A Dell notebook for the wife

[Stormwaltz]

My wife's birthday is next week. She wants a notebook computer, because she thinks it will be convenient to carry around the house. Never mind that I've already categorically ruled out a wireless network in this city of bandwidth thieves - she still wants one. I get an employee discount on Dell Inspirons, so I'm looking to go through them. Here are the factors in play:

• She only uses her computer for the web, email, and occasional bits of writing. However, she periodically waxes nostalgic for the days we could play BF42 and CoX together. She's also expressed some interest in LotRO.
• She wants a printer, but isn't likely to use it much.
• She's unlikely to ever carry it around with her, because she's usually wrangling our monkeyspawn.
• I want an XP OS, because I know Vista is a bloated piece of crap.

I'd like to spend around $1000, but I have wiggle room up to $1500.

My first throw at configuring a system was:

Inspiron 1520

PROCESSOR                Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5550 (2MB cache/1.83GHz/667Mhz FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM    Genuine Windows® XP Home
LCD DISPLAY               High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch display (1440 x 900)
MEMORY                     3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (1GB x 2GB)
HARD DRIVE                250G 5400RPM SATA HDD
GRAPHICS CARD          Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (only option, though we know from experience that Intel cards are shit)
OPTICAL DRIVE            8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R (default)
WIRELESS CARD          Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-card (default)
BATTERY OPTIONS      56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (default)
SOUND OPTIONS         High Definition Audio 2.0  (only option w/o Vista)
DELL PRINTERS            Dell 810 All-In-1 Printer (special offer brings this down to $49)

                                 TOTAL: $1177 CDN


Does anyone have any recommendations, or does this look decent?

[Viin]

Looks good except for the vid card - if she wants to play LotR (and why wouldn't you encourage that?!?) you probably want to get one that allows you to upgrade to the nicer card.

[Trippy]

If you get the 14" model you can get the NVIDIA 8400M. Still not that great but better than the Intel. What you really want to get her is the XPS 1530 with the 8600M GT. That one would be very nice.

[Montague]

If she is going to do ANY gaming at all do not get the shitty shit shit onboard card. My wife got an Inspiron laptop this past October with 2 Gigs of ram and dualcore processors but she can barely run WoW thanks to that crappy videocard.

[Trippy]

Intel *still* can't do T&L properly.

[Lt.Dan]

I went with the E1505 for my wife, a couple of years back.  Works well.  My only regret is the 17" screen.  Fantastic for using it but make it a beast to carry around.  We did use it for watch movies when we travelled but it sits on a desk now and I can't imagine how we ever carried it anywhere (that and a one year old, a stroller, suitcases, and three carry on bags).  If we went with the small screen would probably make more use of its portability.

Edit: it did run LoTRO on minimum settings with the Intel onboard card.

[Engels]

I have to second Trippy's suggestions of the XPS. They are very nice, and they do support XP well (although at first launch, the new XPS laptops only came supplied with Vista drivers, although their hardware did work with XP drivers found hither and yon). Another option is the more compact XPS M1330, less graphics card but lighter.

On the other hand, I also like the new Lattitude D430s. Very small, compact business-class machines that type very nicely despite the small size.  If you can swing that one through work discount, I'd angle for those, but not if gaming is a requirement.

[Stormwaltz]

I'd prefer the XPS, but I think I should pass on it in favor of an Inspiron. The basic XPS models start at the top of my price range, but that's not actually bad. Their stock hardware is nearly identical to my modded Inspiron. They only come with Vista, but I can get the price of an XP copy back by applying to my BioWare "productivity software allowance." I wouldn't get the 6% EA discount, either. The only laptops eligible are the Inspirons.

I'm looking at $1107 base price for the Inspiron w/printer vs. $1548+ for a roughly comparable XPS rig. If this were for me, the extra $440 would easily be worth it, but it's for who's rarely gamed in the last four years. While I do want to play with her again, I'm not sure she'd use the extra power often enough to justify +40% cost. I'm pretty sure that if I asked her, she'd tell me it wasn't worth it.

I went back and reconfigured using the 14" model Trippy recommended, with the 128MB GeForce 8400M GS. To my surprise, prices had changed since I checked a few hours ago. The 15" I looked at is now about a hundred less. The 14" with the 128MB GeForce works out to $1198 ($1126 with discount).

I think that's a winner. ^_^

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

[vex]

Having recently gone through this one thing I found out with Dell is that you really need to play with the different base systems to find the best deal.  Some of them don't give you the option of removing multi-year premium support.  Also, search the internet for coupon codes and you'll find sometimes get a better system for less by going over certain price points and using different coupon codes.

I think I had to go over $1200 to use the $400 coupon and below is what I ended up buying for my daughter that came in < $1000

Inspiron 1720 - Intel® Core? 2 Duo T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache), Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
   Unit Price: $1,339.00
   Quantity: 1
   Total Price: $1,339.00

-- Inspiron 1720 --
-- Intel® Core? 2 Duo T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
-- 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
-- Anti-glare, widescreen 17.0 inch display (1440 x 900)
-- Video Card --
-- 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS
-- Size: 120GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
-- Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
-- CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
-- Sound Card --
-- 85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
-- Save $400 on all Inspiron notebook purchases over $1299 (before tax, fees, shipping & handling)
- $400.00

Subtotal: $939.00

The 9 cell battery and sound card were added options  that could have been applied elsewhere.

[Numtini]

Take a look at the Vostro line in the small business store. You can even get a real video card, the 1500 can put in an 8600GT mobile for less than 800.

I don't know about your employee discount, but our state contract usually runs about 30% higher than the small business store's normal prices.

[Salamok]

for some retarded reason Dell has decided to eliminate video card options for the 15" inspirons.  Go with a 17" and get a geforce  Also if it is just for around the house and battery power is only being used to move from point A to point B try and get a 7200rpm drive (looks like Dell is limiting this to certain models as well).

Word of caution though, the last 4 Inspirons I have ordered probably produced more bluescreens on XP then I have seen in the last 4 years combined.  Dell be f*ckin up on their XP install images since Vista was released (my guess is they moved some talent around).  Yet another reason to go with XPS or Latitude (or just reinstall XP yourself when you get it).

[Engels]

I don't know if this is an old wive's tale or not, but I've been told that the Inspirons/Dimension lines, the ones sold under the 'home' section, do not get the best components. The better components are used for the business/gamer line (optiplexes, lattitudes, vostro), with the cream of the crop saved for the Workstation lines. The pricing certainly suggests this is the case.

Working with Dells at work, I can tell you that you can get Dells that last for a decade and Dells that barely survive a scholastic quarter of use. As a general rule, the older the Dell, the more reliable it is. Our latest line of Optiplexes had a rash of bad power supplies; we've had to replace 4 in the last two months.

[schild]

I don't know if this is an old wive's tale or not, but I've been told that the Inspirons/Dimension lines, the ones sold under the 'home' section, do not get the best components. The better components are used for the business/gamer line (optiplexes, lattitudes, vostro), with the cream of the crop saved for the Workstation lines. The pricing certainly suggests this is the case.

Pretty sure the gamer lines get the best hardware now.

I have one of the old workstation ones before they really kicked off the XPS stuff when they bought alienware, but it's been running strong for 5 years.

[LanTheWarder]

Depending on when you have to order this was a deal just a couple of days ago.

Dell SB has Dell Vostro 1500 with dedicated nVidia 800M GS video card for $449 with free shipping. Thanks IamKing

Specs:

    * Intel Core 2 Duo T5270 (1.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
    * Genuine Windows XP Home Edition
    * Microsoft Works 9. Does NOT Include MS Word
    * 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD Anti-Glare Display
    * 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 DIMM
    * 8X CD/DVD Burner w/ double-layer DVD+R write capability, w/ Roxio Creator
    * 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
    * 160GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
    * Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Wi-Fi Internal Card
    * 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
    * 1 Year Basic Limited Warranty plus 1 Year Mail-in Service
    * 10GB for 1 Year Online Data Backup by Dell DataSafe
    * 1 Year Dell Automated PC Tuneup

[LanTheWarder]

This is actually a really good deal IMO
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?cs=04&dgvcode=ss&c=US&l=EN&m_8=80S&oc=bpdwebd&dgc=BF&cid=7420&lid=197374

[Engels]

This is actually a really good deal IMO
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?cs=04&dgvcode=ss&c=US&l=EN&m_8=80S&oc=bpdwebd&dgc=BF&cid=7420&lid=197374

It is a great deal, cept that the graphics card is not a gaming card :/ Quadros are for editing and so forth.

[Stormwaltz]

I placed the order, but I don't have the specs available here (I'm trying to avoid an at-home paper trail since Jamie occasionally uses my computer). Short form is that I got a 15" Vostro, and sacrificed the 3GB RAM upgrade (2GB now) and 250 GB hard drive (160) to fit in a 256MB GeForce. Final cost with tax and shipping was around $1200 CDN.