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11 out of 12 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"I LOVE MY CRIMSON RED M1330"
Pros: battery life, lid color, small and lightweight, screen
Cons: wobbles a bit, slot drive tiny bit loud in my opinion
Summary: I received my XPS m1330 2 days ago after a long wait. To be honest, I was very nervous about ordering this in red. I was afraid that it would be too bright and bring too much attention to itself. Upon opening the box, I was amazed at the color. I LOVED IT! It wasn't too bright of a red, more of a brick color red which would appeal to both males and females, though the hue changes under different lighting conditions and still looks great in each one.
It's very lightweight compared to my 15.4 inch Toshiba. I have already taken it out with me to the library and had no problems what so ever with having to carry it around. Even feels lighter than my anatomy textbook.
The screen is thin, very bright and shows rich colors. This screen at 6/7 brightness is the same as my Toshiba at 7/7, so the brightness was very noticable to me. I was also apprehensive about the touchpad being too small, but have found it to be quite responsive and can use it just fine. I also like having the scroll areas along the sides of the touchpad. The keyboard is nice and large which for me is the one thing I have to get adjusted to because my Toshiba's keyboard is little smaller, though I thought it was full size being that it was on a 15.4 in laptop. At first glance, comparing it side by side with my laptop, I thought the keys were huge and found myself having to stretch my fingers farther to reach certain keys, but I am now getting used to it and having no problems typing with it.
The touch sensitive multimedia buttons work great in my opinion and have a nice square blue glow around each of them that slowly fades away once they are touched. I bought mine with the fingerprint reader and had no problems setting it up, took me around 3-4 to register my fingerprints and has since worked everytime that I use it. The slot loading drive is nice as well, though it is a tiny bit on the loud side. I'm not sure that I would want to load a CD while in a quiet room because it is a little noisy, but it is certainly not a deal breaker for me. Also the battery life is very good. I used it off and on typing a paper for 3 hours with wifi off, power saver mode with full brightness, with it sleeping for a total of probably 30 minutes (not all at once), and came back and it said I had 68% left with a little over 2 1/4 hours left. Very nice considering I couldn't get may last laptop to get over 1 1/2 hours.
The build quality is nice, though mine does wobble a bit when I lay my hand on the left palmrest, but it is nothing major, just find something to put under that side to even it out since it's only 3-4 mm off the table. I would like to say that it does hold up pretty well. I was actually in a car wreck yesterday (the day after I received the laptop) on my way home from the library in which my car was totalled. The laptop was in the included case in my totebag on the passenger seat when the accident happened. When I got home, I noticed no external cosmetic damage which was amazing considering. I pressed the power button and to my astonishment it started up just fine and there wasn't any damage to the screen. It was when I started to type my password that I noticed that the wobble was VERY noticable, like 5x worse. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the base was sort of twisted, meaning the left side was slightly higher than the right. Apparently when my car was hit, the bag must have hit the glove compartment or something and bent the base of the system, so now the left side sits a little higher than the right, and you can kind of see in the right lighting where it is bent in the aluminum palm rest on the left side. It really isn't that noticable unless you are looking for it. No one else knew it was until I showed them. But other than that, the system works perfectly, and looks brand new with no cosmetic damage, the same way it did when I opened the box. To me, that's a good sign of how it will hold up in the long run to very minor drops, etc. And since it happened during the first 21 days of owning it, I am getting a replacement for free, even though it would have been covered under the 3yrs. of accidental coverage I purchased. The process of getting a replacement was relatively easy because of the XPS technical support being very helpful in setting up a replacement and they are allowing me to keep this one until the replacement comes, then I have about a week to send one back in which they pay for the shipping and supplies to send it back.
Overall, I am very satisfied with my purchase of this beautiful system that has garnered many compliments in my few days of owning it. The only downside was the ordering process and having to wait an unusually long time, especially since Dell usually ships systems alot sooner. Would I recommend it? Definitely, since it seems that Dell is catching up on their backlog of systems because people that ordered during the middle to end of August are already starting to receive theirs.
