We’ve had a cheap-as-they-come dell desktop for three years now, and have had no problems with it. Great computer, does what we need it to do. So, now we’re looking at getting a laptop (in addition to the desktop, not as a replacement). It needs to do the following: run a word processor, surf the Internet, maybe play a DVD on a plane a few times a year. Ideally the battery life will be decent, and it won’t be excessively heavy. We don’t “game” or have any interest in doing so. We’ll store some music and photos on it, but nothing excessive. We don’t have kids, if that matters at all.
Is there any reason for us to get a more expensive/better model than this Dell? for $500? The next model up is $650. We could afford whatever, but I’m pathologically cheap and wonder if we would need more than the base model. We aren’t determined to get a dell, BTW, I just looked at their website and they look cheap, and we’ve been happy with the one we have, so feel free to suggest other options.
I can’t speak for Dell specifically, but I’d argue that you wouldn’t want to grab the cheapest laptop you can because a laptop, because of its portable nature, needs to be more solid and durable than you could get away with on your desktop.
The laptop is one solid unit. You cannot swap out the keyboard if the keys feel loose or cheap or if one sticks.
You have battery & screen concerns. Ditto for the internal drives.
In this case I’d go for something a little more higher-end.
Cheap laptops will be heavy, have poor battery life, and just “feel” cheap. The keyboard will feel cheap, the latch will feel cheap, the plastic will bend and flex, the hinge on the back will stick and not feel right.
The screen will be dark or dull or low resolution.
I’d spend at least a grand… that’ll get you a nice, nice screen and good battery life. I’d go for a Mac personally, but that’s just me.
I just bought a laptop and was advised by everyone I asked that Windows Vista is a memory hog and that I should get at least 1 GB of RAM. That eliminated many (not all) of the cheapo models from my consideration.
The Inspiron in your link is a good laptop, we have one at my work and it is pretty solid and dependable. It is lightweight, but not so light to be fragile. The battery lasts a good amount of time and everything seems to work as it should.
In my experience, I have noticed that a lot of dell laptops increase in size and weight as price increases. I bought the 5160 a couple years back and the sucker weighs 8 lbs. It is sturdy, sure, but due to it’s weight, would be much more likely to break if I dropped it.
Lightweight is good in a laptop. Humans splat when they fall from a distance, but bugs are lightweight and do not. The scale is different with laptops of course, but I would say the idea is reasonable. Lightweight stuff == less likely to break if you drop it than heavy.
True, yes. Mine uses like 46% of the 1 gig of ram just sitting idle (with gagdets running).
OP, I’d go with the 1501 and select the Best option for the custom build. That’ll give you the better processor, an 80 gig HD and 1 gig of ram along with the DVD burner all for $599. Not a bad deal really.
My Gateway MT3705 has similar specs and I only paid $550 for it.
I’ve bought 2 laptops on eBay. Each were worth a couple thousand at the time, but my price was $550 for one and $700 for another. They were IBM Thinkpads, which are very good quality laptops. I had the assistance of my computer-savvy uncle, who helped me weed out the duds, and I’ve never regretted it. If that sounds good, try eBay.
We just bought a batch of Inspiron 1501s, and while I don’t like the ersatz-iPod white glossy plastic, they seem well-constructed for an entry-level model, and noticeably lighter than the previous 1300 model.
I too have used a bottom-end Dell model as my workhorse and have been happy with it, so I’d say if you’re accustomed to what you get for that sort of money, go for it. For battery life a Pentium M (or Core or whatever they’re calling them now) or AMD processor will beat a Celeron M, but you could always order a long life battery (that’s what I have and I get about 1.5 hours out of it). Non-Celeron + big battery would give probably double that.
I’ve got an Inspiron e1405 (running Linux) as my main home machine, and I’m far happier with it than I am with my work-supplied Thinkpad R60 (running XP). Build quality is decent, battery life is excellent (I got the 9-cell), and performance is just fine for what I do.
If I were you, I’d bump up the memory to a gig and get at least the 6-cell battery, if not the 9-cell. The Turion is going to require more juice than one of the Core-whatevers.
I’ve got a cheapo Compaq Presario on sale that came to about $500 with tax. I only use it for internet and word processing, though if I do get rid of my desktop I’ll use it for burning CDs although I haven’t done it yet.
I have no problems with it, it feels sturdy enough and works great for me. Of course I have no experience with higher-end laptops but I honestly can’t justify spending a grand on anything, let alone a laptop you only need for internet and word processing.
I have a loaner Vista laptop with only 500 Meg of memory, and it makes me yearn for my Win98 machine. The list price was $663 on the paperwork, but it wouldn’t be worth it. With the OS transition, you may be stuck paying a bit more for a decent amount of memory.
This thing runs games really slowly. That might not scare you, except that the game I’m referring to is Solitaire. :eek:
Keep any eye on the hot deals forum at fatwallet…for instance, this week, Circuit City had a particular laptop for 799-200 rebate, but if you ordered it online and pricematched to Best Buy, they had to sell it to you for 599 out the door…then you just go home, print the rebate form, and still get the 200 back
I would recommend against IBM. Since they sold their PC division to Lenovo the quality of the the thinkpads have gone downhill in my experience. We have bought 3 at work recently (sicne August) 2 at 1 time, the 3rd a little before that. Different models.
They have been nothing but trouble for me to support. They are the mid level thinkpads (the model numbers are escaping me at the moment).
Personally I like Dells. I have one, and it is an excellent laptop. The one in your link seems fine to me, I would get the 1GB of RAM however (its only another $65), and just get XP home, not bother with Vista. Also I would upgrade the screen to the 15.4 with true life ($30). I would say the rest of the specs will do what you want it to.
I’m going to throw my lot in with the “Bottom of the line Dell should be fine, and you should probably go for a gig of RAM because it’ll just generally make things work better” people. XP appears to still be an option on the ones you linked, so I’d definitely take that over Vista as well. Basically, don’t go near XP with less than a gig, and don’t go near Vista with less than two gigs.
I have a “spare” laptop that is several years old… complete piece of trash by today’s standards… but I can type papers in bed, watch movies wherever I want, and post on message boards while watching TV. Heavy lifting is why I have a desktop sitting in the other room. If that’s really all the functionality you want, there’s really no need to spend more than the minimum to make things run smoothly.
I’ve never had an IBM laptop myself, but for years I’ve gone to meetings with IBM people, and their IBM laptops have consistently been the only ones having problems connecting to the projector or getting wireless. It never made me want to get one - and even less now.
Augh! I think I’ve sold myself up (Dell e1405). The one with the core duo thing, 'cause the reviews I read tell me that I should. Thinking about it more, we probably will travel with it a fair amount, so size matters a bit, and for some reason that one just appeals to me. I always do this…it really is more than I need. Oh well. So, XP or vista?
