Nikhil Dev

Today morning I was convincing myself that I will have to wait just another couple of days to receive my new laptop. But then at around 10AM I received a phone call. The caller said that he was from BlueDart. I knew what it was. I was really excited. I signed the papers and took the box. But the security at the gate would not allow me to take the box inside saying that it was a personal laptop which was not allowed inside. I told myself that I can talk him out of this situation. So I opened the box at the security, checked all the contents and left it with them. I finished my work real soon and left for home by sharp 5:30pm. My first impression? This baby is friggin huge. I weighed almost twice my old Compaq laptop.

I started it up and the screen was enormous, I think I dont have to connect my laptop to the LCD now to watch a movie. Anyway, I set off to do what I usually do on any new computer. Reinstall Windows. This thing came with Windows Vista Premium shipped with it. So I could get all the Aero effects with the 256MB ATI card that was powering them.

Anyway, there is one thing that I havent been able to find on. I saw that a lot of users complained about the reinstallation of Dell Media Direct. They said that you have first install the Media Direct CD which will then take you through the Windows Vista installation. I tried following the instructions but this one came with Media Direct 4 and the CD was not bootable at all. The Vista CD booted pretty well though. So where was I going wrong? I tried contacting the support on chat but they were closed for the day. So I did a little reasearch and found out that in Media Direct 4, there was no longer a seperate partition for Media Direct software. In fact you have to boot the whole of Vista and the only function that the Media Direct button would do was to boot Vista and start the Media Direct software automatically.

So the process is that you have to go with the regular Windows Vista installation process and install the Media Direct software from withing Vista.

But I was really impressed with the performance of the laptop. This baby has some serious firepower in it. I think I can start with my Audio recording and production as well as I get to use this darling to play at a party this Saturday.

If anyone is thinking of getting the Dell Studio 17 (1737) in India or Hyderabad, I would ask you to just go for it. This thing costed me about INR 58,500/- after a few discounts and taxes. The upgrades that I did was to opt for a backlit keyboard and the Creative Audio drivers which I think are worth the money.

Now the interesting part that I noticed just a while ago. I started writing this post after starting the Windows installation on this machine. It’s done now. This baby flies. I think this is what I call “Money well spent”

Do leave comments if you think you need more information on this laptop, its features or its performance.