New Laptop Recommendation

[Sonnie]

Dell is running 30% off their home laptops through the 13th, so this may be a good opportunity for me to pick up another laptop so my wife can have mine.

I thought I would run this one by some of you and see if you may know of anything out there that would possibly be a better deal.



Items in red are "must have and will not do without".

Dell Inspiron 1720
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 (2.5GHz/800Mhz FSB/6MB cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition
4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
Glossy, high contrast, widescreen 17.0 inch display (1440 x 900)
128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS
160GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) Free Fall Sensor
CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-Card
Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
High Definition Audio 2.0
Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
Microsoft® Office Small Business 2007 + Publisher
Trend Micro Internet Security 36-months
56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor, 24x7 Phone Support
Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)
Dell Bluetooth Travel Mouse
8-in-1 memory card reader
5 USB 2.0 ports
54mm ExpressCard slot
Full Size Keyboard with numerical pad

$2277
$683 (30% off)
$1594
$127 Tax
$1721 Delivered

[lcaillo]

Sonnie, I have been very pleased with my Asus. Two year warranty and cheaper than the Dell with similar capability when I got it.

[Sonnie]

Where did you purchase yours from?

[Mitch G]

What is it you want/need to do with the laptop? For general word processing and surfing, I would suggest keeping an eye open for a laptop on sale for sub-$500 at Best Buy.


Mitch

[Sonnie]

Oh-no... I work an average of 6-8 hours per day on my laptop. I don't need a budget model... I must have something robust.

[lcaillo]

Tiger Direct. They were the only ones who had the version that I wanted when I needed it.

[basementjack]

Sonnie, that looks like a decent laptop - I can't comment on the value/price, but the specs look good. The only thing I'd question is the resolution of the screen - unless you have eye trouble, higher is usually better.

Also, if your laptop is going to have one primary home, consider hooking up a 2nd monitor to it - almost all new laptops (above $400) allow you to run 2 screens at the same time. (this is 2 separate screens, not a copy of what you have on the main screen)

[bonehead848]

That is a great laptop but I would STRONGLY recommend you do not purchase 4gb through dell. They charge $400 for the upgrade. Newegg is currently running a sale on A DATA 4gb of ram for $63 after $6 rebate and just yesterday frys was selling 4gb of Patriot ram for $64. Both of these are ddr2 so-dimm and will fit that laptop perfectly. This size ram is on sale very often and very cheap to upgrade.

As far as the laptop itself, I like that dell line. I just purchased the 1420 (the 14" version of yours) for my mother in law and it really is a quality well built computer. All your other selected specs look great. You may want to consider a 9 cell battery if you will be running it on batteries often. You have a pretty powerful beast and its going to be using that battery pretty quick.

[Sonnie]

basementjack wrote:

Sonnie, that looks like a decent laptop - I can't comment on the value/price, but the specs look good. The only thing I'd question is the resolution of the screen - unless you have eye trouble, higher is usually better.

Also, if your laptop is going to have one primary home, consider hooking up a 2nd monitor to it - almost all new laptops (above $400) allow you to run 2 screens at the same time. (this is 2 separate screens, not a copy of what you have on the main screen)

I like this particular resolution... it seems to fit my vision well while sitting in my recliner, which is where I use it 99.9% of the time. Which also means it would be hard to accommodate a second monitor.

I suppose the older I get the harder it is to read the screen with those higher resolutions. Even though it seems like most people would use 1280 x 1024 resolution while viewing the forum (I do)... I stopped asking members anymore why they use 1024 x 768 (27.64% use it)... I just understand.

bonehead848 wrote:

That is a great laptop but I would STRONGLY recommend you do not purchase 4gb through dell. They charge $400 for the upgrade.

Actually the difference between 1GB and 4GB is only $105 with this build and the 30% off. I would rather pay the small difference and have anything to do with the memory warranted.

As far as the battery... very seldom is it unplugged since I have an outlet right next to my recliner. However, at 30% off, I may go ahead and upgrade it too.

[eugovector]

The Vostro line (small business area) will probably save you a little $$, and ditto on the after-market RAM versus Dell.

[warren112]

I have owned many Dell laptops ant they have all been great. However laptops can break easily and most of the parts are proprietary to Dell and so are very expensive to replace. I recommend the 4 year (or longer) service contract. Laptops that break out of service contract are quick discards.

Consider a Western Digital 750GB external storage for quick backup of all your computers as well as quick data copying from one computer to another. Newegg has them for $188.

[Sonnie]

~35% Off is hard to resist...

-- Inspiron 1720
-- Espresso Brown
-- Intel® Core 2 Duo T9300 (2.5GHz/800Mhz FSB/6MB cache)
-- 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
-- Glossy, high contrast, widescreen 17.0 inch display (1440 x 900)
-- 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT Video Card
-- Speed: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) Free Fall Sensor
-- Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
-- CD/DVD writer (DVD+/-RW) +Roxio Creator 10 Premier-Ultimate Burn/Authoring
-- Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy HD Software Edition
-- Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-Card
-- Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
-- Premium Dark Chocolate with Soft Touch LCD back color w/ 2.0M pixel Camera
-- Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)
-- Dell Bluetooth Travel Mouse
-- 85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
-- USB 2.0 (5)
-- IEEE1394a
-- 8-in-1 Memory Card Reader
-- VGA video output & S-Video
-- Stereo in, headphone/speaker out & Dual digital mics
-- 1 ExpressCard 54mm Slot
-- Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1
-- Microsoft® Office Small Business 2007-includes Publisher + Outlook2007
-- Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition
-- DellCare Plus
-- 3Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor, 24x7 Phone Support
-- 3Yr Accidental Damage and LoJack Theft Protection
-- 3Yr Trend Micro Anti-virus/Spyware Internet Security
-- 1Yr DataSafe Online Backup 10GB
-- 1 Year Automated PC Tune Up
-----------------------

$2,894.00
- $868.20 -- Save 30% on all Inspiron laptop purchases $1299+
$2,025.80
- $141.81 -- Save 7% with DellCare Plus service & support bundle
$1,883.99
+$146.06 -- Tax
$2,030.05

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I currently have this on order, but it will not ship supposedly until April 1. If I were to find something better between now and then I may cancel this order and buy the better deal.

I suspect this will be very hard to beat though.

The same Vostro notebook (less 2GB of RAM and different color - same shell) is $2453.00