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Anyone need a new Dell laptop?

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gbearbuck said:
Thanks for the info... and as an fyi, evendently the old ratings of the the P4 chips and the ratings of the Pm and (chip that starts with "C") are not rated the same... not sure how it all works, but I've been told they aren't apples to apples when doing a comparison...??
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Well, the ratings are along the same scale, but how they translate into performance is different. I believe it's somewhere along the line of a Pentium 4 2.66GHz being in rough equality to a Pentium-M 1.6GHz, for general use. But when you get into heavier use and applications, the M falls off. Still not down to a 1:1 ratio with the P4s, but an M 1.6GHz is more in line a 2.2-2.4GHz chip. So the highest Pentium-M available on Dell now (1.8-2.0GHz, I think) might be comparable to some of the better P4 chips, there's still a falloff in performance, particularly as you get into heavier applications. But I'm well out of my comfort realm with this stuff, and I'm certain there are folks here who could share more meaningful and accurate perspective.

Take the Dell Inspiron XPS, which is their top-end "performance" machine geared towards gamers, and power-hungry applications. That's running with a P4 3.4GHz w/ HT, and offers (at a huge $ bump) an 'extreme edition' of the chip which has more cache. It's all back to power vs. mobility. Desktop replacements vs. travel books. No downside to either, just two different approaches. In terms of your decision making process, you really weren't going to go wrong either way.

I still feel that you'll be absolutely fine with either P4 or PM.
 
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I've bought three Dells in the last 14 mths... a laptop just a month ago.. I also know folks who work for Dell... and Dell only offers their employees 5% off best pricing... I also get a special promo mailing... but the coupon offered just blew away anything I have seen in a year... and years... a real gift from the BP member who started it... bummed it was too late for me...
 
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Nation,

when did you submit your order... mine will not ship until 10/29/04... and then I have to wait 3-5 business days for it to get to me via regular mail... I figure it will be two to three weeks before I get my new toy...

NJbuckeye,

The coupon was for "affiliate's of Dell"... and they limited the number of each level of machine (so many of each type of laptop)... I hope the deal goes through, they could come back and say we are not "Dell affiliate's" and therefore don't qualify for the deal... keep your fingers crossed...
 
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Dell can be very funny with some of this type deal.

They will let you place an order and cancel it or never ship it, they may not even tell you.
There are websites that list these type of deals and update them constantly.
They will limit to a certian number of shipments.
Most are supposed to be for Dell Business Partners.

I bought a Dell 400SC server off ebay for $299 plus $50 shipping.
When I transferred the warranty Dell raised holy hell as the box was not supposed to be resold.

I'm an IBM business partner and can get a limited number of IBM PC's at 40% off. They also have a Partner only auction site that can save partners money.
I think the advice given here has been good. You really need to know what you want to do. A laptop is really not upgradable and shouldn't be considered for many graphic and development purposes. They are great for general email and web surfing with the MS office programs. Memory, graphics chip and hard drive, size and rotation speed, are more important than the processor as in reality your processor will sit idle most of the time.

I still use a 1GHZ processor with 512MB of RAM and a 8MB graphic chip and 30GB drive in my travel unit. The good thing is it is 4 pounds which means a lot when it logs 100,000 miles a year on the road. I can sit in my easy chair and wirelessly surf the web while watching college football.

I have an external 40GB drive via USB and use one of those 512Mb USB sticks to transfer large files from work to home. It is pretty easy and cool. You can password protect the bios and prevent the USB and other ports from working.

I hope you get your laptops and enjoy the new technology. It always seems fast, for the first month!
 
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Actually, the first thing I would do is connect to Windows Update. Even though these systems probably come with sp2 installed, there's already been a couple fairly critical holes discovered since then that probably won't be patched. Gotta love Microsoft, they singlehandedly keep me employed.

And on the topic of setting up a wireless network, I would recommend staying away from D-Link products:

http://www.securiteam.com/securitynews/5HP0L0KD5K.html

And making sure you have fairly strong encryption:

http://www.evilscheme.org/defcon

That is a hot deal, it's too bad I can't justify buying a laptop at the moment.

Congrats on the buy. Now here's the next step -- as far as I'm concerned, the first thing you basically have to do with a new system from a vendor like Dell, is strip off all the crap they put in there. Right after firing it up the first time, I'd go into the Add/Remove Program area, and uninstall anything you don't know you want. That's something people around here (myself included) can certainly try and help with. Then hit up the "your pc, you should have control of it" thread, and download ad-aware and spybot s&d. Run those, and further clean the garbage preloaded on your system. From there, I'd make sure you have a copy of Norton Antivirus 2005 (can purchase that from symantec.com). I recommend *against* Norton Internet Security, as much of this suite is now overlapped by built-in Windows features with SP2. You get 12 months of virus updates with the 49.95 purchase, and combined with the security tweaks in the "your PC" thread, can virtually guarantee that you're not going to get infected with much of anything.
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Nation,

when did you submit your order... mine will not ship until 10/29/04... and then I have to wait 3-5 business days for it to get to me via regular mail... I figure it will be two to three weeks before I get my new toy...
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i submitted it yesterday at about 1:30. It said it would be here the 26th....


i think....now you got me all paranoid.
 
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I'm sure the backlog is bigger now than it was for me... but a month ago I was given an expected rcpt date 3 weeks out.. and got the system in about a week and a half... printer came within a week...
 
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