Dell Studio s15z-2249CPN bundle .. review: Dell Studio s15z-2249CPN bundle ..

The Studio s15z-2249CPN definitely has a higher-end feel and look than Dell's Inspiron line. Instead of glossy finger-print-magnet plastic, it has a matte finish with a suede texture to it, in an attractive copper brown. It has just a simple silver Dell logo in the center of the lid. A glossy black plastic surrounds the LCD and trims the keyboard, and a shiny gold-toned plastic with a subtle basket-weave pattern is used for the palm rests. Even the bottom feels like it's made from a higher-quality material and the use of a slot-loading optical drive adds more class to the build.

At the top right of the keyboard sits a silver power button; there are no extra media controls or a button for turning on and off wireless. Instead Dell clearly marks the function keys so adjusting things like screen brightness and volume can be done quickly and you don't have to hit the Fn key. (A simple change in the BIOS settings under the Advanced tab will make the media controls the secondary function, meaning that you'll have to hit the Fn key to use the media controls.) The keyboard is large and comfortable with good movement and response. The keys are flat, but don't have the separation you'd find on a chiclet-style keyboard. The keyboard is backlit and the light can be dimmed or shut off entirely with the right arrow key.

The well-sized touch pad is an indentation in the palm rest with a textured coating, allowing fingers to glide smoothly. Two adequately large buttons rise from within the bottom of the pad; their movement is a little mushy without a satisfying click. Worth noting is that the touch pad on our test system would occasionally become impossible to use, forcing a reboot of the laptop to get it working properly again. We shut down most of the extra features such as circular scrolling and finger gestures for zooming in and out and that seemed to solve the problem.

The Dell Studio s15z-2249CPN's 15.6-inch glossy wide-screen LCD has a native resolution of 1,366x768 pixels, which is standard for laptops in this price range (budget 15-inch systems typically have 1,280x800-pixel displays). It's perfectly adequate for most mainstream applications with easy-to-read text and icons. The LED-backlit LCD gets reasonably bright, too. Viewing angles off to the sides are pretty good, but like most displays in this class, you'll have to adjust the screen position to get the best contrast. Overall color and contrast performance is good, though.

The port, I/O, and networking configuration for this Dell are satisfactory, though a fourth USB port would be welcomed. On the other hand, you do get Bluetooth, which is something that has been dropped from many mainstream laptops.

Given that the s15z-2249CPN is a retail system, it's not configurable at time of purchase. However, Dell's Web site has several configuration options for the Studio 15, including a faster Core i7 or slower Core i3 processor, less storage, more memory, discrete graphics, software, and five other color options. If you like what you've seen so far, but want to save some coin, need more performance, or just want another color, they're available. The WiDi feature doesn't seem to be an option, though. Also, despite being able to configure a Studio 15 with up to 8GB of memory, the s15z-2249CPN supports only 4GB.

The Core i5 processor and Intel GMA HD integrated graphics in this laptop provide excellent performance for general computing tasks. Its lab test results came in second to the Toshiba E205-S1904, but it was a close second, suggesting that they perform pretty much the same. It handled streaming audio and video well enough and multitasking didn't cause any significant slowdowns. We had no problems playing back AVCHD high-def movies at full screen, either. That's not to say you can't overtax the system--it's not a high-end gaming laptop or media workstation after all--but it should be able to accomplish most day-to-day computing easily.

Juice box
Dell Studio s15z-2249CPN	Average watts per hour
Off (60%)	0.3
Sleep (10%)	1.2
Idle (25%)	11.2
Load (05%)	52.9
Raw kWh number	50.5
Annual power consumption cost	$5.73