8790 - or Inspiron XPS?? - Page 2

I'd be surprised if the price tag for the base model isn't around $2200 next month. The website only has the 3.4GHz proc as a minimum. If they offer equipment that isn't over the premium...

This guy is looking real nice to me...

I'd just be concerned about hitting a wall with the GPU. There might not be much to upgrade it TO, as tech changes. Still... better than nothing at all.

Plus, it's less expensive than Alienware.

All you have to do is look at UT2004 on Dell's awesome WUXGA screen compared to that god-awful 16.1" thing that the 8890 or 51m calls an LCD...same goes for AW's miserable 15.4" screen. Case closed!

I don't count myself a fan of either. I just want the best performance for the money.

In my mind, it's close. What about sound?

No its more like a realist... not a sager fanatic ive owned 4 dell notebooks before i found sager... i was pleased with them until soemthing died in them like a hd or the battery. Dealing with dell tech support/customer support gave me the headache more then the laptops.

when u pay 2+grand for something you want the best and the lest headaches possible. Since dell moved thier tech support out of this country they have gone down hill. At lest sager is loyal to the american worker. Keep the techsupport in the same country your suppose to be serviceing and you wont go wrong. Trying to save a little in the short term will kill you and your rep in the long run. Luckily sager realizes this... dell did not.

I'm happy that youre happy.

- The dell XPS looks bloody ugly. Looks like a Xbox or something. It's 5.05 cm tall WTF! That's a lil'bit way too much for my body.

- There will be virtually no difference performance wise between the M11 128mb and the M11 256mb. The M11 is said to not have enough punch to benefit from the extra video-memory. But that has been discussed already on the forums.

- Upgradeable graphics. I dont see much the point on this, to be honest. It's not like in a desktop, where you purchase whatever card you want, you slid it in within 10 minutes, install drivers, and off you go. Here you got to send it to Dell and will probably be expensive. I'd rather just Ebay away the laptop when a new graph card comes out and buy a whole new system. You'll get the new card, a new laptop, new warranty, and it wont cost you much more than upgrading just the GPU.

- 15.4" WUXGA vs. 17" WXGA. I'd rather get the 17". That machine is gonna be barely portable due to weight, size and battery life, thus you might as well get the whole enchilada. Unless you really need the extra ressolution (I personally dont).

- Longer battery life. Well, not very sure who'd buy this laptop with mobility in mind but non-the-less it's always nice to squeez 30 mins more out of your battery. Absolutely a sweet bonus.

- Cooling system. It seems that Dell's engineers have done a terrific job regarding the cooling system on their XPS. That's why it's so thick, to have room enough for the cooling, but it seems it works great.

- Regarding tech support, there are some people claiming on different forums that Dell's support is a nightmare to deal with. In the other hand, this board is pacted with pleasent opinions towards Sager and PCTorque. That's something to account in considering you never know when **** might hit the fan.

I agree with other posters: it will all come down to price. Dells are known for getting pricy as you spec'em up. But also dont forget that Dell runs an extensive cupons and dicounts programs here and there, so if you research a little bit sometimes there are good offers comming up from them. It's good to have different buying options as a consumer.


Cheers.

What is the LCD response rate on the two units? I am trying to avoid ghosting in games.

XPS's 15.4" WUXGA is said in the article linked about to be 25 mps. I *think* it's the same response as the 17" WXGA on the 8790.


Cheers.

Hope your wrong about the 25 ms. I seem to remember you want 20ms or better for gaming. Sager and other notebook makers need to publish this statistic.

You want <30ms for gaming.

dell display = 20ms rise (max), 35 ms fall (max) according to its manual pdf

ha, i wonder if the xps will have the same amount of problems that 8600 has

Playing Games with specs.

I have noticed that people are either playing games with this spec or they just do not understand it. In some cases it is the rise or fall time and in others it is the total of the two. I am pretty sure, but not positive that the total response time for my 8890V with 16.1 in LCD is 35ms. This is the total rise and fall time, where as the rise time is about 18 ms. With this in mind I could claim that my display's response time is under 20 ms, but I would be full of it if I did. The part that people are really screwed up on is that the best desktop LCDs I have seen from Samsung and Sony, have a total response time of 25 ms. So to say that an LCD should be better than 20 ms sonds to me like rise or fall time rather total response time.

I know Aussie has covered this extensively, but I did not bother to search for it.

While I am at it I would like to mention that the ghosting issue on the 8890 is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I have yet to come up with a good example of it on my 8890V and I am comparing it to my top of the line 19 in Sony desktop which is an awsome display. You can check 'em out at both Fry's and Best Buy. I bought mine at CompUSA when they first came out. The only drawback that I see on the 16.1 in LCD on the 8890V is that I would like it to be brighter, with a 600 or 700 to 1 contrast ratio.

The vendors do need to publish this and do it clearly.

Thanks

Dave

Ooops!

If this is true than it is a wast of money for gaming.

Dave

I too have wondered whether people talk about rise/fall time or rise + fall time when talking about notebook LCDs. Perhaps all those complaints about 50ms response time were unwarranted because it is the same as those that claim 25ms response times. Is it really a mess, and these two types of specs are mixed and stated as one, with no way to tell which one the maker is referring to? Or is it simply that everyone states the rise/fall time, leaving out the obviously larger rise+fall time?

Again, you DON'T HAVE TO send your computer to Dell for the graphics card upgrade. You can call Dell Spare Parts, order it, and do it yourself. You might void the warranty in doing so.

I upgraded the ATI 7500 32MB to an ATI 9000 64MB in my Dell Insp8200. It was very simple to do myself.

As for the ghosting, I can only compare an XGA to a UXGA from personal experience. The XGA is NOT BAD, but next to a UXGA it is noticable.

For comparison, my Sceptre x9 19" monitor claims to have 15 ms rise and 10 ms fall. On the assumption that's right, I will probably see a noticable difference if I go to the Dell.

Of course, when you make an assumption, you make an "ASS" of "U" and "MPTION"...

Hmmm...that worked much better with the verb form of assumption.