<p>Before buying, you should check with computer store of college you will be attending to see what special deals it has with manufacturers on computers. They usually not only have some group special deal but will also have on-site service and a longer warranty included. As to what you may actually want to buy, some comments on the components:</p>
<p>"Inspiron E1705
Intel® Core Duo Processor T2600 (2.16GHz/667MHz FSB)" </p>
<p>Good as among the more recent, but getting less likely means you won't notice any difference.</p>
<p>"Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005"</p>
<p>Not really any better than XP Home; real upgrade would be to XP Pro (which you probably don't need)</p>
<p>"17 inch UltraSharp Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife"</p>
<p>Obviously this is a large laptop and likely a heavy laptop. Having UXGA is a little better than xga but it also means print on screen will be smaller and it will use more battery power.</p>
<p>"2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz."</p>
<p>How much cheaper is 1GB; 1GB is actually more RAM than you will likely need.</p>
<p>"256MB NVIDA® GeForce Go 7800"</p>
<p>So is the major purpose of this laptop to play computer games? If so, OK (although if that is the major purpose you should consider a desktop model), if not, you do not need that powerful a video card, which will use a lot of battery power and may actually make your computer hot (literally).</p>
<p>"100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive"</p>
<p>If you will be downloading a lot of music and pictures, the 100GB is good; if not you can go with less. The 7200RPM is also questionable as 5600 is generally good enough and going to 7200 is just another thing with a laptop that is going to suck more power from your battery.</p>
<p>"Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem"</p>
<p>Standard in any computer these days.</p>
<p>"Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0"</p>
<p>It was free on-line. Version 7 is now free on-line, meaning one of the first things you will do is get rid of the 6 by downloading the free 7 from Adobe's site. </p>
<p>"8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability"</p>
<p>Costs a lot more than having just a CD writer (for playing and downloading to CD's) with ability to watch DVD's; if you will be downloading to disk a lot including movies then way to go; otherwise likely not needed.</p>
<p>"Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Mini Card (54Mbps)"</p>
<p>Your wireless card; standard is becoming the g although most wireless systems at colleges and elsewhere are b (which is included in g); the a is virtually useless because it never really went into broad use.</p>
<p>"No productivity suite- Corel WordPerfect word processor only"</p>
<p>You need at least student version of Microsoft Office with Word, Excel, and Power Point. WordPerfect is actually a better word processor than Word (always has been) but it lost the market battle and none of your professors will be able to open any WordPerfect document sent to them because they will have only Word. (College may sell Microsoft Office for lot less than you can get it retail.)</p>
<p>"80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery"</p>
<p>Basically standard. </p>
<p>"Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support"</p>
<p>Need longer warranty, 3 years at least and better to have on-site service. </p>
<p>"Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth Internal(2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate)"</p>
<p>Bluetooth is this local wireless system that allows you to buy bluetooth compatible printers, mouse, keyboard, or other devices that will communicate with computer and run wireless as a result. Of course, what they don't tell you is the cost of those bluetooth compatibles is usually 40% to 70% more than the cost of those peripherals without bluetooth. As a result, unless you want to make a heavy investment into bluetooth compatible peripherals at their high prices, this is unnecessary. Note, you can add a much cheaper wireless keyboard and mouse without this.</p>
<p>"PC Restore recovery system by Symantec"</p>
<p>Standard.</p>
<p>"Media Center Enhancements TV Tuner w/ Remote Control"</p>
<p>Remote to do what? Good for switching songs if computer is your stereo but otherwise of little use; also this is a cheap addition.</p>
<p>"Basic digital Music, Photo and Game experience"</p>
<p>Standard.</p>