Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Buying a laptop.. any suggestions?

I am buying a laptop for my girlfriend for christmas... anyone have some advice? I am looking at dell because I have an option for a 10% off customer coupon or buying one of the models on sale in the november catalog. Unfortunately I can't add the 10% coupon to a model that is already on sale though. I am currently looking at the studio 15 which is regularly $819 but on sale for $659. Some of the available options I am not sure about:

for $50 you can upgrade from a core 2 duo 2.0 ghz processor to a core 2 duo 2.16 ghz processor... I wouldn't think you could really tell much of a difference but not sure.

The standard screen is a 1280x800 but for $125 you can upgrade to a hi res/bright WLED 1440x900 or for $150 you can upgrade to a hi res 1920x1200 resolution. I don't think I am too worried about those higher resolutions on a 15" screen but what is the advantage of a WLED display?

The standard harddrive is 250 gig 5400 rpm but you can increase to 7200 and/or larger size as well. She probably won't need any extra space but not sure about the faster drive.

She will probably use the laptop for homework, internet, music, movies, and some small arcade-style games.

Any suggestions about this model or something completely different?


I want to keep the total purchase under $1000 but would love to spend even less than that.
Thanks.

Stay away from the 1920x1200 screen unless she has really good eyes. I assume WLED means that it's LED backlit. That generally means that it's more evenly bright, brighter, and uses less power.

Go for the 1440x900; 1280x800 is awfully low for a 15" screen.

I probably wouldn't bother with the 7200 RPM drive, either.

Cool, thanks for the advice. She actually has perfect vision and can see something amazingly small pretty far away...

Do you think there is any point in upgrading the processor?

Terzaghi, concerning the $50 processor upgrade... if the only difference between the two chips is .16 ghz, save your money. I'm surprised it's even being called an upgrade! The difference is miniscule. You'd never notice any difference in real world use.

LED screen is good to extend battery life and should look better. 7200 rpm is not exactly necessary but may lead to zippier response, I usually go for that myself, downside is it may be noisier and cut into battery life.

Having a hard time deciding between a 1440X900 LED LCD screen or a 1920x1200 LCD (non-LED) screen.

I figure the 1920x1200 would be better for bluray movies but maybe too small of font for typical use... Also I don't think it would be a huge deal to watch a bluray on a 1440x900 but I think you would have to watch it in letterbox format.

What do you guys think?

Well, I've got both types of screens-1920x1200 on a Thinkpad T61 (florescent backlight), and a 1440x900 on a Macbook Pro (matte, LED backlight). The MBP screen is far superior in terms of everything but the obvious--resolution. The text isn't too bad on the Thinkpad, esp once I bumped up the DPI in Windows, but I still find myself squinting a bit. I haven't tried HD on either of them that I remember, though.

I don't get too hung up on max resolution on a laptop. Due to screen size, I find anything above 1024 by 800 starts to make things to small and my eyes work too hard to find things. I'd concentrate more on finding something that appears bright and crisp. Alternatively, on my PC often used for gaming, high rez numbers and a fast GPU to push them is a must.

Of course, maybe I just need my prescription checked.

Well I have narrowed it down to either a souped-up xps model on sale for $1284 (reg. $1808) or a bare bones inspiron model for $649 (reg. $774)...

I honestly don't think she will use the 500 gb hard drive in the xps and probably won't miss the bluray drive.

I think the bare bones model will suite her just fine... but I think if I got her the xps she would get some games like "The Sims 2" and others... maybe give her something to do while I play my games yah know?

I know she won't want to play any super graphically demanding games like crisis or anything though.

What should I do?? spend 1/2 the price of the xps for a bare bones laptop or get the xps? (the xps sale ends today!)

Here's the specs (excuse the formatting):

Inspiron:
Module Description Description Product Code & SKU Product Code & SKU
Inspiron 1525 Intel® Pentium® Dual Core T3200 (2.0GHz/667Mhz FSB/1MB cache) PS320HN [224-2716]
Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic Edition SP1 VHB31E [420-5769][420-6436][420-7580][420-7622][420-7905][420-9100][420-9106][420-9107][420-9128][463-2282]
System Color Jet Black BLKP [467-5840]
Memory 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz 2G2D [311-7806]
LCD Panel High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch display (1440x900) 15XGAL [320-6053]
Video Card Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 INTAC [320-6059]
Hard Drive Size: 120GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) 120GB [341-5616]
Network Integrated 10/100 Network Card INTNIC [430-2651]
Modem Integrated Modem I56NM [313-5793]
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9.0 ADOBER [410-1883]
Combo or DVD+RW Drive CD / DVD Writer (DVD+/-RW Drive) 8XDVDRW [313-5791][420-8183]
Sound Card High Definition Audio 2.0 IS [313-4783]
Wireless Networking Cards Intel Next -Gen Wireless -N Mini-card IP4965 [430-2337]
Camera No Webcam Option DNCAMER [313-5786]
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) No Productivity software pre-installed MSONO [412-1397]
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 30-Days MC930D [410-1160]
Battery Options 6 cell battery 6BAT [312-0617]
Warranty & Service 1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis S1OS [412-0360][950-3337][950-9797][960-2780][984-1930][989-3867]
Datasafe Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year DOB2GB [420-9518][988-0099][988-7707]
Dial-Up Internet Access Earthlink Internet Access ERTHLNK [412-0933][412-0934][412-0935]
Bluetooth Option Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate) TM355I [430-2348]
Bluetooth Option Dell Travel Mouse (with Bluetooth Technology) BLTHTRM [430-2350]
Entertainment and Editing Software WildTangent Games WLDTNG [420-9352]
Processor Branding Intel Pentium® Dual-Core Processor ID3CNB [310-9752]
Labels Windows Vista™ Basic VBN [310-8627]
DataSafe Online Backup Receive an E-mail for your Dell Remote Access


XPS:
XPS M1530 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5800 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache) M580DHN [224-2394]
Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-bit VHP64E [310-9764][420-5769][420-6576][420-7590][420-8223][420-9100][420-9319][463-2282]
System Color Tuxedo Black BKDMSAT [313-6439]
Memory 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms) 4GB2D [311-7823]
LCD, Color and camera High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LED LCD (1440x900) & 2.0 M DXGAPLC [320-6693]
Video Card 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS 12884GS [320-6081]
Hard Drives 500GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) 500GB [341-6799]
Software - Adobe Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9.0 ADOBER [410-1883]
Combo or DVD+RW Drive Slot Load Blu -ray Disc (BD/DVD/CD read/write) BD [313-5819][420-7759][420-8164]
Sound Card High Definition Audio 2.0 IS [313-4783]
Wireless Networking Cards Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-card DW1505 [430-2450]
Productivity No Microsoft Office MSONO [412-1397]
Software - Antivirus McAfee SecurityCenter 15-months VMCAF1Y [410-1184]
Primary Battery 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery 9BAT [312-0639]
Warranty & Service 2Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis S2OS [412-0360][902-0941][950-3338][960-8710][970-2321][984-2350][988-5607][988-5608]
Datasafe Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year DOB2GB [420-9518][988-0099][988-7707]
Dial-Up Internet Access No ISP requested NISP [412-0148]
SECURITY Finger Print Reader XPS M1530 FPRDR [467-2337]
Bluetooth and Wireless USB Dell Bluetooth Travel mouse BLTHTRM [430-2315]
Bluetooth and Wireless USB Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0+Enhanced Data Rate) H355I [430-2566]
Doms Camera and Color High Res, Black glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LED LCD (1440x900) & 2MP Ca KXGTPLC [320-6797][420-7715]
Processor Branding Intel Core 2 Duo Processor IC2DNB [310-8319]
Dell Printer Driver Windows Vista™ Premium VPN [310-8628]
DataSafe Online Backup Receive an E-mail for your Dell Remote Access

The extra power etc. is strictly a guy thing, get her the inspiron and save the money. I know my wife would never be able to tap into the power of the XPS or care if she could, anything that she would want to run on the inspiron will still run possibly just not up to our standards.