Hi All,
I have been using my Inspiron 9300 for the last 3.5 months and below is an my review of the unit based on what I have used so far.
1. Reasons for choosing I9300
I am not a gamer (well not a hard core gamer!!! play some car racing and arcade games) but I needed a powerful machine for editing videos apart from usual browsing. My first laptop I8200 (specs in sig) failed miserably in that regard (tried using Pinnacle 9 and all I got was extremely stuttering videos). So decided to go for a new laptop ---- initially went for the I6000D with ATI X300 but when the 40% off coupon came saw the price difference between 9300 and 6000D was just 75 bucks (with the same config just replace 6800 with X300). So cancelled that order and reordered I9300.
I looked at models of Toshiba S series and Sony Vaio but none of them came with dedicated graphics card in the price range I was looking (~$1300 USD).
2. Specs
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 730 (1.60 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
Display 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen XGA+ Display
Memory 512MB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm
Video Card 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800
Hard Drive 80GB Hard Drive
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
CD/DVD Drives 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer write
Intel® PRO/Wireless 2915 Internal Wireless (802.11 a/b/g, 54Mbps)
Microsoft Works Suite 2005 - Includes Word 2002, Streets & Trips 2005
Security Software No Security Subscription
Digital Music Musicmatch® Jukebox Basic
Primary Battery 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (53 WHr)
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 2Yr Ltd Warranty, 2Yr At-Home Service, and 2Yr Technical Support
Dell Home Customers: Save 40% on select Inspiron™ notebook purchases $999 or more (before tax and shipping)! (affiliate only online offer)
Expires on 2005-08-22 10:59:59 - $835.20
Dell 720 Color Printer
Free Dell Color Printer 720 Qty: 1
Unit Price: $0.00
Dell Color Printer 720 Free Dell Color Printer 720
ADDITIONAL DISCOUNTS AND COUPONS
Dell Home Customers: Free Ground Shipping on Dell Inspiron orders greater than $849! $25 handling charge applies.
Expires on 2005-08-18 11:59:59 - $30.00
Sub-Total $1,252.80
Shipping Discount -$30.00
Shipping and Handling $19.00
Estimated Tax $12.75
Total $1,284.55
I have Toshiba 5400 rpm harddrive and Samsung Display WXGA+ and NEC 6650 DVD R/RW drive. Also I went for 2 year warranty and am going to use my credit card (AMEX) for extended 1 year warranty for a total of 3 years.
3. First Impression
First of all, I was very impressed when my laptop arrived within a week of my ordering.
My first impression was "Wow this looks really nice!!!" --- compared to 8200, the 9300 looks really sleek and nice. Also I love the Ultrasharp WXGA+ screen --- it's lovely. I did not go for glossy one as I saw reflections which I found to be quite disturbing.
The light leakage at least to me was nothing that I cared. In fact I did not know that there existed such an issue as in my case I did not find that disturbing. Only after reading in some CNET reviewes I noticed it ---- but even then it is almost non-existent in my case.
The weight was also light considering the 17 inch screen. My old 15 inch 8200 was heavier than this one.
So all in all, I was quite impressed with the looks of it.
4. Performance
The first thing that I did was run the super pi benchmark on this. For 2M places the result was 1min 51 secs. The same for 8200 was 4min 07 secs. Man was I impressed!!!!.
However I still found the machine to be a little bit slower for my liking ----- especially when I was logging in and out and during shut down. So with the help of this very knowledgebale forum I decided to reformat and reinstall Windows. And after that it has vastly improved.
Now for some benchmarking scores :
3DMark 5 --- 3374 on stock. When I first ran it using old drivers it came to 3002 but after using 78.11 it jumped to 3374.
Also my video editing works perfectly fine now without any issues.
Just ordered 2Gig ram from crucial ----- so I will update the review when I install them.
All in all I can say I am very with this machine. So far no issues and performance has been really great.
I have been using my Inspiron 9300 for the last 3.5 months and below is an my review of the unit based on what I have used so far.
1. Reasons for choosing I9300
I am not a gamer (well not a hard core gamer!!! play some car racing and arcade games) but I needed a powerful machine for editing videos apart from usual browsing. My first laptop I8200 (specs in sig) failed miserably in that regard (tried using Pinnacle 9 and all I got was extremely stuttering videos). So decided to go for a new laptop ---- initially went for the I6000D with ATI X300 but when the 40% off coupon came saw the price difference between 9300 and 6000D was just 75 bucks (with the same config just replace 6800 with X300). So cancelled that order and reordered I9300.
I looked at models of Toshiba S series and Sony Vaio but none of them came with dedicated graphics card in the price range I was looking (~$1300 USD).
2. Specs
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 730 (1.60 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
Display 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen XGA+ Display
Memory 512MB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm
Video Card 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800
Hard Drive 80GB Hard Drive
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
CD/DVD Drives 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer write
Intel® PRO/Wireless 2915 Internal Wireless (802.11 a/b/g, 54Mbps)
Microsoft Works Suite 2005 - Includes Word 2002, Streets & Trips 2005
Security Software No Security Subscription
Digital Music Musicmatch® Jukebox Basic
Primary Battery 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (53 WHr)
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 2Yr Ltd Warranty, 2Yr At-Home Service, and 2Yr Technical Support
Dell Home Customers: Save 40% on select Inspiron™ notebook purchases $999 or more (before tax and shipping)! (affiliate only online offer)
Expires on 2005-08-22 10:59:59 - $835.20
Dell 720 Color Printer
Free Dell Color Printer 720 Qty: 1
Unit Price: $0.00
Dell Color Printer 720 Free Dell Color Printer 720
ADDITIONAL DISCOUNTS AND COUPONS
Dell Home Customers: Free Ground Shipping on Dell Inspiron orders greater than $849! $25 handling charge applies.
Expires on 2005-08-18 11:59:59 - $30.00
Sub-Total $1,252.80
Shipping Discount -$30.00
Shipping and Handling $19.00
Estimated Tax $12.75
Total $1,284.55
I have Toshiba 5400 rpm harddrive and Samsung Display WXGA+ and NEC 6650 DVD R/RW drive. Also I went for 2 year warranty and am going to use my credit card (AMEX) for extended 1 year warranty for a total of 3 years.
3. First Impression
First of all, I was very impressed when my laptop arrived within a week of my ordering.
My first impression was "Wow this looks really nice!!!" --- compared to 8200, the 9300 looks really sleek and nice. Also I love the Ultrasharp WXGA+ screen --- it's lovely. I did not go for glossy one as I saw reflections which I found to be quite disturbing.
The light leakage at least to me was nothing that I cared. In fact I did not know that there existed such an issue as in my case I did not find that disturbing. Only after reading in some CNET reviewes I noticed it ---- but even then it is almost non-existent in my case.
The weight was also light considering the 17 inch screen. My old 15 inch 8200 was heavier than this one.
So all in all, I was quite impressed with the looks of it.
4. Performance
The first thing that I did was run the super pi benchmark on this. For 2M places the result was 1min 51 secs. The same for 8200 was 4min 07 secs. Man was I impressed!!!!.
However I still found the machine to be a little bit slower for my liking ----- especially when I was logging in and out and during shut down. So with the help of this very knowledgebale forum I decided to reformat and reinstall Windows. And after that it has vastly improved.
Now for some benchmarking scores :
3DMark 5 --- 3374 on stock. When I first ran it using old drivers it came to 3002 but after using 78.11 it jumped to 3374.
Also my video editing works perfectly fine now without any issues.
Just ordered 2Gig ram from crucial ----- so I will update the review when I install them.
All in all I can say I am very with this machine. So far no issues and performance has been really great.
