Dell Laptop Advice

[shtuug]

So I'm thinking of ordering a laptop. Right now I'm looking at the Dell Vostro 1500 as the best deal I can find. Here are the specs that matter:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2.0 GHz
Windows XP Pro
15.4" Widescreen XGA
2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
160GB 5400 rpm SATA
8x CD/DVD Burner
Intel X3100 Graphics
802.11g wireless nic
Integrated sound
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion battery

Price = $989.00

Dell says that it is about $435 off of the regular price until Nov 15th, although Dell doesn't ever seem to have things at the regular price. Do you have any tips for buying a laptop? What about screen sizes. I'm not sure between 14.1 and 15.4 inch. Any pros and cons for that? Are there ever any better Dell deals in Canada, or do they stay pretty constant?

Thanks for your help.

[crazydudegas]

Do you want only a dell laptop or are you open to other brands? I was looking in todays Sun paper and saw an ad from a computershop. Im not sure what brand the were but I thought it was less money for about the same feature. I am sure that dell will have christmas specials soon, as well as other places

[Evan]

So I'm thinking of ordering a laptop. Right now I'm looking at the Dell Vostro 1500 as the best deal I can find. Here are the specs that matter:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2.0 GHz
Windows XP Pro
15.4" Widescreen XGA
2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
160GB 5400 rpm SATA
8x CD/DVD Burner
Intel X3100 Graphics
802.11g wireless nic
Integrated sound
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion battery

Price = $989.00

Dell says that it is about $435 off of the regular price until Nov 15th, although Dell doesn't ever seem to have things at the regular price. Do you have any tips for buying a laptop? What about screen sizes. I'm not sure between 14.1 and 15.4 inch. Any pros and cons for that? Are there ever any better Dell deals in Canada, or do they stay pretty constant?

Thanks for your help.

Screen size is important if you're thinking about how mobile you want to be. Smaller screen, easier laptop to lug around. Bigger screen, easier to work. I went for 15" because I don't move it around that much, but I wanted to be more mobile than a 17".

The specs on that one seem alright - Kemit is the Dell guru though, so hopefully he'll chime in with an opinion on price!

[Kenton]

As a pricing tip, you can usually buy ram far cheaper at NCIX or some other place than you can through Dell, so downgrade to 1GB and then buy your ram somewhere else, keeping in mind you'll have 2 512meg sticks that aren't good for anything, so check the prices.

[Kemit]

Thats not a bad deal, though I wonder if you might want to add a graphics solution to that if you play games at all. It does hike the price by $200 but you cant add it later so it does need thinking about before clicking buy.
Personally I prefer the 14" widescreen for portability, you would be suprised how much that little difference in screen size seems to make. But I dont see the same spec at that discount in 14" today.
You may want to try ordering before they update the pricing on the 15th and then if there is a much better offer available after the update, you could phone to cancel and then reorder. That way you get two bites at it.

[shtuug]

What kind of RAM does a laptop take?

[Evan]

What kind of RAM does a laptop take?

200 pin SODIMM's.