Review: Dell Studio 17 NR73502 notebook PC

There has always been a gap between Dell’s popular mainstream Inspiron notebook series and its higher end XPS models.

Now it has bridged this gap with the Studio family, incorporating features found in both product lines.

The Studio line-up features 15in and, as on this Studio 17 sample, 17in versions.

These days, choosing a notebook finish is almost as complicated as choosing the paint scheme and interior finish of a new car.

The Studio family comes with a choice of eight colours, including the Graphite Grey of our review model; you also get a choice of four trim colour options.

Depending on your point of view, the pattern on the chassis either looks like a series of water stains or the contour lines on a map.

Still, the finish is impressive, but whether you’ll want to carry it around showing it off to people is another matter, as it weighs a hefty 4.1kg with the power supply.

As with all Dells, you can customise the specification to suit your needs. Our sample came with an Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 processor (there are two other options both with 6MB of L2 cache, namely the 2.5GHz T9300 at £79.99 extra and the 2.6GHz T9500 at a whopping £270 extra).

The T8300 is clocked at 2.4GHz and, with an 800MHz front-side bus (FSB) and 3MB of L2 cache backed by 4GB of 667MHz DDR2 memory, it has plenty of power to do all the everyday tasks you’ll ask of it, as confirmed by its PCmark05 score of 6,014. It also scored a respectable 3,546 in the more demanding PCmark Vantage.

A single 320GB 5,400rpm Western Digital Scorpio hard disk is fitted along with an eight-speed slot-loading DVD burner. Powering the graphics is ATI’s Mobilty Radeon HD3650 with 256MB of dedicated GDDR2 memory clocked at 500MHz, which provides a modicum of games performance.

When tested using the built-in benchmark in World in Conflict at the screen’s native resolution (1,440x900), it only gave a maximum frame rate of 16fps (fr ames per second); this was tested with all the details turned on or set to high. Turning some of these off and dropping the resolution will give better frame rates, but it’s no gaming system.

The 17in screen features Dell’s Truelife coating and is very impressive, and to output to other screens there are VGA and HDMI ports. Although it comes with an Intel CPU and chipset, this isn’t a Centrino notebook as the wireless networking isn’t an Intel product – instead, it’s one of Dell’s own 802.11n 1510 mini cards; the Bluetooth module is also a Dell product.

The keyboard feels sturdy, with hardly any flex to the key bed, while the keys themselves are good and responsive. It also has a dedicated numeric typepad. Compared to the keyboard, the touchpad seems undersized, but again it has just the right amount of sensitivity. Above the keyboard is a row of touch-sensitive controls and a Media Center remote control.

A notebook of this size isn’t going to be carried about too much, so we weren’t expecting wonders in our battery tests. But when tested with Mobilemark 2007, the standard six-cell battery lasted 125 minutes for the DVD test, 158 minutes for the Productivity test and 178 minutes for the Reader test.

Microsoft Works 9 is included along with Vista Home Premium, and a one-year RTB warranty is provided as standard.

It’s not much good for gaming and its weight will put some people off, but the Studio 17 is well built and benefits from a decent processor.