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Ubuntu on Studio Notebooks

Linux, Laptops submitted by joshhendo Yesterday

The new Dell Studio laptops look great! Taking the best design features from many other Dell products, and put them all into one.

This laptop actually looks like it should run Linux (that is the first thing I thought when I saw it). I don't know why I say that, but it just does. So, why not give it ago? I don't have a Studio, though I suspect it shouldn't take too much to get Ubuntu working (may need one or two drivers written, but from my experience with Dell laptops and Ubuntu, most things work well).

This is one of the products I would particularly like to see Ubuntu as an option to be pre-inatlled on if Ubuntu can't be an option on all models. 2 Comments »

Improve your new 17" monitor.

Monitors and Displays submitted by winoffice Jun 24

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Displays/productdetail.aspx?c=us&...

Today I heard of a new 17" by Dell (the S1709W), and I decided to take a look at it. I had expected and hoped for something new or some sort of upgrade or improvement from the SE178WFP/E178WFP monitors. Instead, I was very disappointed when I seen exactly the same specifications! The same resolution, the same connectors, and everything else remains the same too.

I think that the new S1709W could be improved in the following ways:

1. Offer a 1920x1200 resolution option. You offer 1920x1200 on 17" notebooks, do the same here. I sit as close to desktop monitors as I do to notebooks, so do not try to say that I sit closer to notebooks than to desktop monitors.

2. In addition to the VGA port, include a DVI port. 1 Comment »

Deliver OLPC / Pixel Qi screens on laptops

Monitors and Displays, Laptops submitted by thattallguy Jun 2

The One Laptop Per Child project, whatever you may think of it overall, has one universally-acclaimed feature: the sunlight-readable display. No matter what the lighting conditions, the screen is astonishingly clear -- indoors or in dark light, it looks like a normal screen; in bright light or sunlight, the screen becomes even sharper and is as readable as paper. Everybody I've shown it to says, "Yeah, yeah, sounds great" until they actually try it, and then they go "Wow! I don't believe it!" You won't believe it until you see it.

Go see it. Then get it on Dell laptops.

The lady who developed it is Mary Lou Jeppson; the company she spun off from OLPC to develop the screens is called Pixel Qi. Please go look them up, and do whatever you can to put their screens on your machines. First to market wins a prize -- my bucks. 5 Comments »

Please change the Mini-Dell keyboard layout.

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Laptops submitted by vandutran Jun 3

Hi,

See here: Mini-Dell keyboard layout: http://gizmodo.com/photogallery/dellmininsp/1001694713

There's a horde of new upcoming "Sub Notebooks" this summer, and Dell has one on its way. The current champion seems to be the MSI Wind, but one thing has refrained me from pre-ordering it: the keyboard layout.

I see two mistake with the keyboard:

1. The swapping location of the Fn and the Crtl key.
2. The directional keys/right shift key.

Dell, please use the Acer's keyboard layout, i find it to be the best layout, especially for small sized laptops. Actually, please look at your Dell Latitude D600, which i own and actually liked that one best.

Acer:
Dell:

Best regards,
Van Du 11 Comments »

Have a high resolution *option* for the Inspiron Mini (or other mini laptops)

Inspiron products, Monitors and Displays submitted by chipzero Jun 4

With a higher resolution screen option, you can effectively fit more on the screen using the same physical dimensions, making mini laptops suited for photo editing/viewing or development environments such as Eclipse. It has been an continous development over the past decade to have increasing screen resolutions, and modern software -- ranging from web applications to operating systems such as Windows Vista -- have adapted to that. Going back to low resolutions such as 800x480 or even 1024x600 has a detrimental effect on the applicability of these mini laptops.

Since the recent rebirth of mini laptops, it's clear that people are willing to give up a lot in terms of specs if for a well-priced and portable laptop. These UMPCs often have 4 or 8 GB storage and a limited CPU and memory specs. A lot of people are very happy to make this trade off (as am I), but the screen resolution may not be one of those things that should be turned down. Doing so affects every day use and impacts the applicability of the laptop.

Using a high DPI on a small screen may not be suited or desirable for everyone, which is why this should be an option. One resolution may be to low for some and two high for others; people should be able to choose whatever DPI they would like to use for their mini. 4 Comments »

Growing Gaming Community; Smaller Gaming Laptops wanted!

Gaming, Laptops submitted by djdenny123 Jun 5

With technology improving each day to shrink laptop sizes, the demand for a smaller gaming powerhouse grows exponentially. With a good majority of gamers enjoying intense, crisp LARGE image gaming on their 17" behemoths, there are still those who'd love to take gaming to the ultraportable level. Systems nowadays offer decent gaming at 14" levels, or with the Dell XPS 1330, at the 13" level. But, some of us would still love to see a smaller laptop. Take the Sony VAIO TZ model for instance: right now it doesn't offer a whole lot of multimedia-based freedom, but the design is inarguably a sexy machine. I can put money down that gamers would love to be able to game on this ultraportable 11" screen.

So the topic is: will we be seeing a similar sexy model (ideally 11") ultraportable decent gaming powerhouse sometime in the near future? Or can Dell at least answer to such a call and consider possibly making the market's first ultraportable gaming rig? I'm sure with the introduction of Solid State drives and nVidia vigourously shrinking graphic card sizes, it can be possible in the near future.

Any comments one can elaborate on? Because in my honest opinion, gamers will love the ultraportability of their gaming, not so much how amazing the quality of video is (unless you're a hardcore, desktop-replacement psycho ;] haha) 4 Comments »

Music player On laptop

Software, Laptops submitted by kailer Jun 6

i was thinking of plugging a in bedded mp3 player in it,maybe 1gb or 2 gb flash memory (better if more can be place in it)
the power to run the music player will run from it own recharge battery instead of the laptop battery because it might spoil the battery....
It will be great if the player can be removed but if the player is lost , it will be ugly for the laptop... and for music lover laptop battery will sure last as the battery can be recharge tgt with the laptopbattery( ipod are like this)
and i wanted to implement this using flash disk because i understand that pro long moving of hard disk will damage it so i used a flash disk instead of the harddisk

dell can make it own remote control for the music player ,something like other songs remote. forward and backward and changing of songs

the flash drive that the mp3 use might be bigger as you can store your backup inside too incase anythings goes wrong with ur hard disk 6 Comments »

New Dell-Mini Keyboard Arrangement

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.) submitted by aikiwolfie Jun 8

There has bee a lot of decission around IdeaStorm about the new Dell Mini. Some of that discussion has turned to the keyboard. This is my solution for making the best use of the available space on the Dell Mini for the keyboard and touch pad.



As you can see the left and right mouse buttons are on either side of the touch pad. The space bar has been split in two and all other keys are more or less where you'd expect to find them. The cluster of keys at the top of the touch pad are the 12 function keys. Many people have expressed disappointment that these have not been included with the Mini.

I believe this would be a perfectly usable layout and better than what is currently on offer. None of the keys would be any smaller than what might be found on a mobile phone and all of the major and regularly used keys are a decent size.



This keyboard arrangement could also be used in conjunction with the XPS One as a smaller alternative to the full size model. Much better for relaxing on the sofa with. Dell could even role this design out across their entire line.

I would ask Dell to at least built a prototype of this design for further testing. 27 Comments »

Put more staff on the Ideastorm team!

IdeaStorm submitted by zmjjmz May 31

I seriously cannot believe that 3 people is a sufficient amount of admins to manage 450+ pages of ideas.
This is really evidenced by the fact that a _ton_ of ideas have gone ignored by the Ideastorm team, even when they were very popular. 10 Comments »

Include cleaning and screen protection cloth with laptops

Monitors and Displays, Laptops submitted by jkeating 11/02/07

A nice dell branded cleaning cloth should be included with new laptops. This cloth would be used to clean the laptop sceens as well as lay on top of the keyboard when the laptop is closed to protect the screen from keyboard imprints. If a cloth is included it is far more likely that this cloth would be used to clean rather than some other cleaning device which may damage a user's screen. 10 Comments »

Hot-swappable laptop batteries.

Laptop Power submitted by jmxz May 31

I'd like to be able to swap the battery on my laptop without having to turn it off or hibernate it. It seems you could do this by putting a large capacitor or tiny internal battery that could provide power for the 30 seconds or so it takes to switch to a spare battery. Another way you might be able to do this is instead of having one big battery in each laptop, have 2 small ones instead; and you could swap them one at a time.

If it was really easy to swap them I'd probably buy more spare batteries; so I could go most of the day without plugging in the laptop (and then I'd want an external charger so I could charge them all overnight). 25 Comments »

Offer a easy to print out PDF of your invoice

Service and Support submitted by ro_bro May 30

Right now, getting an invoice from dell when purchasing a desktop in my case is a mess. It's misaligned, and simply looks ugly.

Also, if I want to get an invoice, I have to go through this hoop of filling out information again (which makes no sense, since I have the order ID anyways, AND I'm logged in).

I propose that you provide an easy to read PDF file as an invoice after a purchase from Dell. That would make our lives easier as the consumer to just save that out as a receipt or to even print it out and file it. Right now, it's really ugly and looks unprofessional.

I've never seen a more convoluted order summary and invoice email than from Dell. 5 Comments »

TPM module for Bit Locker

Software submitted by flipper771 May 30

How about the option to add a TPM module for Bit Locker which is part of Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate. 4 Comments »

DVI-D should be standard on all 15-inch Dell Laptops!

Monitors and Displays, Laptops submitted by beansbaxter May 30

Dell should offer a DVI-D connection on all laptops, especially ones with 15-inch screens and above. The 15.4 MacBook Pro has a DVD-D while the XPS M1530 only has HDMI.

One of the distinct, clear advantages of having a DVI-D allows 30-inch displays to be connected to your laptop. Dell could sell more 30-inch LCD's that way too.

Many of my colleagues who work web and print design are running 30-inch displays. Since 30-inch displays require a DVD-D port, it's either desktop action or a MacBook Pro for the laptop site - there really is no need to have anything bigger than a 15.4-inch for portability reasons when going to meetings, etc.

If Dell was to take their 13-inch XPS or their 14-inch Inspirion 1420 and throw DVD-D on those, they would have a competitive advantage of the 13-inch MacBook and others which dont offer that.

Bring on DVD-D. It only makes sense. 7 Comments »

Please make Ubuntu XPS Notebook cheaper than XPS Vista Notebook

Linux, Operating Systems, XPS products submitted by dki May 26

Hi,
I have tested the price of the default Vista-Notebook XPS M1330 (in Germany) and the Ubuntuversion with the same Configuration. The result was amazing :(:

Vistaversion: 909,00 €
Linuxversion: 923,44 €

Is Vista cheaper than Ubuntu?? I can not imagine.

So my wish: Make Ubuntu-Laptops competitive! 19 Comments »

Dell Mini Inspiron

Inspiron products, Laptops submitted by lukemcurley May 28

Just read on Gizmodo, the new Dell Mini Inspiron looks very nice indeed. (http://gizmodo.com/393815/exclusive-dell-mini-inspiron-their-first-mini-laptop)

My only concern, as I have with all Dell laptops, it has only a crummy VGA port, no DVI or HDMI. I cannot understand this, VGA is dead and has been dead for about four years now.

Other than that it looks very slick, nice keyboard, 3 usb ports, memory card reader, vga and ethernet.

Look forward to the Mini release, but without DVI or HDMI will have to wait until Dell decides that this is an issue for many buyers. 30 Comments »

Stop using porprietary parts!

Service and Support submitted by joes15 May 28

I have been told that I can only upgrade my Dimension E521 with parts from Dell because other parts won't work. In other words Dell uses proprietary parts. This really dissapoints me. I bought my PC with the thought that I would be able to upgrade later. I think that if Dell would use standard parts it could 1. porbably save a lot of money when it comes to manufacturing, and 2. it could increase sales because people want very upgradeable PC's. I know I do. 4 Comments »

use open firmware on all systems

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Service and Support submitted by dgilmore May 21

Rather than using a closed bios that is limited in functionality. Use open firmware http://www.openfirmware.org/ on all systems. it gives greater flexibility and will allow dell to provide open source solutions from top to bottom. 3 Comments »

Bring back the LAPTOP

Laptops submitted by falbert May 22

Please make a useable "laptop" ie:computer that you can put on your lap...

Make it cooler : I know we want more performance but you can find a way
Make it quieter by using silent fans and heat pipes
Place the air intakes on the sides not on the bottom. 5 Comments »

Give Open Source Software a Higher profile On Dell.com

Dell Web Site submitted by aikiwolfie May 22

From InformationWeek.com : Open Source Quality Improving, But Development Assumptions Need Revising

This report confirms what open source supporters have known all along. Open source developers deliver very high quality code. As such Dell should be giving the open source developers it uses a higher profile on Dell.com instead of hiding them away in some dark recess out of the way!

At the very least give your own in-house open source developers more exposure! They deserve it after all the top quality code they've produced, tested and tweaked. 3 Comments »