Dell or not to Dell?

snax

Hmmm...so considering the purchase of a laptop. Mainly for college which will entail alot of photos, movie clips etc. but also need alota memory, RAM etc. for certain programmes. Will also need to be very portable for lots of travelling. Ideas so far:

Dell Latitude D420
Dell XPS M1210
Sony VAIO TX series
Acer Aspire 5610

Varying pros and cons for each model and in the end I just keep coming back to the Dell Latitude. Problem is, Dell. Or is it a problem?
Any ideas?

Capt'n Midnight

SONY fine as long as you don't need to buy accessories (€'s) or reinstall (partition image instead of media) or care about what they have done to the music industry or the rootkit etc.

Anti

I have a viao laptop. Overall very happy with it. No discs made it a pain in the arse though. But mine came with mce. So i dumped that straight away. It also has alot of bloatware too ( useless applications and media )

So if you buy a sony, format it asap...

is_that_so

Aspire 5612 Wmli is getting good press and comes in under €1K.
Vaios can be expensive but tends to be light. Personally not keen on lower end Dells.
Use a Toshiba Satellite myself - fine solid machine and not a problem in two years.

Zascar

XPS is savage if you are prepared to pay the price for it

oldboy

just bought an xps m1210 from the dell outlet around 4 weeks ago.

2gig dual core
2gig RAM
256 MB Nvidia Graphics
120GB HDD
DVD Burner
The better screen option *theres 2 types, i got the shiny one)
Bluetooth & wireless intel card
Only got the 1yr CnR warranty

€1439 including vat and delivery.................... have a look on the outlet site, for that type of cash I couldnt find anything else even close in spec from any other brand

Its sweet, have had 0 problems with it since I took it out of the box, did a format / reinstall. XP pro & Ubuntu, plays HL2 on high settings too, mind you not anti-a but still looks well

i use it for programming, playing games and dj'ing with ableton / traktor and its fine, well able for anything i've thrown at it so far

snax

Cheers for the info! Ended up with the XPS-pretty sweet...here are the specs I put init

XPS M1210 (N12X26) €2,200.09
> PROCESSOR INSPIRON 1210Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7400 (2.16 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz FSB)
> OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 (incl. Operating System Re-Installation CD)
> SUPPORT SERVICES Premium XPS Service, 1 Year
> LCD12.1" WXGA (1280x800) TFT Display with TrueLife™ and integrated 1.3 mega pixel web cam
> MEMORY 2048MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024)
> HARD DRIVE 120GB (5,400rpm) Hard Drive
> OPTICAL DRIVE Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW with Software
> GRAPHICS CARD Intel® Media Accelerator 950 Graphics Up to 256MB shared graphics memory
> PRIMARY BATTERY 6 Cell, 56Whr Lithium Ion Primary Battery
> WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY Intel® Pro WLAN 3945 Internal Wireless (802.11a/b/g 54 Mbps) for Core 2 Duo Processors
> BLUETOOTH Dell™ Wireless 350 Bluetooth 2.0 Module (up to 3Mbps) with Enhanced Data Rate
> SOUND CARDS Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy® ADVANCED HD™ Audio- Full Version
> MICROSOFT SOFTWARE Microsoft® Works 8.5 - English

Sure it does the job!!! And it's really pretty!

optiplexgx270

Ouch €800 more than oldboys for pretty much the same spec. My last one was €2500 EX vat from Dell

Anti

TBH you went OTT. But it is a nice system , especially for a laptop. I would not be happy with the graphics though.

So if your into 3d gaming/rendering/modeling avoid this system like the plague...

If you want game performance get a 7900 or a 7950 series card....

If not, drop that 2gb to 1gb, unless you run cad.

Also for that price, you know you could build a very high end desktop machine !!!

Devon

Have to admit I'm a mark for the Toshiba Satellite too. Dell's awful customer service in India is a massive turn off for me to ever buy anything from them ever again.

Beau x1

I wouldn't go with a Dell lappy IMO.

I remember me and my brother got one each, and they were always having hardware problems and such, getting sent back and forth to Dell.

But then the Inspiron 5150 was a real dodgy model...

Praetorian

I got the same spec as oldboys less 1 gig of ram which I'll buy for myself for €1160, 3 year warranty

Chong

Devon wrote:

Have to admit I'm a mark for the Toshiba Satellite too. Dell's awful customer service in India is a massive turn off for me to ever buy anything from them ever again.

Dell's Customer Service has improved dramtically in the past 6 months, also majority of Dells Customer Service for Uk and Ireland is now served by a call centre in Scotland.

TerrorFirmer

snax wrote:

Cheers for the info! Ended up with the XPS-pretty sweet...here are the specs I put init

XPS M1210 (N12X26) €2,200.09
> PROCESSOR INSPIRON 1210Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7400 (2.16 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz FSB)
> OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 (incl. Operating System Re-Installation CD)
> SUPPORT SERVICES Premium XPS Service, 1 Year
> LCD12.1" WXGA (1280x800) TFT Display with TrueLife™ and integrated 1.3 mega pixel web cam
> MEMORY 2048MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024)
> HARD DRIVE 120GB (5,400rpm) Hard Drive
> OPTICAL DRIVE Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW with Software
> GRAPHICS CARD Intel® Media Accelerator 950 Graphics Up to 256MB shared graphics memory
> PRIMARY BATTERY 6 Cell, 56Whr Lithium Ion Primary Battery
> WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY Intel® Pro WLAN 3945 Internal Wireless (802.11a/b/g 54 Mbps) for Core 2 Duo Processors
> BLUETOOTH Dell™ Wireless 350 Bluetooth 2.0 Module (up to 3Mbps) with Enhanced Data Rate
> SOUND CARDS Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy® ADVANCED HD™ Audio- Full Version
> MICROSOFT SOFTWARE Microsoft® Works 8.5 - English

Sure it does the job!!! And it's really pretty!

Shame because despite its power that machine won't even get to the boot up screen of any new games, which for 2,200 is an absolute joke.

duleekboy

@havok

reading your reply above just wondering what spec should u be looking for

damo86

he's mad to pay that kind of money for integrated graphics..what a waste...for the op cancel that order asap and reconsider, please for yours and mine sanity:-p , you could get a macbook pro for that!

TerrorFirmer

duleekboy wrote:

@havok

reading your reply above just wondering what spec should u be looking for

That machine is perfect apart from the GMA950 part which I bolded above, it's intel integrated graphics solution and is weak at modern games, and totally unusable in most current games.

Not that that's Intels problem by any means, it's not designed for games, but it seems a bit of a laugh to spend that much - over 2k - on a laptop that won't even boot up games let alone play them.

You can get the Go7400 in the XPS m1210 as well, infinitely better then the GMA, although still not a great card its good, certainly recommended if you're going to be paying that kind of money.

In the other XPS lines you can get the 7900 or 7950gtx, both high end cards.