Brave new world that has such software in it

First impressions of my new Dell Studio XPS 16 with Windows 7:

The Good
  • It’s fast.
  • The screen is really, really nice.
  • Aero is pretty.
  • Face recognition is neat.
The Bad
  • The screen is a veritable dust & lint magnet
  • No clit, so I’ll have to get used to the trackpad (although 99% of the time I have an external mouse hooked up)
  • I have a strange feeling that the keys are larger than on a regular keyboard, although it only takes five seconds with a ruler to verify that they aren’t.
  • F’ed up keyboard layout. Not MacBook-f’ed up, and not so f’ed up I won’t get used to it, but sufficiently f’ed up that when I do get used to it, I’ll have trouble adjusting when I use other machines / keyboards.
  • Had to resort to Google to figure out where the disk activity indicator is (on the front edge, hidden where you can’t see it without picking up the machine)
The Ugly
  • The camera activity indicator is also hidden where you can’t see it without picking up the machine. Actually, it’s about 1 cm to the left of the lens, right where it’s supposed to be.
  • The exhaust port is located on the rear edge of the machine so the bottom of the screen covers it when the lid is open.
  • Bluetooth didn’t work out of the box. I’m pretty sure I didn’t order the machine without Bluetooth. In fact, I’m pretty sure you can’t even get the machine without Bluetooth even if you wanted to. In fact, I checked.
  • When I rebooted to check that there actually is a Bluetooth radio in the machine (there is) and that it is enabled in BIOS (it is), 7 blue-screened.
  • After rebooting, the Bluetooth radio still doesn’t show up in the device manager, and the driver fails to install.
  • When I rebooted a second time to check the BIOS again, I got a BSoD again. Two for two. Wheee!

Update: three for three; I suspect it may have something to do with my phone, which I have to connect using USB since Bluetooth doesn’t work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.