Just ordered my new laptop!

[Camride]

I'm excited, this is my first new/non hand me down laptop. I saw the current coupons and couldn't pass this up, as this ends up just as good as the $750 off $1500 coupon. I got a Dell Inspiron 6000 with just about all the bells and whistles. Only thing I didn't get was the DVD burner as I don't really have a use for it now, and I can always upgrade later if I need to(for pretty much the same price as Dell charges I can pick up one on Ebay). Here are the specs:


Inspiron 6000
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 760 (2GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB), Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
Unit Price: $1,525.00

Display: 15.4 inch UltraSharp WSXGA+ LCD Panel

Memory: 512MB Shared DDR2 SDRAM 2 Dimms

Video Card: 128MB DDR ATI's MOBILITY™ RADEON X300 PCI Express x16

Hard Drive: 60GB 5400rpmHard Drive

Operating System (Office software not included) Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005

Network Card: Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem

Combo/DVD+RW Drives: 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive

Wireless Networking Card: Intel® PRO 2915 and Dell 350 Bluetooth Internal Wireless Cards

Battery 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (53 WHr)

Carrying Cases Large Backpack Carrying Case

Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW

Media Center Enhancements: Remote Control for Windows XP Media Center Edition

Dell Home Customers: $100 Off Select Intel Pentium M Processor Upgrades!
Expires on 2005-12-21 11:59:59 - $100.00


Dell Home Customers: Select Inspiron affiliate offer save $500 off $1499 or more (before tax and shipping)! (affiliate only online offer)
Expires on 2005-12-21 11:59:59 - $500.00



ADDITIONAL DISCOUNTS AND COUPONS

Dell Home Customers: Free Ground Shipping on Dell Inspiron
Expires on 2005-12-18 12:59:59 - $59.00

Dell Home Customers: Save $100 off Systems over $1499!
Expires on 2005-12-22 05:59:59 - $100.00
Sub-Total $825.00
Shipping Discount -$59.00
Shipping $0.00
Estimated Tax $53.63
Total $878.63



What do you guys think? I know it won't play Doom 3 on full AA/AF, but it should play pretty decently at low details. I don't need a full out gaming system, I just want to be able to play some games at a decent fps, which the integrated graphics just can't do. Mostly I needed to come in under $900, which I never would have been able to do with a barebones/whitebox notebook with these kinds of components.

I'm excited, I hope it comes in in time for Christmas!

edit: I should mention that there are reasons I didn't go with a bigger hard drive, more memory or a DVD burner. The memory I will be upgrading myself since it's cheaper through newegg or ZZF. I didn't need a bigger hard drive simply because I have an external drive that I keep all my media on, so 60gigs should be enough for my programs. And as for the DVD burner, I just simply wouldn't use one right now, so I figured why waste the money on it. If I decide I need one in the future it's not that expensive to get one on Ebay. I needed to keep the costs down on this laptop, so I'm just happy to be able to get the 128mb X300 along with the 2Ghz Pentium M and the WSXGA screen. This laptop will be perfect for what I need it for, and if I find any weaknesses I'll just upgrade them. If eventually the gpu isn't enough or I need something better I'll throw it up on Ebay, get most if not all of my money back and get something better.

[Apoptosis]

I was going to yell at you for not building your own but for $800 on that system you got a heck of a deal. The only thing I know you are going to hate is the video card, because the X300 isn't going to cut it in today's games. I also agree that you need ot get more memory and run in dual channel.

Other than that you got yourself one great notebook with a killer price tag. Be sure to post up some pictures and let us know what you think of it.

[Camride]

Yeah, I would have preferred to build my own, but the budget just isn't there right now. I'll sell this one in a year and build my own when I'm not putting all my money into my wedding.

Anyway, I just started downloading all the benchmarking programs, so I'll post some results when I get some tests run. I haven't played any games on it yet, but I wouldn't think it'd be that bad since it does have 128mb of dedicated memory and is running on PCI-E. We'll see, but the thing was at this point I couldn't afford a gaming powerhouse, and don't really need one right now. This Dell will do me good until I have a little more cash to throw around.

So far though, I've been pretty impressed with the system. It's pretty fast and runs very well(rips CD's in no time, which I love). Though I've had a dissapearing driver issue with the touchpad. For some reason every once and a while all the options for the Alps touchpad will dissapear from the mouse menu and the scroll function will stop working. It's like the driver reverts itself back to a previous version, though when I reinstall the driver it says I'm installing the same one over again. But once I reinstall it everything works again, for a little while. Kinda wierd, though I don't want to get on the phone with Dell about it unless it gets annoying. Oh, and I did get one half dead pixel(it's either blue or white) but since I got the WSXGA screen(1680x1050) it's so damn small I can hardly see it anyway! Plus it's not in a bad spot, it's towards the very bottom of the screen, so it won't bother me.

So far so good, I'll get some pics in the next couple of days. I have to work this week, but I'm not at my normal work location(plus I'm starting a new job/position next week) so I won't be doing a whole lot. I'll probably snap some pictures at work and post them up.

And I'll get the benchmarking results up soon!

[infinitevalence]

You could still sell the 760 and buy a 735 or 730 and use the U wire mod to overclock them to 2.13ghz or 2.26ghz that could save you even more and give you better performance.

[Camride]

Nah, they're only going for about $200 on Ebay, maybe a little more. It's not worth selling it and buying another one.

Benchmarks will be up soon though!