Mobile Computing News

Photo: Dell

Since its acquisition of Alienware, a lot of effort has been put into the Dell gaming laptop range. The 17.3-inch Dell Studio 1749 could very well be their best effort yet.

Specs

A beastly Intel Core i5-520M 2.4GHz processor powers the laptop, with an ATI Radeon HD 5650 doing the heavy lifting graphics processing. The Dell Studio 1749 comes with 4GB DDR 3 SDRAM, with a hard drive capacity of 500GB, while the monitor is a 17.3-inch 1600×900 glossy screen.

Aesthetics

The outside of the Dell gaming laptop has a glossy black finish with Dell’s logo taking its usual central position. While the outside looks great, the inside is not altogether exciting. The palm wrest area is metallic silver whereas the keyboard area is black, too, making the attempted two-tone effect look decidedly dated in a generation where laptops look best when they are one colour. This machine is also a magnet for smudges and dust, suggesting a lot of effort needs to go into keeping it clean. It isn’t the lightest laptop in the world either, coming it at a considerable 3.65 KG, with dimensions of 39×414x281mm.

Keyboard and trackpad

Photo: Dell

The Dell Studio 1749 has a complete keyboard, coming with a dedicated numeric pad. A nifty feature is the backlit function for your keys, which comes in handy for use in very dark areas. The keys give a little when pressed down firmly, which is disappointing, but their saving grace is that they have the dimensions of keys one would find on a desktop, which is great.

This Dell gaming laptop has a slightly receded multi-touch touchpad with a wider surface area than most, meaning noticeably more comfortable use. The ability to scroll up, sideways, as well as a variety of multitouch functions is seamless, too. What’s particularly nice about this touchpad is that the buttons are well weighted and don’t make the awful clicking noise many contemporary laptops do.

Display and processing

The 16:9 aspect ratio on the 17.3-inch display makes for great cinema viewing, but Dell’s decision to use a glossy screen as opposed to a matte screen means it reflects horribly if in a very well lit area, meaning outdoor use is all but written off. Other than that, it’s a very competent display with a decent viewing angle and good contrast.

As for CPU performance, when run with some of the most demanding contemporary games, the Dell Studio 1749 performed well. It can run virtually everything but Crisis at a resolution of 1024×768 with a frame rate always exceeding 30fps, giving scope for running at the monitor’s native size.

Great machine

This Dell gaming laptop is pretty much the business. Its performance is fantastic, it has a great trackpad, and had it not been for the unusual aesthetic decisions and average keyboard performance, The Dell Studio 1749 would easily be one of the best laptops on the market.