Who can get the best price?

I usually buy it from Ebay, or Craigslist for better deals than whatever Dell offers.

Delloutlet is a good source too, but doesn't offer M1730 yet.

If you are in NYC area, there's a seller w/ M1730 with basic specs, but upgraded on 4gb ram, and blueray drive for 2500 bucks.

I've seen basic specs for 2k on CL, but I'd wait til 8800M models roll out.

Dell has been closing up their "leaks" to resellers. Cutting their margins too much.

We order around 150k each year from dell for workstations, laptops, servers, and storage.

That said, my "premier account" discount isn't THAT great either. Are you a VAR? or just someone selling them on ebay?

3,951.20

Catalog Number: 23 AYCWM93
Module Description Description Product Code & SKU Product Code & SKU
XPS M1730 Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme X7900 (2.8GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache) SBX79HO [467-1397]
Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition - English VU3E [412-0946][412-1056][420-5769][420-5924][420-6436][420-6815][420-7100][420-7401][463-2282]
System Color Smoke Grey SGRAY [310-9525]
Memory 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz 2G2D6 [311-7446]
LCD Panel 17 inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WUXGA 17UXGAT [320-5788]
Video Card NVIDIA®SLI™Dual GeForce®8700MGT with 512MB GDDR3 Memory 512NV87 [320-5790]
Hard Drive RAID Performance: 640GB (2x320GB) 5400RPM 640R0 [341-6099]
Adobe Software Adobe® Reader 8.1.1 - English ADOBER [420-7468]
Combo or DVD+RW Drive CD / DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW Drive) 8XDVDRW [313-5591][420-6464]
Sound Options Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition ISBADV [313-5014]
Wireless Networking Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965a/g/n Mini Card IP4965 [430-2582]
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) No Productivity software pre-installed MSONO [412-1397]
GAMING LCD Logitech® GamePanel Display GLCD [320-5789]
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) Trend Micro Internet Security 15-months XTM15M [420-6917]
Primary Battery 9-cell Primary Battery and 9-cell additional Lithium Ion Battery 9BT9ABT [312-0603][312-0604]
Warranty & Service Get $70 Gift Card with 4 Yr Ltd Warranty and At-Home Service ATG4OS [412-0359][464-5100][902-2483][950-7447][960-8710][980-7853][983-8460][988-0317][988-0318]
Accident and Theft Protection Add Accidental Damage and LoJack Theft Protection to 4Yr Warr. CCLJ4 [412-0358][960-9189][988-0689][A0767896]
Dial-Up Internet Access 6 Months of America Online Membership Included AOLEPP [412-0933][412-0934][412-0935]
Bluetooth Options Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR) TM355I [430-2655]
Physics Game Accelerator AGEIA PhysX™ 100M Processor PHYSX [320-6171]
Processor Branding Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme Processor IX2DNB [310-9651]
Labels Windows Vista™ Premium VPN [310-9516]
DataSafe Online Backup Included 10GB DataSafe Online Backup for 1Year

For that much money, I would've went for Sager/Clevo w/ 8800SLI. It may be just me though.

last thing i wanted to do was look on ebay for a deal...but some good sellers have specs that are double the ones dell offer for the same price ..even 3 year warrenty ..i have a feeling they arnt selling fast tho

if you want to buy a lot then thats a different thing alltogether ..what i wud do is ring dell up regularly and ask the same questions you want to put foward and hopefully find a niceguy on the other end

what are the 1730's going for now?

im in the uk , dell website default rig is 1499 pounds ...one 8700m card / 1 year warrenty / 1gb ram i think and not much hard drive space to shout about

whereas ebay ... same price ...say 1400ish .. 2x 8700m cards ..200/250gb hd /4gb ram / 3 year warrenty

i found out the models sold on ebay that i was keeping an eye on were laptops that were cancelled or returned to base for upgrading and were stated as not having scratches/faulty at all ..sealed boxed from dell..so i did have second thoughts on buying from ebay ...but the seller did sell brand new models which were roughly the same price .. there are oens that are up for bidding and with some patience there cud be a bargain in there..bcoz some pple are put off with the initial price and are going for the m1710 7950gtx

Hey OP, are you a reseller or are you just buying them for the company you work for?

what about used machines on this site. Say a 1710 or 1720 set up for gaming. How much are they going for?

Say No To Retail Rape

Through my work, we are able to get discounts on *anything* from Dell, including 1730s. Quite a few around my site have ordered them and a few of us at work even convinced management that we need one for work, so we get to use them for business as well.

Sadly, the company I work for spends over $25,000,000 a year with Dell (think 100,000 employees with Dell laptops and desktops, plus Dell servers), so it's not surprising that we can get deals through Dell. I guess it just depends on how good of a customer you are for Dell, and how much money they're already making off of you. I can't really give you guys a number at Dell, as it's our corporate account and we order through our requisition department.

It sounds to me like you shouldn't have been getting a discount in the first place. If you just buy 3 at a time you really aren't THAT good of a dealer to be getting THE BEST price from a large manufacture.
Persons like jah2323 who spend 6 figures with companies like this usually still don't get much of a discount. The price market on retail items is highly competive......especially if you're just looking to make a quick buck on EBay........which is the most competive marketplace in the world.
They are probably offering you the items as the legitmate dealer cost.....then when you ask for them for less they get the attitude.
The persons on EBay that are price cutting you are probably picking up the machines for less than what the retail/dealer cost price structure is set up for or they just simply have more buying power.

i dont kno ... the ebay seller does openly admit in his article that they are machine from outlet sources etc ...but hes selling brand new machines and 100 pounds less than the dell retial and the ebay seller has 2 sli rather than dells 1 8700m .. 4gb ram which is alot from dell

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Dell-Inspiron-...QQcmdZViewItem

i agree buying 3 machines from dell isnt enuff..i thought i cud con my way in and pretend im opening a busniess to get a dsicount but didnt want the hassle

Ebay