Dell Studio 14z: Thin and Light Done Right
by Jarred Walton on October 20, 2009 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Dell Studio 14z Overview
There's plenty to like about the design and appearance of the Studio 14z, although we are unfortunately treated to yet another laptop with a glossy plastic chassis. If you were hoping the Studio 14z would match the MacBook in that area, you'll be sorely disappointed. In order to get MacBook aesthetics, no need to spring for the much more expensive Dell Adamo, but then you're competing with MacBook Air rather than the standard MacBook. The short story is that in terms of aesthetics, the Studio 14z can't match up to Apple, but (depending on configuration) it can save you some money.
Given the limited real estate on a 14" chassis, Dell still manages to cram in quite a few features. One of the better features is dual digital outputs: one HDMI and one DisplayPort connector are available. If you don't have a DisplayPort LCD, you'll need an adapter, but you can always buy such an LCD from Dell. You also get Gigabit Ethernet, three USB ports -- one does double duty as an eSATA port -- and mini FireWire. Dell doesn't include a flash reader by default, but you can purchase a flash reader accessory that plugs into the ExpressCard/34 slot.
When you compare the Studio 14z with your typical netbook, it's easy to understand Dell's frustration with netbooks. The Studio 14z has a better keyboard, it's tons faster than any Intel Atom system, it can play games, and it still delivers reasonable battery life. By comparison, netbooks feel small and have difficult to use displays (1024x600, we're talking about you). We're not particularly pleased with the default 1366x768 LCD, but we're happy that Dell offers a $50 upgrade to a 1600x900 display. Given the choice, we would take the Studio 14z over any netbook in a heartbeat. The catch is that netbooks can still offer twice the battery life in a lighter package, for less than half the price. We definitely wouldn't recommend using a netbook as your only computer, but the 14z can fill that role for most people.
The 14z keyboard has a good layout, with all of the important keys easily accessible. Dell hasn't changed their typical layout in some time, but it's obvious that effort went into designing a good keyboard. We wish we could say the same about other manufacturers, but far too often we find strange decisions in terms of which keys to provide in which to relegate to special Fn+key combinations. Our impression is that Dell has done usability studies and come up with a good layout, and we have no complaints. As an added bonus, an extra $25 gets you LED backlighting on your keyboard -- great for when you need to use the laptop in low lighting conditions.
There are a couple areas where the 14z could still be improved. Of course there is the aforementioned glossy plastic chassis; obviously that's a cost cutting measure, but we would be very pleased to see a return of matte plastic at the very least -- along with matte LCDs. We don't know what the upgraded LCD is like, but we can also say that the default LCD leaves a lot of room for improvement. It's plenty bright, but like many other inexpensive laptops it has very poor contrast ratios. We wouldn't even qualify the Studio 14z as an "inexpensive" laptop, considering many users will spend over $1000 once they add a few desirable upgrades, so it would have been nice if Dell would have sprung for a better display. We also wish Dell could have figured out a way to include a second SO-DIMM slot; 3GB RAM should be sufficient, but 4GB would be better in the option to upgrade to 8GB in the future would be great. Finally, access to the hard drive requires a lot more work than most laptops, making end-user upgrades more difficult than necessary. Some people will definitely want to upgrade to an SSD, and there's potential to break some of the plastic chassis elements if you're not careful.
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DominionSeraph - Thursday, October 22, 2009 - link
System monitor in XP will show you percentage of C1, C2, and C3 time. (can't check vista right now)hybrid2d4x4 - Thursday, October 22, 2009 - link
I too would like to see an investigation of why the Macs get better battery life in OSX, and if it turns out that it is the hits on the HDD (I suspect you're right on this one) and unnecessary background processes, if there are any tweaks that we can perform to squeeze the most out of Windows.gstrickler - Sunday, October 25, 2009 - link
I can't explain why Mac OS X is so much more power efficient, but keep in mind that Apple designed their own chipsets for 20+ years and co-designed the PPC for 10 years, all while developing their own OS. They've undoubtedly gained some insights into the operation of complete systems that no other company has (IBM might have, but they would not have shared that with MS without a big payoff). Sun has similar background, but never needed to be that concerned about power since they make high performance machines and don't make laptops.I am surprised that Apple has been able to maintain that advantage since moving to Intel CPUs and Nvidia chipsets, apparently a lot of it is in the OS design.
Interitus - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
I've owned this laptop for about 4 months now. It really is a nice laptop. Very light, my config with almost everything set up for low power lasts ~6 1/2 hours on battery as long as I'm not running video or doing anything graphic or CPU intensive. For surfing the web and typing up papers and the like for school, this laptop is perfect.There are a few minor issues I've found with the laptop:
1) the touchpad isn't the greatest as someone mentioned. It's really buggy, but if you leave it at the default settings it's not that bad. The issues start to arise when you change settings like sensitivity and click speed.
2) DO NOT expect to carry this laptop around in your backpack and not treat it with respect. Mine has a clearly visible line on the battery (from the inside of the laptop between the monitor and the keyboard) where it appears to have been squished together too tightly and the lip of the screen has scratched the battery. Purely cosmetic, but still annoying considering I paid $1100+ for my setup.
3) There is a common issue with screen flickering. Mine has it, but it's not enough to annoy me or make me want to have some idiotic Dell repair person compromise the integrity of the laptop by tearing it apart to fix it.
4) My mother purchased one of these after seeing mine, and as a lot of people reported, the battery rattles a bit in its place. Mine doesn't exhibit this behavior.
Those things aside I love this laptop. Most of them are minor issues too, so don't let it put you off of buying one. Just get a warranty to cover issues like those.
My config was $1100'ish with a 2-year complete care package from Dell, pretty good price for a Macbook minus the OS.
Don't understand the choice to solder 1GB to the board, kinda stupid from my point of view. 4GB sticks are still ridiculous in price.
nysportz - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
I thought the MacBook comparisons were interesting. FYI, Apple released a new MacBook today weighing 4.7 lbs and advertising 7 hours of battery life. At $999, this is pretty competitive with the Dell.I say this as an impartial observer (and as someone shopping for a laptop in this size and price range).
JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
We measured 3.1 hours with the MacBook using a 45Wh battery under our most stressful test scenario, so the new MacBook with a 60Wh battery will almost certainly hit 4+ hours worst-case, and typical battery life is likely to hit 6+ hours as advertised. The difference of course is that you run OS X vs. Windows, and you pay $1300 vs. $1000. If battery life is important to you and you don't mind ditching Windows, Apple is very much still in the lead.gstrickler - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
How do you get $1300 for the new MacBook? Base price is $999 with 2GB RAM and a 250GB HD. Take it to 4GB and a 320GB HD (closest config you can get to the Dell you 14z you tested) and you're at $1149.And the MB includes an internal optical drive in that price. Still comes in at 4.7 pounds and 4-7 hour real battery life. Of course, the Dell does have a 14" display, ExpressCard 34 slot, and a slightly faster (2.4 vs 2.26 GHz) CPU, so it's not a complete win for the MB. Both sound like nice machines, with similar features and similar prices.
JimmyJimmington - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Look at the baseline mac at $1000, vs the $960 14z that I described. It costs a bit more and you get a smaller screen with lower resolution (which is how they squeeze out the comparable battery life), less RAM, slightly heavier, slower proc, slower hard drive, no esata, and mini display port (I mean minidisplay port, are you kidding me?). The 14z wins on hardware alone.You're paying for the OS, no question about it. If you want OS X though, just buy a mac.
gstrickler - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
Dell specs the 14z at 4.6 pounds with the 6 cell battery, not the 8 cell, as you claim in your config, so the MB is in fact slightly lighter then the Dell with the 8 cell battery. Of course, we're only talking about a couple ounces either way.Then again, the MB does include an internal optical drive in that weight, and gets better battery life, which is a clear win for the MB.
Your ~960 price was "with a student discount", try comparing it to the price of a the MB with a student discount, not to the retail price. Since you didn't specify the size of your HD or RAM, I can't come up with a "retail" price for you system, but I just configured a Studio 14z with 3GB RAM, 320GB 5400 RPM HD, P8600 CPU, 8 cell battery, and the standard display, it's $969. The comparable MB is $1149 with 4GB RAM. BTW, that configuration is the one that gives the biggest advantage to the Studio 14z. Change the HD size or the RAM size, or and optical drive to the Dell, and the difference is smaller. The price comparison you gave is meaningless, if you qualify for the student discount on one, you'll almost certainly qualify for a student discount on the other.
The "best" comparison of "comparable" machines would be a MB with 4GB RAM, 320GB HD, and 3 year warranty for $1389. The MB includes 802.11n, bluetooth, optical drive, and Mac OS X.
vs.
Dell Studio 14z with 5GB RAM, P8600 CPU, 320GB (5400 RPM) HD, 802.11n, internal bluetooth, standard display, 8 cell battery, Optical drive, Win7 Home Premium, and 3 yr warranty for $ 1544.
Yes, the 14z has a slightly faster CPU and 1GB more RAM in that configuration, but Vista is more CPU and RAM intensive than Mac OS X, so they're very similar. The 14z also includes an eSATA port, 1394a port, ExpressCard 34 slot, and an HDMI port, but you're paying an extra $155 as well.
There is almost no difference in the power draw of a 13.3" vs 14" display, nor does a slightly higher resolution display draw notably more power. That is not the reason the MB gets better battery life. The reason is better power management in Mac OS X vs Windows, and possibly use of some lower power components.
Yes, Mini Displayport, get used to it. Displayport is the way the market is moving (which is why Dell includes it on the Studio 14z), and Mini Displayport is part of the Displayport standard, it's just a smaller connector, great for small laptops.
JimmyJimmington - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
The starting weight with the 6-cell battery on the 14z is 4.3 lbs. according to Dell. I weighed the machine myself with the 8-cell battery and it's 4.6 lbs. so I don't know where you're getting your information from, the dell is lighter than the smaller mac.Your "comparable" specs make no sense at all. You're just pulling prices out of your ass.
Again, look at the baseline white plastic mac, $950 with a student discount vs. mine which was $960.
I didn't get the 320 gig hd, both the baseline mac and my 14z have the 250 gig hd, not 320. I opted for the faster 7200 rpm for $50 extra. So if you want to be as comparable as possible, itd be like $910 vs. $950
I will even give you that the standard 2 gigs of RAM on the mac is comparable to the 3 gigs on the 14z. Upgrading either is overpriced and useless.
The standard warranty for dell and apple are 1 year, so I don't know why you're throwing that into the comparison.
I don't know why you think displayport is the future either. Most TVs, at least all the ones I've seen, come with HDMI, that's the universal standard.
And it's not Vista, it's Windows 7. It came with a free upgrade to 7 and it can't even be bought with Vista anymore.
Like I said before, the 14z has superior hardware at a lower price. As always, you buy apple laptops for the OS.