XPS is on the truck back to DELL - Page 2

Diesel - I'm not sure .. I've never tried or needed to disable my antivirus completely so I've never noticed.

What would you recommend then, for a college student? I'm looking for a laptop that will be good for gaming, good for video editing and 3d rendering, and of course school work.. do I want too much? =/

Thanks,
Bohh

you switched to a thinkpad??!!

If there has ever been an ugly notebook, its the thinkpad. Why would you spend that much on one of those? They definetly aren't setup for gaming or any high end media software. So, what are you doing with it that requires you to spend 3900?

nevermind, I just read your post about C++ However, what a waste of money for what you are doing. I don't like the XPS either (just because its Dell), but it is certainly a good computer. You should have kept it.

Maybe you should look at the Dell M60 from the business section.

http://catalog.us.dell.com/CS1/cs1pa...463&l=en&s=bsd

or the much cheaper D800

For how much D800 is cheaper than M60, see

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=24564

I would have to agree.....unless your a gamer then the XPS/9100 is not worth it.

I have a unique observation here. I a manager of a ITS Technical Services department for a company. One of the two groups that report to me is the "Desktop Support" group. We currently only use Dell Laptops......so we get a variaity of Dell Laptops, mostly Latitudes in before they get to the users to configure.

Two weeks ago it came time for me to get a new system, and get rid of my C600. Anyhow we had on the bench for me to try a 9100....D800....D600...and D505.

First I tried the 9100...For the love of god, maybe I will carry a mini fridge to carry my water bottle in. Not practicle at all, that is a first class laptop...as in you would need to be in First class on air plane, to be able to open that puppy and use it. Even then the tray might collapse under the weight. The battery life is horrid, and there is no docking station/port replicator for it....so now you have to re-arange your desk. Sure its fast, and its got a fast video card, but if you want to play games, get a deskstop, my home PC P4-2.8C with 9700Pro cost half of what this laptop costs......if I spent the same amount of money on a desktop....we are talking 3.4ghz EE with X800XT!!! So the only way this laptop makes sense is if you MUST have a laptop.....and you want to game....the latest games this is it.

Next I tried the D800......a few pounds lighter but still heavy for toting around the computer room hooking into switches and routers. Battery life much better....and for what I do the 1.7 PM was just as fast as the 3.2 9100. All in all, a good laptop, I even tried the UT2004 demo with it and it was good with the 4200Go video card. In the end I gave it back, because it was just to big and heavy.....in a confrence room with other people I felt like I was dropping a brick on the table and opening a oven door with the wide screen.

Next I picked up the D600 and then the D505...the D600 was lighter. This is what I am using now to type this. Perfect for me 1.7 PM, 1gig of memory for use with VMWARE and light. Sits in my lap nice and for me its the best comprimise.

After all of that.....my wife has a IBM T-30, if price was not a question, I would move my company to IBM laptops, they are 10X the quality in terms of construction, they are solid and their keyboards are super nice.

Enough of me for now

I agree with you totally.

I consider my XPS as a portable computer -
not a notebook. I run SystemWorks 2004 and Person Firewall 2004. I run it at all times on AC. To me the battery is the equivalent of an on-line UPS. Regardless, if it was running on battery and a scheduled scan started then I would stop the scan immediately. Scanning consumes a lot of juice - CPU, fan(s), disk at max rpm.

My philosophy is similar to flashing H/W. Most flash programs won't let you flash your notebook unless both the AC and battery are plugged in - to avoid the risk of a crash during the update. Virus software can cause problems if a notebook runs out of gas during a scan.

Running virus scans eats batteries - if running on battery, don't run them.

I've had PC-Cillin on my desktop (not bad for CPU usage, but I don't like the fact that it works as a redirect on the email account). I avoid McAfee like the plague because every machine I have ever seen running their [bleep] has been dog slow regardless of the specs on the machine. Way too much of a resource hog.

Haven't tried NOD32, but may give it a go.

When I got the XPS, I tried the trial version of Panda Titanium, but found it unstable. After that I tried out Kaspersky AV. Liking it so far, still working on the trial period. Resource use is good.

Where did you order your t42p from?

I agree with V.B. , I consider the XPS a mobile computing solution. If your main criteria where battery life, size and weight, I don't understand how you could've considered an XPS in the first place.
If you need utilmate battery life get yourself a lithium ion powerpack from lindelectronics.com

I returned my i9100 today after getting frustrated to no end by Dell's customer/tech support (or lack thereof)

I've been trying for 2 weeks to get them to send me a SAMSUNG WSXGA+ screen but they keep telling me they can only send me a Hitachi....so being within my 21 days I told them to come get this damn thing and I'll buy a Sager. It's really too bad, other than the ugly screen with horrible light leakage, this is a good machine.

I guess I'm off to the Sager forums....arg