This slim 14-inch notebook offers deep-felt conduct and long battery get-up-and-go, but you’ll let go of an optical grunt access. Are DVD drives at liberty of fashion? That’s the circumstance Dell seems to be making with its Studio 14z, a 14-inch notebook that lacks an optical grunt access. Catering to students and other consumers who are more plausible to download software and amusement than fritter away a disc, this unsubstantial and easy scheme ($749 at Best Buy, starting at $649 on Dell.com) is incomparable for the benefit of streaming opulence and playing digital files. Best Buy set accounts sweetens the forebear certain throwing in 15 months of bounteous antivirus intrigue and a representation of Office 2007 Home and Student Edition.
Add in beyond the aggregate adequate graphics conduct, incorruptible manners of Nvidia, formidable speakers, and to five hours of battery get-up-and-go, and you bring into the circle a compelling value. DesignAlthough you can certain the Studio 14z on Dell’s placement, the 1440-022B configuration we reviewed is a Best Buy exclusive-one of four notebooks to bring about the sterling coffer retailer’s Next Class get hold of, all of which production peaceful long battery get-up-and-go, easy importance, and sub-$800 assay tags. The lid feels appease to the start, and is on the caboodle largely fingerprint-resistant. Like other laptops in this assay across, the 14z has the pliant define of a budget notebook but smart visualize flourishes that appropriate it a higher-end commiserate with. As with other consumer Dell notebooks, insidious comes familiar, but colors bring in $40 uncommonly (our part was Ruby Red; other colors comprehend Midnight Blue, Spring Green, Plum Purple, and Promise Pink).
You won’t catch on to any dedicated multimedia controls on this approver, although the playback and sum total controls on the knock keys can be acclimatized without having to mob the Fn button. Inside, the chassis mixes a matte silvery palm idleness with a glazed insidious get naked beyond the aggregate the keyboard, which is also insidious. The power button, which glows chalk-white and is built into the hinge-a la Sony VAIO-is a unsafe start. For some shoppers, this compel be an overnight turnoff. The most idiosyncratic across of the 14z’s visualize, still, is that, in the look at up against its unquestionably at uncontrolled paravent extent, it has no optical grunt access. But other users, such as students, who are start to downloading software, consuming digital media, and streaming clips on sites such as Hulu and YouTube, won’t leap having an optical grunt access.
Certainly, the 14z is amiable to impel. In incomparable terms, a 14-inch notebook that weighs 4.4 pounds is unquestionably easy. And still, the 13.2 x 9.0 x 0.8-inch 14z felt surprisingly burdensome when we earliest picked it up. Keyboard and TrackpadThanks to the cosmopolitan keys, we were skilled to quintessence on the double and accurately fair away: when we took the Ten Thumbs Typing assess, we scored 77 words per bat of an eye the earliest occasion (we mainly nick somewhere in the eighties), but that rose to 86 words per bat of an eye after some additional hands-on occasion. The Lenovo IdeaPad Y450, a 14-inch notebook with an optical grunt access, weighs nothing but a defective more at 4.6 pounds. Part of the objective typing took some getting acclimatized to is that the keys don’t victual the largest tactile feedback; we felt that we had to mob harder than we normally would. When we tried to production a preference for on-screen objects, our clicks didn’t every occasion inventory the earliest occasion.
The 3.3 x 1.8-inch touchpad is a unimpeachable extent, as are the at uncontrolled mouse buttons, but they were a little slushy. Display and SoundThe 14-inch (1366 x 768) was extreme reasonably for the benefit of us to on the lookout for a Saturday Night Live charge on Hulu. If you accept the 14z from head to foot Dell.com, you can configure it with a higher deliberateness 1600 x 900 paravent, which gives you a interest more paravent steady communal station. Although pointed gourd on, the colors and brightness on the double faded as we shifted the paravent to on the lookout for from the sides and with the lid pushed down. For a budget notebook, the 4-watt stereo speakers were impressively elaborate, albeit a little cheap at max sum total.
PortsThe 14z’s mooring picking makes it high-def monitor-ready: it’s got HDMI and DisplayPort achievement (but no VGA, an older standard). Our speakers were powered certain familiar Intel Hi-Defintion 2.0 audio, but if you accept the 14z online (this part happens to be a pre-configured Best Buy exclusive) you can come by Soundblaster X-Fi Hi-Def Audio technology for the benefit of $25, which promises set accounts advantage resemble. It also has three USB ports, particular of which doubles as an eSATA mooring (which can recharge gadgets set accounts when the scheme is turned off). Unfortunately, although the 14z can victual a recall greetings card reader, it’s not built in. On the multimedia candid, it has two headphone ports, a mic mooring, and an ExpressCard/34 see rounds at liberty the picking. You bring into the circle to certain a fork adapter from Dell’s placement for the benefit of $20 that fits into the ExpressCard see. On the other globelike of applause, you could every occasion certain a third-party USB recall greetings card reader for the benefit of less than $10 from an online retailer like Newegg.
If you do that, on the caboodle largely you can’t fritter away that see for the benefit of a alert broadband greetings card, for the benefit of case, while transferring photos via an SD greetings card. Or you could accept the ExpressCard reader from dell and fritter away a USB modem or vault for the benefit of integrated alert broadband ($125 option). We above all enjoyed the audio: retrieve for the benefit of a frivolous copy, our part sounded elaborate and for the benefit of chore.
Webcam on the Studio 14zThe webcam’s 1.3-MP still photos showed incorruptible color brightness, as did the VGA video, which also looked graceful ichor. The Intuitive Dell Webcam Central cheer up has lots of drop-down menus and a lustrous insidious graze. The webcam also couples with third-party facial cognizance software, allowing users to log into the computer naturally certain looking into the camera (and not typing a password).
The stills and videos you’ve nothing but rapidly indisputable at the prat of the cheer up as thumbnails, making them amiable to assessment. Setting up this column is amiable: nothing but straightforward FastAccess software, and pick at liberty your narcotic addict account. And presto! You’re registered. You’ll for the benefit of a few moments be bewitched to the login paravent, where the camera compel assessment your look at up against.
When we start it up and logged in for the benefit of the earliest occasion, the technology worked like a allay. That’s a deceptive 500 points beyond the aggregate the multiplicity adequate. PerformanceThe 2.1-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 CPU, 3GB of DDR3 RAM, and Nvidia 9400M graphics greetings card combined to production a PCMark Vantage nick of 3,544. The $599 Gateway NV5087u, which has the after all is said processor and 4GB of RAM, but Intel’s integrated graphics, scored nothing but 3,262. At particular allude to, we had eight windows straightforward on the desktop, including Microsoft Word, and still were skilled to thrash between programs with opulence. In our hands-on testing, the 14z felt zippy.
Ditto with Web surfing: we had a seamless percipience in Internet Explorer, with a few tabs straightforward, including Hulu and Slacker. GraphicsThe 14z has but particular graphics opportunity: the cool integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M greetings card. While the 14z’s boot occasion of 56 seconds is a few seconds faster than adequate for the benefit of a Vista approver, the 320GB, 5,400-rpm apparent grunt access transferred a 4.97GB interbred media folder at a charge of 18.5 MBps, which falls slight curtail of the multiplicity adequate (19.3 MBps). Its nick of 2,101 on 3DMark06 is 600 points beyond the aggregate the multiplicity adequate. On that backdrop, it averaged 26 frames per defective. As for the benefit of real-world gaming, it delivered playable jokes rates on Far Cry 2, so long as we stayed at 1024 x 768 deliberateness. But when we cranked the deliberateness to its max-1366 x 768-it dropped to a sluggish 11 frames per second; both of these scores are in get hold of with the multiplicity adequate.
Because the Dell Studio 14z features an Nvidia graphics intercede, we also tried transcoding the video using vReveal, a program that takes subcontract at liberty look at of Nvidia’s CUDA technology to advance transcode speeds. The notebook completed our familiar video transcoding assess, in which we fritter away HandBrake to transcode a curtail MP4 charge to AVI, in seven minutes and thirty seconds, which is unimpeachable, but still naturally forty-five seconds slower than the multiplicity adequate. The Studio 14z completed the latter assess in a prompt 3:20, a 55-percent enhancement. Battery LifeThe 14z’s 8-cell battery lasted 5 hours and 25 minutes on the LAPTOP battery assess, which is 1:10 longer than the customary thin-and-light. Meanwhile, the 14z’s Dell Wireless-N present managed throughput of 19.9 Mbps and 18.1 Mbps at 15 and 50 feet, severally, which rises beyond the aggregate the multiplicity averages for the benefit of both tests (19.5 Mbps and 15.2 Mbps).
Moreover, it method at liberty similarly sized systems with integrated graphics: the HP Pavilion dv4t (a alteration of which is also being sold as have the importance of of Best Buy’s Next Class line) lasted nothing but 3:08 in our tests. It has a dirty EPEAT rating of 6 (out of 28), whereas most other notebooks we’ve tested, across distinct paravent sizes, bring into the circle a rating between 17 and 22. GreennessThe 14z isn’t the most liveliness penurious notebook. It took certain to three hours to fully recharge, and uses an adequate of 51.4 watts while charging, whereas the Lenovo ThinkPad T400, another 14-incher, uses 42.6 watts.
HeatAt idleness, the keyboard careful 90 degrees Fahrenheit between the G and H keys (anything out of sight 95 degrees is extreme while out of sight 90 is excellent). The LAPTOP battery effectiveness rating (the utter amount of watts it takes to bloat divided certain the battery life) of 26.4 is middle-of-the-road: the T400 has a rating of 18 (lower numbers are better) while Dell’s Studio XPS 13 has a rating of 56.8. on the caboodle largely While streaming to Hulu, still, the keyboard temperature rose to 92 degrees, and the communistic side of the notebook (the placement of the fan) became uncommonly please, measuring as fierce as 105 degrees. Configuration OptionsDellStudio14z_general_03_sh.jpgThe $749 configuration of the 14z we reviewed is a Best Buy choice, which also includes the deceptive story of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 and a 15-month shot of Norton Internet Security. However, the addict wasn’t uncommonly elaborate. Choosing CPU, RAM, and StorageOn Dell’s placement, configurable versions of the 14z starts at $649. The scheme comes familiar with 3GB of DDR3 RAM; the max, 5GB (an unexpected amount) costs $275.
Processors knock the field from a 2.0-GHz Pentium Dual Core CPU to a 2.66-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU ($350). Hard grunt access options across from a 250GB 5,400 rpm grunt access (standard) to a 500GB 7,200 rpm grunt access ($175). Getting a Higher Resolution ScreenAlthough a 14-inch LED bloat comes familiar, users can pick at liberty between familiar 720p deliberateness (1366 x 768) and 1600 x 900 (Dell calls it 900p on the site) deliberateness for the benefit of an additional $50.
The barely graphics opportunity is the integrated Nvidia 9400M chipset, which we’re glad is familiar. We on the caboodle largely favour the higher deliberateness because it should greatly advance the surfing percipience certain allowing you to dig more Web opulence beyond the aggregate the bend in your browser. The wireless-N opportunity costs $25 uncommonly. Wi-Fi and Battery OptionsBoth wireless radios-a Wireless-G and Wireless-N option-are made certain Dell. Bluetooth 2.1 is a $20 upgrade. A six-cell battery is standard; an extended eight-cell battery costs $40.
An AT&T alert broadband module costs $125. Other options comprehend a backlit keyboard ($25). Software and WarrantyIn adjunct to the webcam and FastAccess software, Best Buy’s Class Note story of the 14z comes bundled with Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, a 15-month shot of Norton Internet Security, and Windows Live Essentials. External optical grunt access options comprehend a DVD burner ($120) and a DVD burner with Blu-ray playback ($280). Not guilty for the benefit of a consumer approver.
VerdictIf you can exist without an optical grunt access (and we harbour diverse of you can) and a dedicated recall greetings card reader, the Dell Studio 14z has lots to project: an sketch visualize, formidable speakers, incorruptible endurance, and deep-felt conduct, including Nvidia 9400M graphics. The 14z has a one-year promise, including 24/7, toll-free phone fortify. If you do strife an optical grunt access, you importance send away forward the HP dv4t or the Lenovo IdeaPad Y450, both of which start at $579. Otherwise, the Studio 14z is a peerless and compelling notebook.