Dell lappys

[darkorb]

might be alittle early,

looking at dell for laptops

$1500 or under,

saw the 13/14" inspiron/xps

Here is the XPS M1330 13" $1,599

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2MB cache/2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB), English

Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition, English

Tuxedo Black Casing with Microsatin Finish XPS M1330

Standard Display with 2.0 Megapixel Webcam

2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz

160G 5400RPM SATA HDD

128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 8400M GS

8X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)

big difference between 2ghz T7x00 and 2ghz T5x00?

Dell Ispiron 1420 14" $1,389

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2MB cache/2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB), English

Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition, English

Jet Black Color with Matte Finish

High Resolution, glossy widescreen 14.1 inch display (1440 x 900)

Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam

2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 Dimm

160G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 8400M GS

8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability

Basically same specs, bigger screen, for less.

Inspiron 1520 $1,199

ntel® Core™ 2 Duo T5250 (2MB cache/1.5GHz/667Mhz FSB), English

Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition, English

Jet Black Color with Matte Finish

High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch display (1440 x 900)

Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam

2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 Dimm

160G 5400RPM SATA HDD

256MB NVIDIA ®GeForce™8600M GT

8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability

and finally the Vostro

Dell Vostro 1400 $1,128

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2.0GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB), English

Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic, English

14.1 inch Wide Screen XGA+ LCD Display with TrueLife™

Integrated 2.0 mega pixel Web Camera

2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 Dimm

160G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

8X CD/DVD Burner w/ double-layer DVD+R write capability, w/o Roxio Creator

128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS

Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Wi-Fi Mini Card

Integrated High Definition Audio

Dell Vostro 1500 $1,228

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7100 (1.8GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB), English

Genuine Windows XP Home Edition, SP2, English

15.4 in UltraSharp™ Wide Scrn SXGA+LCD Display w/TrueLife™

Integrated 2.0 mega pixel Web Camera

2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 Dimm

160G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

8X CD/DVD Burner w/ double-layer DVD+R write capability, w/o Roxio Creator

256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GT

Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Wi-Fi Mini Card

High Definition Audio 2.0

Sry for all those specs. They all have almost identical specs (15" have the 8600M GT) and it looks like the bigger ones are cheaper..

I was looking to have a really small portable laptop with pretty good battary life. This is for uni so having a 8600GT im sure i would want to game :nono:

 

[FragTek]

I'd go with one of the less expensive models that has the 8600 in it, seems like the best choice IMO.

 

[duke]

any reason you've gone straight for dell? from my experience acer make the best laptops and dell make the worst

 

[FragTek]

any reason you've gone straight for dell? from my experience acer make the best laptops and dell make the worst

I'd take a Toshiba or a Lenovo over either if it were up to me.

 

[darkorb]

really?

ok, ill take a look into those. But that XPS does look sick

 

[darkorb]

wtf no edit button?

uhm, lenovo doesnt ship to canada ( i try to config a laptop but it always goes to the US site)

 

[NickS]

I'd take a Toshiba or a Lenovo over either if it were up to me.

Lenovo, hell yes. Dell makes a damn good laptop though. I'd take a look at HP as well.

 

[FragTek]

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the Dell... It's just no my top choice, one reason being that their tech support is so god awful it's nearly impossible to get them to help you out in any type of situation if ur computer decides to go haywire.

Better yet, just get yourself a MacBook

 

[K3Y]

got myself a vostro 1400 and i think its great, after i stuck xp on it of course....boots in less than half the time, gained an hour+ battery and thats without customising the xp install!

 

[outrunner]

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the Dell... It's just no my top choice, one reason being that their tech support is so god awful it's nearly impossible to get them to help you out in any type of situation if ur computer decides to go haywire.

Better yet, just get yourself a MacBook

I don't have any problems when I contact Dell through work, we have approx 400 Latitude D610/620 to look after. They answer the phone quickly and are very helpful, I do normally do all of the basic things that they ask, before I call, the total time on the phone is around 15 minutes a time.

 

[FragTek]

I don't have any problems when I contact Dell through work, we have approx 400 Latitude D610/620 to look after. They answer the phone quickly and are very helpful, I do normally do all of the basic things that they ask, before I call, the total time on the phone is around 15 minutes a time.

Yes, the keyword here being WORK. They decided not to outsource their enterprise tech support to India which is a huge plus. But, if you're a lonely little end user, kiss tech support goodbye.

 

[Ares210]

Yes, the keyword here being WORK. They decided not to outsource their enterprise tech support to India which is a huge plus. But, if you're a lonely little end user, kiss tech support goodbye.

I'm with Frag. Get a macbook. Plus, Apples support is in the US

 

[duke]

Yes, the keyword here being WORK. They decided not to outsource their enterprise tech support to India which is a huge plus. But, if you're a lonely little end user, kiss tech support goodbye.

Was gonna say exactly the same. I used to work in an IT dept, and we had numerous Lattitude laptops and Dimension desktops. Support desk was excellent, with spare parts being shipped next day in a lot of cases.

Although, my housemate used to own a Dell desktop (then bought a Dell laptop as well) and they simply don't want to know because you simply don't matter to them.

Also a price comparison between Dell and Acer...

Dell XPS M1730 Inspiron

£2,481.26

Core2Duo T7700

Vista Ultimate

1 Year Warranty

17" TFT

4Gb 667MHz DDR2

2x250Gb RAID0

802.11 a/b/g

GeForce Go 8700M GT

Ageia PhysX

Blu-ray DVD+/-RW

LI Battery (?)

Acer Aspire 9920G

£1499.97

Core2Duo T7700

Vista Ultimate

1 Year Warranty

20.1" WS TFT

4Gb 667MHz DDR2

2x250Gb RAID0

802.11 a/b/g/n

GeForce Go 8600M GT

Ageia PhysX

HD DVD RAM

LI Battery (2hrs)

A grand extra...for what? A physics card and a blueray drive over a HD-DVD one?

N.B. Only really picked Acer as I am most familiar with them, but if you shop around I'm sure other manufacturers will do similar prices.

 

[FarFarAway]

Dell do some awesome deals on laptops, especially in their cheaper range. Every single one I've had or seen was well built and put together and actually pretty attractive for a laptop.

Having said that, I still keep hankering after a Macbook

 

[Thunderer]

I myself have a Dell and never had problems of any kind and it runs smoothly. Friends have Acer or MSI and do not complain of either brand. So it basically is up to the user to choose one brand over the other.

 

[Deshman]

I've had two Dell laptops now (I got them free) but they are more trouble than they're worth. The first was the D505; the motherboard fried twice and the PSU fried once, now this is a known issue with this model and we mentioned this the first time but we were assured that the repair team would fix this, yeah right! It blew again, and again. In the end we just gave up on the laptop and sent it back to them though the whole time they refused to give us a different model as a replacement. Apparently it's in their contract that they can refuse any of your requests and keep 'repairing' to their hearts content.

Also if you were expecting a quick turn around then wave goodbye to it. WHEN your Dell laptop decides to break down you have to get it back to them and they take about 2-3 months to get it back to you. The customer service is absolutely rubbish and don't expect to speak to someone who even has a slight grasp of the English language.

I'm not going into detail with the second laptop but needless to say they learned nothing in the two-three years development time they had since the D505.

Overview: Going Dell is the worst possible route ever - you're better off fixing any problems yourself or with forum help. I'm actually surprised Dell haven't gone the way of Time yet as their builds, components and customer service are just as bad. If I hadn't got the laptops free I would have been much more annoyed but I'll never be buying one with real money

 

[hawkinsa21]

Dell do some awesome deals on laptops, especially in their cheaper range. Every single one I've had or seen was well built and put together and actually pretty attractive for a laptop.

Having said that, I still keep hankering after a Macbook

Thats the Darkside

Anyways, I'd recommend a Dell (Inspiron only), despite what a lot of people think about their customer support, it has changed immensely over the last 3 years... I had an XPS 720 which arrived basically DOA... I had to reinstall the OS and start from scratch but it still kept dying... hadn't been setup correctly... Their customer support for me, was nothing short of fantastic.

The tech support out of hours was in Canada and free, the guys were very helpful (remote diagnostics, shadow sessions over GoToMyPc), didn't solve the problem (RMA in the end thank god cos now check ma sig baeeeeeeeeeby yeah! ) but I had 2 calls back in a day asking how things were, did x, y and z work etc... then I was advised to speak with customer services, and they, although based in India, made the RMA very easy, at no cost to me, and I had a phone call every day checking that things were OK etc, and no pushy sales techniques either...

So, although I had a dodgy machine, I can only highly recommend them on their customer service... Yes, a few years ago it left something to be desired, but 2 years ago they actually setup a department specifically to trawl the net for forums about Dell customer service, and then acted upon the shocking information they found.

PS my Dell Inspiron from just over 2 years ago is going strong, never had a fault, and it is a solid built machine...

Others may claim a dodgy service, but I can only sing their praises... they fixed me up quick sharp, and I know that Kempy bought a monitor off of them a while back with light bleed, and managed to blag a 24" replacement from them... so not all bad

Things to check though are the brand of RAM and mobo you get with your lappy... usually they are turd... its nice to have an Intel Core Duo and Nvidia branded GPU, but thats like putting Pirelli performance tyres on a skoda (the older version that really were pants)

(I agree that their non performance ones are a bit turgid/flacid)

 

[SBB]

Definitely go for a laptop with an 8600GT in, and the biggest size, 15" is portable (I carry a 17" on my bike every day :x)!

8600gt is capable of playing most games. I would go for the screen upgrade on the laptop though, my screen is 1920x1200 and looks fantastic on the desktop, but I play games at 1280x800 which looks great too (nowhere near as bad as a desktop TFT when playing at non-native resolutions)

The best place I find to order a dell is ebay... you get faster postage (takes like 5 or 6 weeks in the UK to get a dell laptop direct :x) and the postage cost is not a ridiculous £60... its also cheaper

 

[FarFarAway]

Nah most times a Dell lappy comes in about 2 weeks in the UK, ordered over a hundred or so and they come quick (not for myself I might add, though my personal one took juast a week)

 

[SBB]

Hmm maybe my friend who ordered one was just unlucky. 2 weeks is still fairly slow though imo, but im really impatient xD