choosing a laptop

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>guys i need some help on choosing a laptop.
recently i saw a special dell deal online. its specs are as below.</p>

<p>Inspiron E1705
Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2600 (2.16GHz/667MHz FSB) </p>

<p>Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 </p>

<p>17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™ </p>

<p>2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz </p>

<p>256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 7800 </p>

<p>100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive </p>

<p>Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem </p>

<p>Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0 </p>

<p>8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability </p>

<p>Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Mini Card (54Mbps) </p>

<p>No productivity suite- Corel WordPerfect word processor only </p>

<p>80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery </p>

<p>Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support </p>

<p>Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth Internal(2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate) </p>

<p>PC Restore recovery system by Symantec </p>

<p>Media Center Enhancements TV Tuner w/ Remote Control </p>

<p>Basic digital Music, Photo and Game experience </p>

<p>its gonna cost me 2.3k (no tax and free shipping). Expensive? worth it? Should i buy it soon since its a limited time offer only? Im planing to use it for some gaming... watching tv.. movies.. and for the next four years..</p>

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<p>bump?? (10char)</p>

3

<p>Dell offers $750 coupons every week. Don't be in a hurry to buy one. The Inspiron E1750 is a great deal with one of those coupons. However, I recommend not getting RAM from Dell. Just buy it from Newegg or somewhere and sell the sticks it comes with. Also, don't buy a T2600 duo. The performance benefit is marginal. Go with a T2300 unless you're so rich you use c-notes from your wallet if the toilet paper runs out.</p>

4

<p>but the coupon cant be used in conjunction with these discoutn offers can it? its a 34% discount off this model currently.. which is 1.2k off</p>

5

<p>The specs sound good for a high-powered machine. But I'm not liking the warranty....You should really try to get somewhat of an extension, esp. with Dells.</p>

6

<p>I just got a 1505 and was really suprised at how large it was so if you mobility is any sort of concern you might not want the 17 incher</p>

7

<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>

8

<p>I agree, skip the Bluetooth. If you really want a wireless keyboard and mouse, Belkin makes good ones that run off USB and use AAA batteries.</p>

9

<p>yea blue tooth is not mandatory. i got a great wireless keyboard/mouse without it. i had a dell desktop and it was junk so personally i dont recomend dells.
also depends on what major...i heard most ppl in graphic design, etc get apple's. and yea check your school store, at sdsu where i am going next year the laptop i want is $200 cheaper then the apple.com student discount.</p>

10

<p>That computer is a huge, huge ripoff. By the time the T2300 (1.66 GHz) Core Duo is obsolete, the 2.16 GHz will be as well. </p>

<p>Also, you are going to get majorly burned on the 2 GB of ram straight from Dell (as others have pointed out). You are much better off grabbing two 1 GB sticks from Newegg for a total of about $125 than paying them for their $300 upgrade.</p>

<p>To the person who commented about XP MCE vs Home...MCE is standard. Home is no longer an option on Dell's home laptops.</p>

<p>You should pay no more than $1500 for a laptop like that. Is this meant to be a DTR? You may as well jsut get a desktop. You will be absolutely miserable a year down the line lugging around your huge (and then obsolete) 17" DTR. It would make more sense to get a small, light and cheap laptop (I jsut grabbed a Pentium M XPS 14.1" XPS M140 from Dell for $604 OTD) and building a desktop that you can upgrade and whatnot over the years.</p>

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<p>the thing about the ram is that, i wouldnt know how to fix a RAM into the laptop if i buy it off elsewhere -_-'. Im not gonna be bringing around this thing much, but i will occasionally, and its easier for me to bring it home since im international student. </p>

<p>The remote thing is with the tv tuner so that i can watch tv on my cpu with a remote. The adobe thing is just a standard, no money there. yeh and the XP MCE is jsut the standard. so theres relaly no difference in performance between a T2300 and T2600????
oh, and how much better will 7200rpm be than 5200rpm for a harddisk?</p>

<p>i guess ill look out for more options before i decide..
thx for the help so far.</p>

12

<p>the thing about the ram is that, i wouldnt know how to fix a RAM into the laptop if i buy it off elsewhere -_-'. Im not gonna be bringing around this thing much, but i will occasionally, and its easier for me to bring it home since im international student.
oh and i guess ill skip the bluetooth if its that useless. And im planing to buy office off the uni store, i assume its a lot cheaper there right?</p>

<p>The remote thing is with the tv tuner so that i can watch tv on my cpu with a remote. The adobe thing is just a standard, no money there. yeh and the XP MCE is jsut the standard. so theres relaly no difference in performance between a T2300 and T2600????
oh, and how much better will 7200rpm be than 5200rpm for a harddisk?</p>

<p>i guess ill look out for more options before i decide..
thx for the help so far.</p>

13

<p>ok. i just found out how big 17" is. Actually, i mistaken the size of 15" to be 17 lol. so i guess ill be buying 15" now instead...</p>

14

<p>
[quote]
the thing about the ram is that, i wouldnt know how to fix a RAM into the laptop if i buy it off elsewhere

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So open the bloody instruction book and learn! It's not rocket science.</p>

15

<p>Once you have a laptop, you will be able to see how easy it is to change or add RAM. There is a compartment on the bottom where you usually have to remove one screw. Once opened you will see the slots for RAM and taking RAM out or putting it in is about as difficult as putting in or removing your cash station card from a cash station machine.</p>

<p>As to how much better is a 7200 RPM HD compared to 5600: the faster RPM means your computer will start up somewhat faster (generally you are talking about a difference in a few seconds); programs will also open a tad bit faster but usually not that you can notice (can you tell the difference between 3 seconds and 2.8 seconds?). Where you may see a difference is if you are trying to download a large volume of graphics (pictures, movies, etc.) material at one time, which the 7200 will do somewhat (and noticeably) faster than the 5600.</p>

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<p>In my opinion Lenovo (previously IBM) and Acer laptops are the best. Ive had alot of experience with Lenovo's thinkpad laptops and have only heard good things with Acer brand. These brands tend to be a little more money but they more then make up for it in the long run. I choose to buy a Lenovo for a few reasons. They have amazing customer support, and there warranties are alot more intensive then most other companies. Instead of trying to fix every problem with your computer they will just replace the part or in a friends case the whole computer. Also, IBM research facilities are some of the leading ones in the world. Theyre the ones that developed the technology that sense a change in altitude and motion in your laptop and then temp shut off the laptops hard disk to save it from scratches. Additionally, from what i understand they have integrated secrurity physically into the hardware. Another reason alot of people go for thinkpads, especially the business world is that they really do have the best keyboards out of any laptop. They dont bend or give when you type on them and you dont get fed up with typing on them nearly as easily as on a dell or other cheap laptop.
Lastly alot of companies who offer extremely cheap laptops and especially pcs, in my opinion, make the computers seem like an amazing deal but are really just scamming you. They offer things like huge hard drives and lots of ram and other things which is either of really poor quality, or just dont work well with other components in the machine. Emachines is famous for doing this.
Buy a lenovo, acer or other high quality laptop. These machines were actually engineered to work, not just put together with parts that are ment to impress people.</p>

<p>And for people out there who like to buy products from companies with trusted and good history, IBM was a huge pioneer in the development of the computer. One example is how they developed punched card data processing equipment (in essence, one of the earliest forms of a computer).</p>