I'm buying a new laptop, and wanted opinions on the following:

Dell Inspiron 1420
*Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 (2MB cache/2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB)
*Vista Home Premium
*High Resolution Glossy Widescreen 14.1 (1440x900)
*128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
*3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667Mhz
*160GB SATA HD
*CD/DVD Writer (DVD +/-RW)
*Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g mini-card
*No Mobile Broadband
*No Bluetooth
*No webcam
*85Whr Lithium Ion Battery 9-Cell

Price $1,048

Is the above good for the price? Anything that needs to be upgraded? And should I get any of the software they offer through Dell, or buy that separately somewhere else (like anti-virus etc).

I will mostly use this for music, movies, when I go back to grad school, some games, etc. I'm hoping it will last 3-4 years, and want something I can travel with, take the coffee shop, etc.

11/11/2007 11:20:20 AM

i would really reconsider the glossy screen if you plan on taking this laptop anywhere

i know it looks good, but glare is a bitch

11/11/2007 12:03:49 PM

for travel and light gaming that should be a good laptop... at 1K it'll do for at least 2 to 3 years without absolutely breaking your bank account...

go for it, my only hesitation is with it being a dell and there can be reliability and build quality issues, but you're going to find similar concerns with just about any laptop with that equipment at that price range...

^ true, if you're going to be outside a lot then glossy cna hurt (my laptop has a glossy screen, i've gotta readjust outside to make sure i'm not getting too much sun glare)... but if you're going to be using it ti watch movies and do any kind of 3d gaming the glossy screen will make the colors look a lot more vibrant...

[Edited on November 11, 2007 at 12:08 PM. Reason : /]

11/11/2007 12:08:00 PM

Get a MacBook instead.

11/11/2007 1:25:31 PM

thanks for the feedback. if i dont upgrade the screen i might put some of that toward another upgrade, so which, if any of the following upgrades would be worth it? or should i just leave it as is?

Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache)

Memory: 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz

HD Speed: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)

11/11/2007 3:01:22 PM

you'd be better off just getting the minimum ram possible and buying it elsewhere, the markup on ram is insane when you buy it from them. the stats arent bad, but you might consider waiting for a deal on a vostro to pop up on slickdeals.net, you can get a laptop with similar stats for about $600 when the deal comes along

11/11/2007 3:08:06 PM

You may want to really consider a macbook.. there really isn't a reason not to now that they're running intel processors and it's easy to dual boot to windows. many many people buy them planning on basically just running windows on them to find that they almost never use windows because they like apple's OS so much better.

just something to consider

11/11/2007 3:49:16 PM

^True.

11/11/2007 4:45:10 PM

I'm not opposed to the idea of buying a mac. I've used them in the past for a graphics class for about a year and half (like 5 years ago) but I know I could adapt.

But at around the same price through NCSU for $1,199 I would get:
*2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4MB shared L2 cache
*1GB (two SO-DIMMs) Option: Up to 4GB
*120 GB
*8x Double Layer Superdrive
*Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor w/ 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared w/ main memory

Compared to the Dell, is there a significant difference in the processor and memory performance?

I could deal w/ a smaller HD, I will probably get an external anyways. What kind of difference will I see in the graphics, battery, and wireless performance?

And is there a Microsoft Office 2003 for the mac?

11/11/2007 5:37:30 PM

No, there is a Microsoft Office 2004 and soon to be 2008.

11/11/2007 5:53:46 PM

you'd see a significant difference in any kind of gaming you'd want to do by using an Intel X3100 with 1gig of ram instead of a 8400GS with 3 gigs of ram...

basically, the Dell is still the higher powered machine, get the macbook only if portability and pretty is more important than overall graphical performance ( the 8400gs will also be better for movies)

11/11/2007 5:58:36 PM

Actually there's some program going on now where if you buy Office 2004 for the Mac, you get a free upgrade to 2008 when it comes out.

But while you're still considering brands: Lenovo.

11/11/2007 5:59:17 PM

^^Movies? They already play fine at full resolution and standard framerates. What more is there?

11/11/2007 7:12:55 PM

Quote :

"Actually there's some program going on now where if you buy Office 2004 for the Mac, you get a free upgrade to 2008 when it comes out."

The upgrade costs 10 bucks under this program. Also, Microsoft does not extend the program to the 59.95 version of office for the mac sold at the bookstore. The cheapest eligible version is about 149.95 (home and teacher edition.) After the upgrade cost, this would bring the total to 159.95 plus some tax. Since the pricing of the special education versions offered through the bookstore only change by maybe 5 bucks or so across versions you'd be looking at spending maybe 120-130 simply buying it twice from there anyways.

Point is, it's almost certainly going to be cheaper to just buy the extra-cheap education priced version from the bookstore than it is to take advantage of the upgrade deal- unless you're not still a student/faculty/staff member.

[Edited on November 11, 2007 at 10:06 PM. Reason : ]

11/11/2007 10:06:31 PM

^^ i've noticed a real difference in playing dvds on laptops between the once that have a dedicated gpu and ones that don't...

now, the 8400 isn't great, but it's better than the x3100 by a longshot...

11/12/2007 10:39:06 AM

ill agree with the comments on the glossy screen - looks good in darker environments, but glare is a bitch and i would go with the hd upgrade if you decide against the screen. also in case you didnt realize, calling and ordering over the phone (rather than internet) with dell usually saves you about 500 bucks. or at least thats what i was told when i ordered mine.

11/12/2007 1:14:32 PM

couldn't you just output the DVR to the input on the PC and re-record the shows while you played them back?

11/12/2007 1:18:53 PM