A new contender

[trinityvixen]

After playing around with laptops all weekend, I've finally returned to peruse the Dell store, see what they've got for me and there might be something to it. I've found one latop that looks promising, the E1505, which has the intel dual core processor. I just wish I could play with the laptop like I've done with the MacBook and the Vaio.

The E1505 is about 1.42" according Dell's website, which isn't too bad, thickness-wise. The specs I upgraded it to ran it about $400 more than the most expensive base (the usual upgrades: 1.83 GHz processor, truelife bright screen, 120 GB hard drive--though I'm debating the extra $144 to make it 7200 rpms but only 100 GB), and it comes in at under $2000 with 4 year warranty. The fourth year coverage is especially attractive to me, as that seems to be the breaking year.

I also found a small Dell for my Dad who was eyeing the tiny Vaio at the store, and I think his office gets a Dell discount, too, so I'll recommend that one.

Once again, any thoughts on this computer?

(and my apologies to jlc: I wasn't confusing you with someone else earlier, I was just thinking of someone else and wrote that while responding to you; have I mentioned that I've been awake since 1:30 am this morning?)

Comments

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

remind me what's wrong with your current computer?

also, what do you need the extra HD space for? you have an external HD, right? i would greatly encourage you to get a huge external HD and reserve your PC for only applications. you're less likely to lose valuable data, particularly if you get a virus and have to reformat.

i've heard only great things about the sonys, and mostly hand-wavy mediocre things about the dells.

p.s. let me know when you'll be online so i can transfer you BSG

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with my computer: the ac adapter connector has been pulled out completely. So there's no way to recharge the battery.

Really, what I was going to upgrade the hard drive space for a faster hard drive (and I can always use more space, even with my external harddrive).

I think I'll be unable to be online for long periods of time for at least a week or two, but I'll drop a note when I can.

[cagexxx.livejournal.com]

Good lord, this is 2006! You don't have to spend $2000 for a kickass notebook! Here's one I found without really trying:

http://www.onsale.com/onsale/shop/detail.asp?dpno=600944

You really should aim for $1300 or less. If you still want a Dell, there are coupon codes to make some of them have great prices. Here's a code for $750 off a $1999+ notebook: ZRFVGS97PK1F1

I assume it would work on the one you're looking at. That's a particularly good coupon code--you don't see $750 off very often, and it expires April 26 at 6 AM.

[osmodion.livejournal.com]

As great as ThinkPads used to be, I wouldn't get a Lenovo (the laptop linked to above) right now. A lot of people have been complaining about a noticable decrease in quality since Lenovo bought ThinkPad from IBM. Additionally, the specs on that specific laptop aren't particularly good.

If you get an Intel chip, you should definitely get a Core Duo. They outperform a lot of the current desktop chips, so it'll definitely last you awhile. Assuming you are trying to get something pretty kickass that will last for 4 years (based on the warranty mentioned above), $2000 is about the right price (before any awesome coupons that Jordan is guaranteed to find). A lot of new hardware has come out recently, most notably the Core Duo chips; the heavily discounted laptops for under $1300 have the older hardware.

[cagexxx.livejournal.com]

My bad--double-clicking the code left out the question mark. The code is: ZRFVGS97PK1F1?

And it does work on that Inspiron model.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I saw that, too, only now I'm finding this same laptop customized almost exactly the same for a lot cheaper currently on their website. I think the discount not through Columbia might actuall be better--it's clocking in about 34%, versus 29%. I have to find the coupon codes for the 1499 or 1699 machines, though I will keep an eye on the 1999 one for a while.

(I know I found all these coupons last night...where they went is anybody's guess).

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

I assume you noticed this on the configuration page's sidebar: "Get an additional 10% OFF! Purchase our select Inspiron E1505 with FREE 1GB Memory Upgrade, 4 YR Service, 4 YR Complete Care, & more! And you get 30% off Instantly!" 40% off total is pretty good. You'll want at least 1GB RAM anyway if it's going to be your only computer, and the CompleteCare coverage is awesome.

The main other thing to consider would be upgrading the video chip. It's only necessary if you plan to play games on it, but considering that they don't charge a lot for them, I'd recommend at least the first bump up. I should clarify and say that "right now" you'd only need it for games. The more powerful any of it is, the longer it'll be useful.

The 7200rpm drive will make booting and program loading faster, but may eat into your battery life a little. I doubt you'll miss the 20GB, though. Odds are, if 100GB isn't enough, you keep enough music and videos and stuff on there to go way over, and you'll want an enormous external drive to keep it all. It's up to you if you want to make the speed/battery tradeoff. I expect the difference either way would be minor. By going with at least 1GB, you'll need to swap to disk much less, so the speed won't affect use outside of booting and loading much.

It's also purely subjective whether you'd like the hi-res display. I'll not go into details on that trade-off unless you ask, but note that you always want to run native, and it might have trouble driving games at 1680x1050.

I wonder if that tv tuner option is internal...hehehe.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Given that I tend to leave my laptop with programs running, the extra boot-up time is probably not worth the battery life. Given that battery life v weight is a factor, would you recommend the nine-cell battery or the six? I think the six was giving about 3 hour battery life, which isn't bad for this machine's size.

As for the video chip, I had it customized to a 128 ATI Radeon, should I go to the 256? I think the 128 will do me, as I'm not often asking for even that much (the extra video power is more a vanity, "there may be a day I play games that require it" feature).

Hi-res display doesn't really interest me that much. I usually have my screen at 1028x8xx (forgot the exact dimensions) as that's what's easiest on my eyes. My games for my computer are all older at this point and not going to demand hi-res any time soon. What was the native on that, btw? Go into details. I need details to have a clue these days.

And, as I said above, I think the Columbia discount might not be as good as the one through Dell with the 40% right now, so I might just do it without them.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Which battery to get depends on how much you'll be using it away from an outlet, I guess. The larger batteries are also physically LARGER, usually hanging off the machine's butt. I can't really recommend one over the other (getting one of each would be ideal, but is also the most expensive, of course) because it depends entirely on how you use it. If you think you'll need more than 3 hours away from an outlet, get the bigger one.

I expect the X1300 128MB chip will be good enough, since you don't do high-end gaming. The X1400 is a pretty incremental increase, and going to 256MB isn't a big deal.

It looks like this machine's standard res is 1280x800 and hi-res is 1680x1050. 1680x1050 on a 15.4" screen means TINY pixels. That means two things: everything will be sharper, and everything will be smaller. The sharpness will really only come into play for viewing/manipulating large images, and for gaming. There aren't a lot of videos around with such a high resolution, and you may end up increasing on-screen text size just to make it readable. What's more, as I said, I don't know how well even the better chips there will drive games at such a high resolution. It's also kind of like having a larger screen, for programs which remain a fixed size, or if you don't find yourself needing to increase text size. If you multitask, you may get more on the screen at once with the higher res (by making each thing smaller). Personally, I'd recommend the lower-resolution, but it is, to a large extent, a matter of preference, and I'm known for using lower resolutions (so stuff is bigger). I use only 1280x960 on my 20" CRT at home....

[jlc.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind that 7200 RPM also means much, much faster response when necessary, and that most laptop HDD controllers aren't stupid--you can usually tell it a maximum disk speed on battery. If your latpop usage pattern is much like mine, most of the time you're doing things where the faster drive helps you'll be on AC anyway. (About the only exception for me is Anime/Games on airplanes...) Also, if you do a LOT of RAM-intensive multitasking, a faster HDD means shorter time waiting on shit paging out to disk. It'd be fair to say that more RAM might help more...

[jlc.livejournal.com]

By going with at least 1GB, you'll need to swap to disk much less, so the speed won't affect use outside of booting and loading much.
Man, I need to stop reencoding video in the background while working, so I can remember what not swapping with 1GB of memory is like :)

[cagexxx.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of places for the coupon codes, but the best one is probably here: http://www.gottadeal.com/dell.php

These coupons do not stack with any other x% off, so find your best deal. I would guess that the $750 coupon is best for a $1999+ computer, but the other discounts you were mentioning are better for cheaper computers. You can always add the coupon code to the shopping cart and then remove it.

Also, I tried clicking on that link on the sidebar to get things for "free." It's a worse deal. I'm not sure why, but the total comes out to more for the same configuration.

I was actually going to say almost exactly the same thing Ben did about 7200 rpm drives. So, go Ben. =)

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Did you include the 4-year warranty and CompleteCare (on the second config page) when you did the custom config?

Thanks. I had the same hard drive decision to make myself when I got one two weeks ago.

[cagexxx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I did. For that matter, choosing a different starting configuration from http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/entnb_e1705?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs and getting it to the same configuration (as far as I can tell) results in different prices. And the $750 off $1999+ code doesn't work on the starting configuration three from the left, labelled "Music and Photos."

How weird.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I have no opinion, but I must comment with an icon that I know you will find hilarious.