Dell Studio XPS 16 with RGB LED Display Comments

Your description of the display is incorrect. An "RGB LED" display like this one is identical to any other LED-backlit LCD display, except it uses seperate red, green, and blue LEDs, instead of the typical one-LED "blue-plus-phosphor" approach to generating white light. That gives a more accurate white light at the cost of great lightguide complexity. Displays using red, green, and blue LEDs for each pixel do exist, but they're the "jumbotron" kind of displays used for advertising and news in train stations etc. Shrinking down such a display to the size of a 16-inch laptop would cost many orders of magnitude more than the equivalent OLED display, never mind a conventional LCD.

Does RGB LCD mean that blacks are going to be 100% black on the screen and contrast ratio is going to be really, really close to infinity?

"Does RGB LCD mean that blacks are going to be 100% black on the screen and contrast ratio is going to be really, really close to infinity?"

No - you need local dimming LEDs for that, which this laptop doesn't have (and nor does any other laptop currently in production, AFAIK). This just has a normal flat backlight which happens to be provided by separate red, green and blue LEDs rather than white LEDs or one or more cold cathode fluorescent lights. The separate RGB LEDs provide a wider colour gamut, but they don't (as the article originally incorrectly suggested - I think it has been rectified now) individually light each pixel.

No bother, it's an easy mistake to make given the sort of marketing RGB LED has been getting. Of course, in a couple of years we'll probably be seeing OLED displays in laptops, and then we really will have the truly black displays that Лис looks for.

Thanks guys, been waiting for your review!

It's unfortunate tho, that I just had to cancel my order due to shocking delivery times. My delivery by - date was moved three times, and I've been waiting for almost two months now, with the new date still 2-3 weeks out..
Being a huge movie buff and casual photographer I was really looking forward to the screen! Sorry Dell, but your time taking has "forced" me to join El Jobso's camp.

"Dell has chosen not to include any kind of mid/low-range sub-woofer underneath the machine."

Actually, 1640 has a subwoofer, albeit a poor one.

From Dell's official description page: http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-studio-xps-16?c=sg&cs=sgdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

Cinematic sound
For extraordinary sound quality, the Studio XPS 16 has premium speakers with an integrated subwoofer and 5.1 Dolby® Digital outputs.

Would I be able to connect a dell 30" monitor to the laptop. I'm aware you can get HDMI -> Dual Link DVI-I adapters, but can they support 2560 x 1600 resolutions @ 32bit colour?

I see everyone seems to be going for that piano black//digital picture frame bezel that the MacBooks have been touting.

"I see everyone seems to be going for that piano black//digital picture frame bezel that the MacBooks have been touting."

HP did it first before Apple.