I've had my Dell Studio 1558 for a couple of weeks now.
Got off to a rocky start when I could not get the wifi to work. Eventually, a fresh install in which I enabled the propriety Broadcom driver immediately (without downloading general updates or enabling the ATI proprietary driver) and rebooted, took care of that.
For more info on other's experiences...
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1401746
My config:
Intel Core i5-520m
ATI graphics card
Creative xfi audio
"1080p" display
"Dell 1520" wifi card
OS:
Mint 8 32b
What works:
[*] Screen brightness control buttons (with or without the ATI proprietary driver)
[*] Fan operation (seems to run constantly at top speed unless the ATI proprietary driver is enabled. Then it works like a charm)
[*] Suspend/Wake (No problems. Haven't tested "hybernate"...never use that.)
[*] Touchpad (No issues. Default settings pretty much fine for me, though did tweak motion speed a little)
[*] WiFi (Works fine if you have the 1520 card and install Braodcom proprietary driver. I had trouble until I did a fresh install then enabled the Broadcom driver and rebooted before enabling the ATI driver)
[*] Sound (playback works fine after adding line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
"options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m6")
[*] Eject key (no issues)
[*] Sound mute toggle key (no issues)
[*] Wifi enable/disable key (turns wifi off, but turning back on seems to be iffy... maybe just slow. There are some Setup (F2) bios options for the behavior of this switch. I have not tested much yet.)
Doesn't work...yet...on my unit: volume up and down keys. You can adjust vol. w/the notification area icon. Several have reported a working fix for this problem (see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1401746), but I have not yet successfully implemented it.
General pros:
Keyboard is good. Slightly cupped keys. Adequate movement (a little more would be nice). Not quite as good a feel as my old Toshiba Satellite Pro, but still above average. Have not noticed any of the caving in of the keyboard under typing pressure that others have reported.
Looks nice. Midnight blue is nearly black but with the "micro suede" that is much less finger print prone.
Feels sold. Not a lightweight unit, but I actually thought it felt lighter than I was expecting.
Battery life: in this unit with standard battery... not great, but typical. Couple hours.
Display brightness is excellent.
Fan noise: noticeable under load, but normal for this sort of CPU. It has not been bothersome.
Cons:
Not much.
Needs another USB port or two.
Display backlight does not appear to turn off completely. Once in a while in a very low ambient light environment, I've felt slightly uncomfortable with the brightness at its lowest setting.
The 1920x1080 resolution display is too hi-res for a screen this size. If I had it to do over, I'd go with the the "720p" option probably, but something in between would be better. If 16:9 ratio is the goal, a 1600x900 screen would be perfect for my tastes.
If you change the native resolution to lower one, though, you get slightly fuzzy text and lines which is worse than tiny text. Changing configuration options for Gnome and some apps mostly corrects the tiny text problem. (I was quite dissatisfied with what I was able to do to improve text size in Win7, though!).
Needs more than 65w adapter (at least, it will tell you it needs 90w if you plug in something less). Dell's site has some 65w adapters it says are "Studio 15 compatible" but you need 90w. The unit ships w/a 90 watt, I just needed a second adapter for another location.
Tried Win7. Liked. Tried Ubuntu. Liked more. Tried Mint, loved.
