Dell Inspiron 9400 With Intel Duo Core Available (specs)

[apoc286]

Ok well my 9400 is here, and unless there's someone else on here from the UK with one then I'd say I'm probably one of the first to own one in the UK.

Not really played with it too much seeing as I only got it last night and fell asleep at about 7pm (thurs was a doozy) but I'm using it now.

Ok anyway first impressions

> It doesn't look like a laptop that costs as much as it does, and although it's whats inside that counts they could have at least fitted a full size keyboard, not a big thing though.

> The screen is very clear but I'm noticing that pictures etc look a little jagged, and stuff like the smileys on this site look kind of 'fuzzy'. This could be a widescreen thing though I've never used a widescreen lappy before, maybe I can do something about this when tweaking

> Bloatware , DELL HOW MUCH CRAP DO YOU WANT TO PLASTER ALL OVER MY MACHINE!!! GO**** YOU! They could have at least have included all the install media as standard (regrettabley I didn't request the install CD's so I'll have to get these later as accessories) so you have the option of doing an install without their rubbish plastered everywhere. The way the mcafee software tries to force you to install it, and the way the laptop practically tries to sell every ISP under the suns internet service is a very good reason to grind teeth to breaking point...

> It is pretty noisey for a laptop, it's not enough to bother me but it's the loudest lappy I've ever heard (about as noisey as a desktop, but then again it's specced like one)

> It does get hot, very hot, doesn't matter what your doing it seems it still runs hot (about to run aoe 3 so lets see how hot it gets after that), I'm at this moment scared to install the mobile force divers in case it gets hotter and damages itself, thats how hot it gets. In fact I dropped it into hibernate by accident and stuck it in the laptop bag and it got so hot in there I could feel the heat through the outside of the bag and the laptop actually shut itself down to protect itself (nice feature). The laptop itself when I took it was in places 'uncomfortabley' hot and this was in hibernate mode...

> Good sound quality, the sub is definately not just there because it looks good on a specs sheet

> The remote you can get with it is cool, but I was expecting to be able to use it without having to lug around that big a$$ (for what it is) IR reciever. I'm yet to play with that.

> The standard case is nice big and roomy but I believe it could have a been a hell of a lot better fault out compartment wise. Come on Dell you've good a pretty good idea what kit we'll be using with this, how about some dedicated compartments for this stuff, rather then having to use the big zip up compartment inside the front flap for: the remote, the spare battery and the ac adapter, and the media direct output adapter, the modem cable and the rj11 converter because none of the other compartments they've supplied are the right sort of dimensions are large enough but are unpadded and butt directly against the laptop.

> You do get some very useful accs with this laptop...

> The wireless intel client works very nicely but is too fussy over security settings etc

> I got mine with a built in bluetooth and it works quite nicely (don't know yet what profiles are supported though, the dell axim x51v had a stupidily reduced set, I'm not sure if this will too) but you would have thought they could have installed the drivers etc for you rather then installing it the first time you run it. Thats just lazy...

> Some nice little touches like the network card can set to turn off if unconnected when on batt

> Keyboard is nice to type with (decided that whilst writing) although the keys are a bit flat and wide for me but that is personal preference, I'll get used to it, it's still a good keyboard despite it.

> All I'm doing is typing this post and an extra cooling fan just kicked in, WHY? This isn't streneous!!!

> The touch pad is WAY to insensitive for me, I think this is probably made worse by the widescreen, but I like my mouse to be able to cover the whole screen without lifting my finger and although I turned the pad sensitivity to maximum I can only go between a third and half way of the way from left to right before I have to lift my finger which I find very irritating, maybe I can tweak a setting to fix this though

> Can't turn on 802.11g without turning on bluetooth as well when using the hardware button

> The screen seems a little over exposed but thats easily fixed I just havn't bothered yet

> The light leakage is definately there but it's only really visible on a black screen and even then it's definately not what I'd call a problem, it's pretty easy to ignore to be honest

> I'VE SOMEHOW MANAGED TO SCRATCH THE BACK LCD PLASTIC!!! HOW THE HELL DID I DO THAT!!!




Anyway to sum this machine up I'm going to let some of the smiley's do the talking...

:glossy:
:budget: (worth it?)
verheat:
:noisyfan:

[Flame X]

Ok well my 9400 is here, and unless there's someone else on here from the UK with one then I'd say I'm probably one of the first to own one in the UK.

nope, i got mine on monday

[apoc286]

Well I did say one of

[Weaser]

I just thought i'd add in some boot times and shutdown times. I didn't do a fresh windows xp install but just uninstalled software. my boot times are as follows: From power button to window that pops up saying i've connected to a wireless network: 60 seconds. Shutdown:16 seconds. btw.. the intel pro wireless card is friggin awesome. I've noticed on the Dell canada site that they are offering now the intel wireless card as a $70 dollar upgrade now (which was $10.00 upgrade when I bought my lappy).

Say you find the laptop loud? Hmm thats odd. If it's as loud as your desktop, then you must have a pretty friggin quiet desktop! Or maybe i'm just used to hearing 7 fans whirring away.. Lol. 120mm for rear, 80mm for gpu, 80mm for front, cpu fan, chipset fan, 2-PSU fans... it's all good. My desktop is no where near the noise of my laptop. I find my laptop to be fairly quiet.

[fredrikandersson]

> It does get hot, very hot, doesn't matter what your doing it seems it still runs hot (about to run aoe 3 so lets see how hot it gets after that), I'm at this moment scared to install the mobile force divers in case it gets hotter and damages itself, thats how hot it gets. In fact I dropped it into hibernate by acident and stuck it in the laptop bag and it got so hot in there I could feel the heat through the outside of the bag and the laptop actually shut itself down to protect itself (nice feature). The laptop itself when I took it was in places 'uncomfortabley' hot and this was in hibernate mode...

As far as I know the hibernate mode always shuts the computer down? The thing is that it saves what you're doing at the time so you can boot faster the next time. And if you have had it in hibernate mode for some time it shouldn't be very hot at all, because it's shut down. But if you feel it right away when you have activated hibernate mode i can understand that it's not any cooler, it takes a while before the heat is gone, even when you shut it down, it doesn't get cold right away.

[RedStar]

FFF: "I've got the tracking numbers for Purolator..."
I think you mentioned a link to find where this info is at some point, but i can't find it.

So..where does one find tracking info so one can see exactly where laptop is.

My friend's was shipped on thursday.

edit: THANKS : Teslan

[Teslan]

FFF: "I've got the tracking numbers for Purolator..."
I think you mentioned a link to find where this info is at some point, but i can't find it.

So..where does one find tracking info so one can see exactly where laptop is.

My friend's was shipped on thursday.

OK, on the dell site when you check your status online, there is the page there that has the little pictures that go:

order - preproduction - production -testing - boxing - shipping ???

Something like that. Anyways, at the bottom of that is a link in blue text that says something like "track order with shipping company" and when you click it, it takes you right to the purolator site.

If that is too vague, just call dell and tell them you want the tracking number for the package. Thats what I did before I saw the link. Then check it online at the purolator site.

[Garbuckle]

I'm visiting someone, so I'll keep it short.

Lots of bloatware, but maybe not as bad as I thought. I have the Corel Wordperfect Suite, Sonic MyDVD, and PowerDVD installed as well. The MediaDirect function works really well. I can't complain about 16 second boot up times. The speakers and sub are nice too (best on a notebook I've heard), but still not the same as desktop speakers.

As for Purolator, you can just go to purolator.com and enter the number at the top (but if it's in the US, it will just say "In transit in US).

I don't know what noise you're talking about. I hear nothing (but feel it). The GPU fan pushes out more heat than the CPU fan, FYI.

The WIFI is great. Was travelling down the 401 today and it constantly said connected...disconnected (finding new networks every 5 seconds as we hurtle down the highway at 120kmph)

[apoc286]

As far as I know the hibernate mode always shuts the computer down? The thing is that it saves what you're doing at the time so you can boot faster the next time. And if you have had it in hibernate mode for some time it shouldn't be very hot at all, because it's shut down. But if you feel it right away when you have activated hibernate mode i can understand that it's not any cooler, it takes a while before the heat is gone, even when you shut it down, it doesn't get cold right away.

Yeah thats what I thought but the laptop was in the bag for over an hour so if it was residual heat it should have disapated. Unless I didn't put it into hibernate mode by accident and put it intro something else, I was in a rush (had a test to get to), hence why I didn't power it up and shut it down properly when I thought I'd put it into hibernate mode accidently. It did say that it had shut itself off due to heat so it was definately running at some soret of level. Even if I just hadn't done anything with it at all though and just chucked it in the bag whilst it was still on all the power saving should have kicked so that it was running a bare minimum anyway (but then again I havn't checked the power saving yet). Anyway I'm going to look into it further.


I agree the intel wireless is bloody good but the software is a little bit pickier with the wireless networking security then other software I've used. Not a problem, just annoying but then again just means I can't be sloppy with my AP security (not that it was my ap I was having problems with).

I will point out when I desktop noise levels I mean my work desktop, err my home desktop... lets not go there when talking about noise...


At the moment though I'm busy benchmarking it so I'll have 3d mark scores for you guys tonight or tomorrow.

[stenneth]

Interesting that your machine is running so hot apoc. Reminds me of a similar to a problem I had when I bought an inspiron 8200. It ran hot with the fan constantly on high and had terrible performance. After hours of trouble shooting I finally discovered a tiny piece of packing foam (about 1mm in size) that was jamming the blades of one of the two fans. I removed this with some tweezers and the problem was fixed - the second fan kicked in on low and the first fan reduced its speed to a barely audible background hum.