Dell Studio XPS 15 Laptop, i7-2630QM, 8GB DDR3 Memory, 15.6 INCH FHD LCD Screen, NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1GB graphics, TV Tuner, 750GB 7200 RPM HD, Tray Load Blu-ray Disc, Windows 7 Home Premium, Backlit Keyboard, 2 Year Limited Warranty Review

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(More customer reviews)In December 2010, I ordered a studio XPS computer with all the goodies from Dell. This machine has been a total nightmare for someone who works online. In January 2011 (within 30 days of the purchase) the motherboard, display, and optical drive failed. Dell did send a technician to the house to replace these items. The fixes did not work and Dell sent me a new computer. The new computer was no better than the last; it started crashing on a regular basis. I called Dell for support; they insisted it was a software issue, not covered by the warranty (which expires in 2015).
They transferred me to the software department; I had to pay $107 for them to look at it online. Then the technician insisted that my computer had many viruses. I asked how that could be since McAfee protection came with my system and I was using it regularly. The technician insisted that McAfee was no good - you must buy Norton or this will keep happening. Okay - I did that. Then the technician did something that caused my computer to no longer boot. It took a couple of hours for him to reformat my hard drive. I lost all my information. Thankfully, most of the information was on my old computer since I had had only the new one for a couple weeks.
The past couple of months I have had difficulties using my CD/DVD optical drive. Dell sent a technician out to the house and replaced it. It was tested and worked fine. About 10 min. after the technician left, I tried to install a new program. My whole computer crashed. I called the technician and he called Dell who said that I had to call Dell for further repairs. I did. I spent about four hours with somebody in the hardware support division fishing around inside my computer. He kept trying to update my drivers for the optical drive, which the technician installed a few hours earlier. Eventually, the online technician deleted something and my computer crashed and refused to reboot.
I called Dell back and they sent me back to hardware support making me do a number of tests with the different F 1-12 buttons. Eventually we got it restarted and he sent me over to software because he could not figure out what was wrong. Once again, I had to pay for software support. After about three hours of testing, software support could not fix the problem either. Software decided that it was a hardware problem and the motherboard and optical drive need replaced again. There was no refund from the software support I purchased, even though it did not help. Here is a word to the wise - DO NOT BUY A DELL COMPUTER!


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Plextor PX-B120U - Disk drive - BD-ROM - 4x - Hi-Speed USB - external Review

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(More customer reviews)Load speed is decent. Plays blu-ray flawlessly and I was able to rip the movies too for movie editing. Comes with Powerdvd 9 BD; however, Powerdvd would only play blu-ray the first time I installed it, but would not recognize BD afterwards. Very strange. I tweaked everything to see what the problem was, but to no avail. It was not Plextor's fault, as I downloaded Powerdvd 10 Ultra and now it works fine. The only reason I gave this four stars was because I needed to shell out more money for something I paid for.
I did a search online and there were no threads on this issue, so it is probably an isolated one. Other than that and the funny crunching sound it makes, I would recommend it for people who want to play blu-ray on their computers at a decent price.


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Buffalo Technology MediaStation 8x Portable DVD Writer with LED Power Indicator DVSM-PC58U2VB (Black) Review

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(More customer reviews)It's been 6 years since I bought a laptop with an optical drive, so a good external disc drive is pretty important. I had been using a feature rich LG Lightscribe for the last 4 years, but it finally gave up the ghost and left me without a reliable method to read or write CD's.
For my next drive I wanted something smaller, as there was nothing portable about the old LG. Enter the Buffalo MediaStation. I haven't had it very long, but I can report one 3 important facts.
1. You can run it off one USB port. The drive has two USB cables wrapped around the side and on the undercarriage. Whether or not you can run this off a single port depends entirely on your computer. The drive does make this easy for you by lighting up red or blue depending on your power needs. If it's blue you're golden; red and you're going to need that second USB port.
2. The drive is pretty fast for a bus-powered external. On a 1.3ghz Intel Dual Core 2 laptop with 4gb of RAM, iTunes encoded 160 kbps MP3's at 20x.
3. The DVD drive can be noisy. There's not a lot of room for insulation in this device, so it's going to rattle around some.
I can't speak for longevity, but so far it's been an excellent buy.

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Apple MacBook Pro MC024LL/A 17-Inch Laptop Review

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(More customer reviews)I finally made the decision to get rid of my two laptops (an HP envy, and a 13" macbook pro) in favor of this 17" macbook pro with a dual boot setup using Boot Camp. Initial impressions: The best choice I've ever made. Here's the whole thing broken down:
THE SIZE
This thing is pretty beastly, but it's not unwieldy. You definitely feel its size the second you pick one up, or move it around, but you'll quickly get over that once you open it up and turn it on. The keyboard is super expansive, the screen is unbelievable (more on that later) and you can still stay mobile with this thing if you really need to. It's not something you can easily move around with 1 hand from room to room, but if you're like me, and do most of your work at a desk, then this is a great choice to make. (Note: I also own an iPad, which is a fantastic pair with this thing, since it does about 90% of what I do on-the-go as far as mobile computing goes.)
THE SCREEN
So I mentioned already that you'll most likely fall in love with this thing like I did when you open it up and turn it on. It has the highest PPI (pixels per inch) of all the apple laptops they sell and it shows. I actually am considering not even hooking this up to my external monitor anymore, because of how brilliantly sharp it is. Colors really pop and text is easy to read. Also, since it's 17", you get a better-than-HD 1920x1200 resolution. My work is in development, so this is really a major selling point for me. I need to be able to manage all my windows in Xcode and Interface builder without tons of overlap and clicking between browsers, my chat windows and my code.
THE KEYBOARD
If you've used a macbook pro keyboard in the past year or so, you'll feel right at home with this thing. I will say this as a negative, however: It's not super comfortable on your arms right past your wrist, because the sharp edges of the laptop dig into your skin after a while.
THE PERFORMANCE
I copied over my entire OS/settings to this new macbook pro and ran some field tests to see how fast this thing is in comparison to my old macbook pro--and it screams. An iPhone/iPad project that takes 5-10 seconds to build on my old machine (core 2 duo) takes a fraction of that time here. The i5 is most definitely a step up from previous core 2 duos. I finally have a laptop I can stick Windows 7 on that is as good as a dedicated Windows machine can do. (Being able to have this 1 comp to run both environments is great!)
BATTERY LIFE
I will have to come back and update on battery life, but I can tell you that it's worlds better than my HP. That was similarly spec'ed and barely worked 2 hours on the go. This one so far is looking like 6 hours with wifi and full brightness. They have it rated at 8-9 hours, but I'm sure that's with brightness turned down and not full use the whole time. Truthfully, anything better than 2 hours with this kind of power is great for me.
TOUCHPAD
Again, if you've used a recent MacBook Pro, this is essentially identical. The biggest change here is that you can now use "inertial" scrolling, so that you can just flick your fingers to scroll long pages, and it will keep scrolling until it slows to a stop. This is very similar to the iPhone scrolling of long pages, or if you've used a Magic Mouse, it does the same thing.
Also, of note, is that of all the new copy cat glass track pads, I haven't used one that works as well as these. Even inside Windows, it performs real well and you feel productive with it. I've used other PC's with the no-button glass touchpad, and it makes me want to throw them across the room after a few minutes..
OTHER THOUGHTS/CONCERNS
While I'll keep this at 5 stars, this isn't necessarily a perfect computer. I have a few gripes with it, but they aren't really deal breakers and all the other pros make up for them so well that I'm okay with it. For starters, this has three USB ports (the 15 and 13 model only have 2) but unfortunately they are literally all lined up next to each other. If you have any kind of a fat usb device, you're out of luck for placing anything next to it.
Also, you'll most likely need to buy the mini-display port to HDMI converter because while Apple loves mini-display port, the rest of the world is just now using HDMI as its standard. You can find one here on amazon for real cheap (

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The new MacBook Pro sets all-new benchmarks for Mac notebooks. This 17-inch MacBook Pro features an Intel Core i5 processor and next-generation NVIDIA graphics that bring high performance to everything from 3D games to photos and videos. Additionally, the MacBook Pro comes standard with automatic graphics switching that provides performance when you need it and energy efficiency when you don't--helping the built-in battery last up to 8-9 hours.
The 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro (see larger image).

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