To fix the “blue screen” problem when installing vista, you need to pre-load the SATA drivers that are on your dell drivers CD. Even though vista detects your SATA drive and lets you format/install anyway… it won’t work during the final boot up stage.
Looks like www.dell.co.uk is the only european dell which offers the flash drive option right now. Annoying 
“I haven’t been looking into the SSD hard drives at all but what happens in the long run because if it’s flash based NAND storage then after a few million writes it’s likely to burn itself out.”
Is this likely to happen over an average usage/lifetime of the laptop? And can the drive its self be replaced? Maybe with a bigger one in the future.
32GB is just a bit to small for me to consider. 60GB would be my threshold. Hopefully by the time 60GB drives are available i will have saved enough to buy one 
I haven’t been looking into the SSD hard drives at all but what happens in the long run because if it’s flash based NAND storage then after a few million writes it’s likely to burn itself out.
It’s a few million writes per erase block. Since it should have wear leveling, to burn it out you would have to write over the whole drive a few million times (else the wear leveling would simply exchange the frequently erased block for a fresh one). It would take years of doing nothing but writes to do it, due to the limited speed of the drive interface. Since most of the time you are not writing to the drive, it would take even longer.
NAND burning out is not a real problem anymore.
Is that a usb port by the keyboard or is it a fingerprint reader?
OK, let’s do the math.
Suppose the maximum write speed is 50MB/s. Then it would take 640s to do one pass over the full drive. Let’s round it down to 10 minutes.
It would then take 10.000.000 minutes to do 1.000.000 full passes over the drive (remember, with wear leveling it doesn’t matter if you try to write over and over to a single erase block, since the hardware will swap its contents with a erase block which hasn’t seen many erases, “spreading” the erases over the whole flash memory).
Doing the math, rounding down, gave me 19 years. It only gets better as you increase the drive capacity or reduce the drive write speed. And that’s for doing nothing but writing.
Of course, that’s only if you have wear leveling; all reputable manufactures should have it. Without wear leveling, it doesn’t take much to wear down the flash memory.
I second Geoffrey Wiseman’s comment, windirstat is great. I started using that after finding and loving a program for linux called kdirstat.
I’m a new addition to the IT/programming dept at my work. The previous guy had started buying Dells for everyone in the company. Now the company is basically sold on the idea of Dells. From my perspective, I see the laptops which were purchased less than a year ago already falling apart.
I second this concern. From my experience working a college helpdesk, you really get what you pay for with any Dell system. Unless things have changed significantly in the last few years, I would be interested to see how long this system lasts before major problems start popping up. I don’t have any real experience with the XPS systems, but if they’re anything at all like previous systems I’ve dealt with, then I’ll pass.
Then again, now that I think about it, I made the mistake of buying an eMachines laptop. I’ll just clam up now…
No eSATA = no sale.
I’ll wait for eSATA and 64GB SSD. Then it will be mine!!
To those you posting the alternative disk space visualizers, I am aware of them …
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000192.html
… but I prefer the simplicity of TreeSize.
a usb port by the keyboard or is it a fingerprint reader?
It’s a fingerprint reader. I didn’t get this option because I think it’s silly. With the right driver, logging in with your finger works, but so does, y’know, typing in your password…
Could you comment on the LED display?
Not much to see; it’s a little brighter than your standard CCFL LCD monitor. And thinner. Definitely a must-have option if only because it’s thinner and uses less juice.
I’ll wait for eSATA
eSATA would be a neat option, it’s true…
Jeff, how max hot does this get when the CPU is 100%?
Pretty hot. Uncomfortable on the lap if the CPU is crunching, for sure. To be fair, this is also true of most laptops that don’t use ultra-low-voltage single core chips, though…
Any benchmark?
Windows Experience scores:
Processor: 4.9 (Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz)
Memory: 4.8 (2 GB DDR2-667)
Graphics: 4.0 (NVIDIA 8400M GS)
Gaming Graphics: 4.9
Primary Hard Disk: 5.7 (32GB Samsung SSD)
Ubiquitous gigabit ethernet? You should venture out of your tech-savvy bubble more often before making those kinds of statements.
Ever use FolderSize?
http://foldersize.sourceforge.net/
It basically does what your TreeSize program does, but it integrates it into Windows Explorer as a new column for the detailed list view. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with Vista.
I like spacemonger much more than windirstat as hardrive visualisation tool.
I think Spacemonger has much better usability and clearer visualisation, it’s just the treemap, all the folder/filenames/sizes are integrated and you just zoom/pan with the scrollwheel.
Heh it reminds me of mandlebrot in the way that progressively smaller files pop up while zoom focuses on current cursor position. It makes space hunting fun.
And with the wrong driver, fingerprint readers are downright dangerous. My colleague had a new laptop, and it came with a fingerprint reader. I tried it out once it was locked and it only took two swipes for the reader to think I was him and let me into his laptop.
He promptly disabled it after I told him.
Jeff,
In regards to, “it’s a better idea to install the proper AHCI driver during the Vista install process, because that’s the only time you can make the switch! Copy the “Intel SATA driver” to a USB flash drive, and specify alternate driver during the drive selection phase” is it possible for you to give me more information?
I have downloaded and attempted to use the driver available from Dell and the newest version from Intel. Both cause Windows Vista to be very slow. When I switch from AHCI to ATA it is fast, but I do not want to lose any speed or Turbo Memory. It is even (very) slow during the installation process.
Thank you.
To each his own, I guess. I love burning DVDs, or playing a DVD movie. It’s still alive.
the slot loading dvd I think is very useful for watching dvds.
Jeff,
Is it possible to hook up multiple monitors to this laptop?
Cheers.
Any idea how much Dell’s SSD extends battery life? Would it be noticeable? I’m getting ready to write a book while mostly off-the-grid. electricity will be precious. would the SSD matter?
The M1330 seems like the ultimate laptop configuration: it’s got everything I ever wanted to put into a laptop (so far 
I got mine about two weeks ago and had many Vista-related issues – annoying but tolerable. However, the motherboard failed on the M1330 suddenly while the laptop was just sitting there. An unreliable laptop is useless – what if that happened while giving a presentation or requiring laptop use on the road. The quality of the M1330 is unacceptable and Dell needs to do better. Based on that I cannot recommend the XPS1330.