and is not compatible with many games and recording devices as well as very low quality all around.
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My Dell XPS M1710 Core 2 Duo has the standard onboard Sigmatel Chip I am very disappointed with Dell's decision here. I personally never would have purchased the system with such a sound solution, but it's a sponsored business computer, thus not my decision.
Anyway, I'm forced to utilize my Sennheiser USB sound card when using any sort of online audio software such as Skype, Ventrilo, etc. The Sigmatel chip is consistently subject to "fading", breaking up, and various other annoying volume and throughput issues.
If you are going to spend $2,500+ on a high performance gaming laptop, make certain you get the upgraded high performance sound solution for an extra $25 as well.
Do not cut corners with sound.
Otherwise, the XPS M1710 is a fantastic portable gaming solution that I'm very happy with. Especially the NVIDIA 7900 GPU and Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Very solid, very fast! -
Why would you purchase a laptop thats mostly entirely focused on Gaming, for content creation?
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Sigmatel chips suck, yes. There is an option when you configure the XPS Notebook to get the Soundblaster Audigy card. I would recommend everyone just get it, don't wonder if it's worth the money. My laptop sounds pretty amazing and I get plenty of positive if not incredulous feedback when I play videos. I definitely recommend tweaking the Audigy EQ!!
