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new laptop

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 8:16 pm
by Specter
I ordered a new laptop earlier this week for college. It should be here in about a week and a half. (1 week from this coming tuesday)

Here's the specs:
Dell Studio 15 in Midnight Blue
  • Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit w/ Service Pack 1 - Comes with Free windows 7 upgrade
  • Office Home & Student 2007 Edition
  • Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz / 1066Mhz FSB / 3MB cache
  • 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 800MHz
  • 15.6” Full HD (1080p) High Brightness LED Display w/ TrueLife™ and Camera/Face Recognition
  • 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 (high-er end graphics card)
  • 500GB SATA Hard Drive
  • 8X Slot Load Super Multi Disk Drive (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive + DVD RAM support)
  • Intel 5300 Ultimate-N Half Mini Card (3x3) with MyWiFi (3 antenna array on wireless card for faster speed/further range)
  • Extended battery
  • and Internal Bluetooth v2.1
I'll add a picture of it when it arrives

EDIT: I forgot to say it was $1399.00 after instant savings

I'm getting the HP Officejet 6500 wireless multifunction printer as my "print station"

can't wait till i get my new computer, I've been using my current one for 5 years.
Which i'll give some quick specs on.
2.8GHz Pentium 4
Windows XP SP2
256MB RAM (I think it's single channel)
120GB IDE Hard Drive with SATA adapter. (originally had a 40 gig, but that drive died after a 1/2 inch fall- yes 1/2 inch)

Its slow but it got the job done for the 5 years i've used it. I will continue to use it most likely to run a Folding@Home client, to run along with my PS3. visit folding.stanford.edu for information

Re: new laptop

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 8:38 pm
by Silence
Looks good.

I have a desktop which I'll be dragging along instead, and hoping I'm not told to get a laptop. Netbooks come with solid-state disks but lousy keyboards, while larger laptops come with marginally-better keyboards but scary hard disks. And I'd be unhappy with the screen size, speakers, performance, and price either way.

Re: new laptop

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 10:01 pm
by cantab
Your old desktop's a faster processor than I have. I have dual PIII 866MHz. An ancient behemoth of a machine, and noisy as fuck. At least it has 512MB RAM though, and I bought a 500 gig drive. I'm perfectly happy with its performance - if I get a new desktop, I'm gonna get something QUIET.

Of course, if I needed to do anything really demanding when I was at uni, I could just use one of their computers.

I've been wanting a netbook for a while. But don't have the money at present, and when I do get a job there are far more important things to spend it on - like driving lessons, or a dishwasher.

Silence, I've never had a hard drive in a laptop fail. The laptop I had three years ago suffered a cooling fan failure. I pulled the drive and shoved it in my seven year old laptop, and it works fine. The only hard drive failure I have HAD was the one in an mp3 player. That was a laptop-type drive (making for a bulky, but very cheap, player). And obviously it was being subject to some abuse, in use while I was walking about the place, or on vehicles, day in day out.

Re: new laptop

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 11:32 pm
by Specter
cantab wrote:Your old desktop's a faster processor than I have. I have dual PIII 866MHz. An ancient behemoth of a machine, and noisy as fuck. At least it has 512MB RAM though, and I bought a 500 gig drive. I'm perfectly happy with its performance - if I get a new desktop, I'm gonna get something QUIET.
My current computer is a laptop as well
Dell Inspiron 5100
but it is a desktop processor. (Dell used desktop processors in the 5100 series laptop for some reason)
it isn't multi-core either.

Re: new laptop

Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 11:07 am
by cantab
Specter wrote:(Dell used desktop processors in the 5100 series laptop for some reason)
Better performance, at the cost of increased power and reduced battery life. It used to be quite common, but I think the newest generation of laptop processors make it less so - and indeed, the reverse has been done, putting laptop processors in desktops, for reduced cooling requirements and thus quietness.

Re: new laptop

Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 12:10 pm
by Silence
cantab wrote:Silence, I've never had a hard drive in a laptop fail. The laptop I had three years ago suffered a cooling fan failure. I pulled the drive and shoved it in my seven year old laptop, and it works fine. The only hard drive failure I have HAD was the one in an mp3 player. That was a laptop-type drive (making for a bulky, but very cheap, player). And obviously it was being subject to some abuse, in use while I was walking about the place, or on vehicles, day in day out.
Just because you're paranoid don't mean it ain't gonna fail. :)

Cantab, if you decide to build your own, go for the the Antec Solo case (which I got on a steep discount a few days ago because the old one was a behemoth that can't fit in my dorm's desk).

Re: new laptop

Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 1:52 pm
by cantab
I'll bear it in mind.

To be honest I'm not really up on current hardware. I've always been more interested in the software that runs on it.

I'll only build my own if it will save me money. From my current machine, I could reuse the optical drive, hard drive, graphics card and tv tuner card. And maybe the case. I'll be needing a new motherboard, processor, memory, and power supply.

Re: new laptop

Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 5:15 pm
by Specter
Well if thats all you need, you can get that on newegg for a good deal. (i dont know if they ship to the UK though)
I know they have Processor + mobo bundles, and memory is insanely cheap now. Decent power supply isnt much either

Re: new laptop

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 4:29 am
by Specter
Well. i don't know how to read the order status thing on dell.com but when I checked it today, the only build part that had a price next to it was the Bluetooth module so I'm assuming that means its the only thing they have left to install. So, maybe (hopefully) i'll get it a couple days earlier than expected.

Re: new laptop

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 9:58 pm
by Specter
Sorry bout triple post but, today my dad got an email (since it was ordered thru his Dell account) saying it was shipped 8/3/2009, Expected delivery date is 8/6/2009. Can't wait. I'm pretty sure i already said this, but i've been using my current laptop for 5 years. Almost 5 1/2, I recently found a thing on my dell account saying my current laptop was purchased 3/4/2004.

Re: new laptop

Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 10:41 pm
by Specter
OK so since Fedex was retarded yesterday, I got my new laptop today. it is so much better than my old one, its speedy fast. i love it.

heres a link to my photo album on facebook, i don't know if you'll be able to view it w/o an account: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=9 ... 30ea55b4a4