Inspiron 6000

1) For nearly everyone, WinXP Home is perfectly fine. Unless you are a student or require XP Pro for business use, stick with the home edition.

2) Yes, but you will probably have to lower some settings for games like BF2 or HL2. As long as you are willing to compromise a little on visual quality, you will find that the X300 can handle just about anything you throw at it.

3) In order to use the laptop wirelessly, you will need two things: a wireless network card, and a wireless router. The broadband goes into the wireless router which, in turn, broadcasts the signal to be received by the wireless network card in the laptop. Dell offers several options for wireless cards (the Intel 2200/2915 or the Dell 1350/1450, I believe). The 2200 and 1350 are b/g cards, and the 2915 and 1450 are a/b/g cards. The vast majority of routers use 802.11b or 802.11g, so the 2200 or 1350 cards will likely be fine. I went with the Intel 2200 and have had some signal degradation issues that have yet to be fixed. However, if you go with the Dell card, the laptop is not technically "Centrino" certified (not really a big deal anyway).

4) The 6000 is a great laptop by any standard. It provides a great combination of mobility, performance, and price. If you are focused more on gaming power and less on mobility, the 9300 with the nVidia 6800 card is one to consider. If you really want the maximum portability you can get, you may want to look into the 700m. However, if you really want a nice mixture of the two, the 6000 is a great choice.

One piece of advice: buy your memory from newegg.com instead of Dell. You will undoubtedly save a bit of money by getting 3rd party ram and installing it yourself. Hope this helps.

Over here in Aus, the WiFi comes standard. I'm not sure about over there in the US. you might want to check.

wireless card is standard on the 6000. x300 will not handle anything you throw at it. If you're into gaming outside of pac-man, I'd get the 9300 with the 6800. Dell installed memory is now competitively priced ($100 for 2x512). I wouldn't bother with buying it separately.

ok, anyone who knocks the x300 obviously hasnt tried it. While my laptop wasnt bought for gaming, i tried out a few and i was VERY surprised. I can play bf2 on medium at 1024 x 768 without any skips or anything. Seriously, it will handle any game you throw at it, just not on the highest settings.

yea, what he said. I've been playing BF2 with my 128mb X300 with the above settings for a couple weeks now, it works fine.

You can get a 1x1GB for $100 on newegg.com. Dell is still overpriced. Better, but overpriced.

i can confirm at 800x600 on medium settings at STOCK settings in doom3 and hl2 you can get 40-50 fps. Overclock it and you can get the same results at 1024x768.

By no means is the card amazing, if you truly want to game get the 9300.. but for the occasional gamer this card is fine... and everything i have thrown at the x300 it can handle more than acceptably.

i played doom 3 at 640x800 or whatever. At stock settings, I got 40-60 frames at medium settings.

Plus I played it in a window so it looked high res. Pretty nice.

If your laptops primary function is entertainment and gaming, I suggest you take a look at the inspiron 9300 as the 6000D's video card is not enough for the latest games out there. The price difference between these two systems is very small. Check out these links for more information, trust me, the 6000's video card is very inadequate for high quality, just out games, let alone whats new three to six months from now, you will not I repeat, will not find the 6000 adequate in this scenario.
With 45 percent off deals right now, the 9300 is even more attractive and size wise it is only half an inch deeper and an inch wider than the 6000. You can get the nvidia 6800 go card with 256 megs or ram.

Check out my links:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showth...dilemma+solved

http://www.notebookforums.com/showth...on+9300+review

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=74804


Why settle for lowest settings when you can get the 9300 and play your games at their highest settings with no problems and not have to wonder if your lappy can even play a title before you buy it? You'll be sorry if you get the 6000D thinking it will be "okay" for high quality, latest games.

And anyone who sings the praises of the X300, hasnt taken the 6800 go card out for a test spin, seriously, why get the 6000 with a card that really cant handle what he wants to do when the similarly priced 9300 is available?
It should be a no brainer!!

i have a 6800gt in my desktop, believe me, ive seen the differance. I was singing to the tune of the poster before me who said it will not handle anything i throw at it. That is far from true. Like i said, it will play whatever game smoothley. Never said it stacked up to the 9300. believe me, if i wanted to game, i would have bought the 9300, but thats what my desktop is for. I needed my 6000 for college work, and i thought the upgrade to to the x300 was affordable, so i got it and was simply commenting on it. So there, i take my 6800gt out for a spin everyday.

Paying with cheque?

Never knew you could!

totally agree.

the i6000 is my favorite out of all the notebooks Dell offers. I can take it to work, abuse it ( if i wanted to ) and it offers an great mixture of all i wanted it for (Battery life, gaming, photo editing, web surfing, Wifi my favorite. )

All in all i give the laptop a 10/10