Skip to main content
Topic: Dell Computers (Read 6194 times) previous topic - next topic

Dell Computers

Does anyone have an oppinion on Dell labtops?  I am currently shopping for a laptop for a combination of work, school, and DvD watching :)

Dell of canada is offering employees of my company interst free financing so I was thinking of going with the inspiration series notebooks.

How much ram should I get? 
What's better Celleron (sp?) of pentium processors? 
How long to the lithium batteries REALLY last on those maschines?

My primary uses of this maschine will be sufing the net, running powerpoint presentations, and watching DVD's, posting on messageboards and word processing.  No serious gameing of other graphical needs. 

Are their better PC notebooks out their? Cheeper?

Thanks for helping me out with any info / oppinions. 
I know very little about computers.

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #1
You might want to look at this, but you have to be fast.


Dell is running a 24 hour special until 6am tomorrow, for $750 off any Inspiron laptop priced at $1500 or more.

See the details (second bullet):

http://edealinfo.com/Misc/dell.shtml#C2

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #2
I would avoid a Celeron, even for day to day stuff a Pentium (either M or 4, M will probably get better battery life) is vastly superior.  The battery in my notebook lasts 2½ hours, of course I have a very fast notebook for Architectural rendering, so my battery life is a little low, but I wouldn't count on much more than 3 hours for an average notebook.  There are probably cheaper notebooks out there, but Dell is reliable and has great tech support.  Another recommendation is get lots of RAM, I would suggest 512MB, even if it knocks the processor speed back a little to stay in your budget.  I have 1GB of Ram and a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 and its soo much faster than my friends 3.2GHz with a measly 256MB Ram.  My biggest downfall is my graphics card (of course as I said, I do lots of graphics intensive rendering), but for just word processing, powerpoint, and dvds; pretty much whatever they put in will be sufficient.
2000 Jaguar XK8 Convertible - 4.0L DOHC V8 (AJ27)
2018 Ford Explorer - 3.5L DOHC V6 (Duratec 35)
1999 Mercury Grand Marquis - 4.6L SOHC V8 (Modular)
1987 Mercury Cougar LS - 5.0L V8 (Windsor) [SOLD in 2009]

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #3
:) nice post bq, time to do some shopping
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]


Re: Dell Computers

Reply #4
You better move quick though.

From what I understand the 9100 is out of stock and the coupon is no longer available on the 8600 & 700M. Try the 700M, 1100, 1150, 5160, or XPS. I've heard it still works on these.

I'm having to pass (and kicking myself) because I'm already overextended on TBird parts. :wtf:

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #5
Thanks bq, sadly that offer only seems to extend to american customers.  They are however offering a Candain deal untill the 28.  Check out dell.ca for the canucks out their. 

Also anyone have a preference over skreen size.  Will a 12" cause me to concentrate so hard I go blind after typing 20 pages?

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #6
I've got an Inspiron 1100 that I'm happy with. I've had it for 10 months now and so far the only things to break were:

Video system or monitor - it was broken when I got it. Soetimes the screen's backlighting would come on, sometimes it wouldn't (rendering it impossible to see). Dell shipped a brand new system within two days

Power supply - twice, the cable from the power supply got a short (a common laptop problem). I could've fixed it myself but that's what warranty is for. Dell replaced it both times free of charge.

Other than that it's been great. The battery lasts just under 3 hours (I've been on it for an hour now and it shows 1:50 remaining). It's fast enough, but I wouldn't recommend this model for gaming due to its py Intel graphics chip. The only games I play are (very) old MAME32 Arcade emulations and SNES emulations and it works fine for that, but I wouldn't even attempt Doom 3!

BTW, stay away form Celerons! A Celeron to a P4 is like a 150-horse SO 5.0 to a 225-horse HO 5.0. Similar in most aspects but big difference in performance!

Mine's a P4 2.6 GHZ, 512MB Ram, 15" screen, 60GB HDD, CDRW/DVD combo running Win XP Pro with SP2 (BTW, I've heard the Inspiron 1150 has issues with SP2, you may want to look into that). I paid $1499 last DEC, but of course because it's a computer a new one is undoubtedly cheaper and more powerful now...
2015 Mustang GT Premium - 5.0, 6-speed, Guard Green - too much awesome for one car

1988 5.0 Thunderbird :birdsmily: SOLD SEPT 11 2010: TC front clip/hood ♣ Body & paint completed Oct 2007 ♣ 3.55 TC rear end and front brakes ♣ TC interior ♣ CHE rear control arms (adjustable lowers) ♣ 2001 Bullitt springs ♣ Energy suspension poly busings ♣ Kenne Brown subframe connectors ♣ CWE engine mounts ♣ Thundercat sequential turn signals ♣ Explorer overhead console (temp/compass display) ♣ 2.25" off-road dual exhaust ♣ T-5 transmission swap completed Jan 2009 ♣

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #7
Only the XPS is available now. My freaking cable internet went out for like an hour so I couldn't get on. $1700 for the XPS.. pretty wicked machine 3.4 Ghz P4 w/ 1GB ram running dual channel... blah blah blah

I can't spend $1700 right now.  Was hoping to find something around $1100 and sell my laptop for like 500-600...

If I bought the xps it would go something like this

me ->  :flame:  <- wife

than me again ->  :bowdown:  and than the wife ->  :mad:

LOL

Thanks for the link though, I'll have to keep checking till something that falls in my bugget comes along. The hp deals are little weak only 10% off  :yuck:
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]


Re: Dell Computers

Reply #8
I wouldnt even touch a dell, but that is just my opinon, I have built over 10 computers, and I hate to see people buy brand new computers. In my opinion, Dell is way over priced for what you get. I built a amd 1800, all new, for less then $500, and that was when they were brand new. My freind got a brand new dell, 2,7 ghz and mine would out do it any day. Unless you plan on playing games, I would go for an older p4. Dont touch celerons, they are slower, require more ram, and lack any sort of performance. p3's are okay, but slow as crud. A 500mhz system with a good video card will out do almost any p3. Although when it comes to a 500mhz laptop, the p3 would prolly cream it.
Quote from: jcassity
I honestly dont think you could exceed the cost of a new car buy installing new *stock* parts everywhere in your coug our tbird. Its just plain impossible. You could revamp the entire drivetrain/engine/suspenstion and still come out ahead.
Hooligans! 
1988 Crown Vic wagon. 120K California car. Wifes grocery getter. (junked)
1987 Ford Thunderbird LX. 5.0. s.o., sn-95 t-5 and an f-150 clutch. Driven daily and going strong.
1986 cougar.
lilsammywasapunkrocker@yahoo.com

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #9
Build vs. Buy.  Always a good topic for debate. Now you must admit that, compared to other big name computer manufacturer, Dell is quite reasonable.  Hell, are there even any other companies left?  Gateway even closed all thier retail stores.  I'm sure you couldn't build a PC for that price using all top of the line components.  I've seen what happens when you buy off-brand MoBo's, RAM, vid cards, etc.  It's not worth it to have to replace component after component just to have saved some money.  Though I'm still building  my next PC I'm gonna shop around for better quality components.  Besides... you can't really build a laptop now, can you?

On the subject of processors, as far as I'm concerned, don't even touch Intel chips, period.  The last Intel chip I used was a Celeron 433 (to put it in a time perspective), a big step up from my Cyrix 233, but nowhere near par with another 400+ MHz chip.  It's Intel's budget processor, you get what you pay for.  I'm happy with AMD and I have been for a good 5 years. 

All this PC talk makes me want to shop around for some new parts.  This Athlon 1800 is getting slow for me.

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #10
Build vs buy doesn't matter - its near impossible to build a laptop although companies have products that allow you to insert your own videocard (if you can find a mobile one), etc. Dell laptops aren't that bad although emachines made a huge splash in the mobile market a short while ago with the first athlon 64 and I think 9700 videocard in a laptop. Desktop wise, you can occasionally get parts from dell cheaper than if you were to buy them seperately from resellers (online or b&m). The only issue I have with dell is they supposedly still use their proprietary power supplies. The connectors are the same, but the pins on atx connectors are moved around. If you plug a normal atx psu into it, your system's gone. Dell has improved a lot over the last 7 years in both products and support.

Avoid any celeron over 1.4GHz. They're crippled so much, its sad really. 512MB is a must and even then, I notice a huge difference in performance between 1024MB and 1280MB (although I quit using the spare 256MB stick due to it making my sound cut out occasionally from incompatibility with my 512 sticks). More ram's always better.

and Ifixyawata, I don't know what problems you were having with your Celeron. Back then celerons were the only processor to have full speed L2 cache and this caused them to be superior to both amd's offerings at the time (K6-2/3) and intel's flagship processors (P2-400 and 450). People overclocking the Celeron 300A's to 450MHz were outperforming the pentium 2's at the same speed. Celeron 366's at 550MHz were even performing up there with the early Pentium 3's.

I've used AMD products more than Intel's though so I'm biased in no way. unknown 286, AMD 386sx, AMD 486 DX4, K6-300@333, K6-2 400@450, dual celeron 366's@468 or single @541 depending on what I wanted to do at the time - they didn't overclock worth  (gaming with one processor stock performed over 2x better in games and about 30% better in non-floating point applications than my K6-2 at 450MHz), Duron 600@1GHz, AXP 1700+ @1.8GHz.
1988 Thunderbird Sport

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #11
I've heard bad things about current Celerons, but I was pretty happy with mine (it was a HUGE improvement).  Though, I was too scared to try overclocking it.

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #12
Yeah, current Celerons aren't that great. Although they recently got a doubled cache size (the reason they're so slow now), the P4's still have more. It means quite a bit now in terms of processor performance.

and yes, cyrix was behind in performance all the time. When Via bought them, they were turned around a bit with the EPIA line of small/cool motherboard/cpu combinations.
1988 Thunderbird Sport

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #13
I've always preferred to build my own, and I've always preferred AMD chips mainly because of the huge price difference compared to Intel. This laptop is the only store-bought computer I've ever owned...
2015 Mustang GT Premium - 5.0, 6-speed, Guard Green - too much awesome for one car

1988 5.0 Thunderbird :birdsmily: SOLD SEPT 11 2010: TC front clip/hood ♣ Body & paint completed Oct 2007 ♣ 3.55 TC rear end and front brakes ♣ TC interior ♣ CHE rear control arms (adjustable lowers) ♣ 2001 Bullitt springs ♣ Energy suspension poly busings ♣ Kenne Brown subframe connectors ♣ CWE engine mounts ♣ Thundercat sequential turn signals ♣ Explorer overhead console (temp/compass display) ♣ 2.25" off-road dual exhaust ♣ T-5 transmission swap completed Jan 2009 ♣

Re: Dell Computers

Reply #14
I got the Notebook (insprion 1150), and guess what..........

The AC adaptor didn't work.  To their credit, they promptly shipped me another one.