the Dell Inspiron 1525 which we reviewed earlier this year. With its glossy satin finish, drop-down tubular hinge and tapering base, the chassis closely resembles that of Dell XPS M1530 in terms oflook and design. And its build quality is solid and durable. Beyond the gloss, we found a high-powered machine. TIcking away at its heart is an Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 2.6 GHz processor with 667 MHz FSB and 6 MB Cache, 3GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive: all this on an Intel Mobile 965 chipset. Graphics and video is ably supported by the mid-range ATI Radeon 3450 HD 256MB discrete GPU.

The 15A-inch widescreen TIT display is glossy and supports a maximum screen resolution of 1440x900 pixels. Watching videos and photos is a treat and gaming is also more enjoyable on the glossy screen, and it has minuscule backlit bleed. However, you can't configure the Dell Studio 15 to have a non-glossy screen. There is a slot-loading 8X dual-layered DVD writer fitted in, but you can also upgrade it and have a Bluray read/DVD writer combo drive instead. There are four USB ports, HDMI, VGA, Firewire, and Bluetooth. It supports Draft-N Wi-Fi and Gigabit Ethernet which is great for high-speed connectivity, and three audio ports. The input-output ports are arranged around the chassis unobtrusively.

The keyboard is a little below par compared to other Dell laptops we reviewed, it flexes and isn't congenial for quick typing. The touch-sensitive multiŽmedia buttons are arrayed above the keyboard and so is the speaker which is fairly impressive. The palmrest is wide and has a fingerprint reader, while the touchpad is fairly responsive but could've been a little larger for comfort.

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The Dell Studio 15 came pre-installed with Windows Vista Ultimate and fared very well in our string of bench marks. WorldBench 6 pegged it at an impressive score of 99. This is by far the best WorldBench score from a laptop that we have reviewed; Dell XPS M1530 and Acer Aspire 8920 both managed a WorldBench score of 87. PC Mark 2005 and Vantage scores were at 3740 and 5707, respectively. In our graphics test, the Dell Studio 15 garnered a Cinebench 10 score of 5416 and a 3D Mark 2006 score of 1718: both pretty good.

Gaming was enjoyable with DOOM 3 grossing 33.5 fps at 1024x768 resolution, ultra high settings, and antialiasing turned off. NFS ProStreet ran smoothly at high settings with the occasional stutter. This shows that the Dell Studio 15 laptop is well equipped to handle the usage patterns of almost all users and applications without buckling under the strain. At full screen brightness and standard usage, the nine cell battery lasted a worthy 4 hrs and 20 mins. Good for users who prioritize longer battery life.