Pre-Order up through Ordering
I was pretty certain I wanted a Dell to begin with. However, my friend was very fond of his IBM R51, so I made sure I looked into that as well. My basic requirements were just that -- very basic. The laptop would be for college, but I'm not a gamer, so I really wasn't very concerned about getting an amazing desktop or a really nice laptop (as in really expensive). My goal was to stay under $2000 pre-taxes (free shipping), and with the system below, with no coupons and no haggling, I got my goal. I came out to be around $1970 before taxes.
Okay, so my requirements. I wanted a machine that was light (hence portable), powerful enough for my needs, and perhaps most of all, that would last as close to four years as possible. (Curiously, this is already getting some questions as I'm looking into my next laptop already... :groans:.) Perhaps more importantly than anything else, I wanted to be able to run CAD software on it without glitches and without the machine bogging down every time I wanted to modify a part. I did quite a bit of research in order to make my decision; I was actually looking at a desktop strongly at the beginning but switched over to a laptop sometime in June. I was set on the 8300 but a few friends convinced me to go laptop... and I couldn't be happier with me 8600.
I looked seriously at the IBM R51. I didn't know about the T42 until after my 8600 purchase, but the price tag on that -- compared to a similarly equipped 8600 -- would have been over $1000 higher for the T42. I didn't want that. The R51, although about the same price, had only the option of 1 stick of 1024 RAM -- which was $828.00. That's quite an addition to the $1600 price for a 512 RAM machine, and I didn't want that. So... the 8600 became the winner.
I looked at the 5150 (now 5160), 9100, and 600m. A friend bought the 600m and loved it; I didn't want the smaller GPU. Same with the 5160. I'm not concerned about battery life as I'm always plugged in so the 9100 wasn't out of the running. However, its weight and heat production seemed a little bit awry for me; I didn't want to have to worry about excessive heat. Carrying the laptop isn't too big a deal for me, but even the 8600 gets tiresome after slinging it on the shoulder for twenty minutes. I couldn't imagine how the 9100 would feel. I suppose toting it by hand would be acceptable.
I'll admit: I did not know enough about notebooks when I ordered. If I did, I would have gone with the M60 rather than the 8600. Although the two have the same chassis, screen (less XGA for the M60), and size, the M60 offers a CAD-oriented GPU -- the nVidia Fx Quadro series. It also offers Legacy support, and since I'm using a five year old laser printer that only gets 6 ppm, I wanted a parallel port. But alas I'm using a dongle, which transfers the data much, much faster. Where with a parallel I would wait about three seconds for the indicator light to start blinking, with the USB-parallel dongle the light blinks right away. Nice touch. Anyhow -- I also wanted a notebook at the time... and... *gasp* had not found this site. I had no idea Sager notebooks were out there; if the 3790 were available (to buy) in June and I knew of PCTorque, I may have gone that route. (A Sager may be next for me... or the M60 or whatever it's called in the future.) I looked at the Sager site, I did, ay, but did not find what I wanted for the price I wanted. Alas, I went with the 8600.
For the first time dealing with Dell... I called in my order. I didn't bargain, didn't hassle. Just had the guy give me the system I wanted (I had called him before and he helped me out greatly, so I purchased from him) and boom, everything was in motion. I placed the order on a Tuesday evening and received the notebook the following Tuesday evening. I don't have pictures of the machine (at any stage), so I apologize for that. Luckily y'all know what the 8600 looks like.
First Impressions
The box was acutally quite large, but unlike desktops, there was only one. I still got a manual and the detailed instructions on the big poster paper of how to "set up" a laptop... Not that there are any cords to the monitor or anything...
I was very surprised by the size -- almost thought I would have to return it. It was simply larger than any other laptop I had seen before. The pictures on Dell's site do not do justice to the size of the 8600... it's pretty large if you're used to the old 12" and 13" machines. I let it charge, then opened it up. Didn't know a thing about light leakage or pay attention to dead pixels. It was a beautiful screen. Set up all the brightness options and screen size. Installed Microsoft Office. Noticed that there were no parallel/serial connections, but I wasn't too worried. At the time, I was planning on buying a new printer. (But kept the printer and bought a dongle instead.)
Physical Aspects
So... I was a complete noob when I got the machine. I knew about dead pixels, but I mean, come on, I wasn't that worried. And no reason to be. I don't believe my machine has a single dead pixel... if there is one, it's hiding and I definitely haven't a) found or b) noticed it. The one thing that got me was the blurred icons in IE (mostly). Some icons just looked fuzzy. I started to get irked by this so did a search in Google... that yielded exactly this forum. It was then that I noticed the topics of keyboard flex... light leakage... heat issues... dead pixels... M60 vs. 8600... but lads, no worry. My 8600 had no problems that I really took offense to (at least, not after I fixed the blurry icons).
Keyboard flex: yes, I have keyboard flex. If I push down on the two empty spaces to the left and right of the up arrow, I can move the keyboard about one millimeter. Every other key is completely fine. I can mash my fingers down on them and the machine does not budge. If you are worried about keyboard flex on a Dell machine, well, unless you happen to get a really crappy keyboard, it's not that big a deal. I have had mine for four months now, and still no problems with flexing. at all those who think every machine Dell ships has some defect.
Light leakage: again, yes, mine has some. But guess what? I can't even bloody notice it when I'm watching a movie in a dark room. The movie is simply too bright for me to notice two bright spots along the bottom of the screen. If I'm running the Windows XP screensaver, OMFG, I can see some white light! But my screen saver... well, for one, I don't have a screensaver because they're not necessary for LCD displays, but secondly, I wouldn't use the Win XP display anyhow. Would other screen savers reveal light leakage? Well, yes, if they are pitch black except for a small icon that moves around that proclaims "Microsoft Windows XP Professional." Honestly? Light leakage is NOT that big of a deal. My roommate's computer (eMachines) does not have as much, but its screen is not nearly as bright or nice as mine. I'm telling you, this screen is the mother of all screens. I love it. It's extremely crisp, even if I'm running Pro/E (CAD program for engineering and modeling parts or assemblies) and the lines are jagged. I can see every minute detail.
Heat of the 8600: okay, so it feels warm under the left palm. Let's see... what is under the left palm? Maybe the hard drive? Ah yes, a rather large heat source. So getting warm is simply routine. It's not unusual; it's not disastrous (unless the plastic is melting). Just because the heat is not necessarily as evident in other laptops does not mean it's not there. It's simply somewhere else. Think about it this way: even given the temperature differential of hard drives in general, do you really think a 7k60 in a dell is going to be different in how it produces temperature to a 7k60 in an HP? It's the same bloody drive... just possibly in a different location.
Now I will admit that it is possible the GPU and RAM covers get warm. I don't use the notebook on my lap; when I did once (while watching "Gettysburg" -- a four hour movie), I didn't really find the heat to be anything other than "warm." Not hot and not scalding; just warm. Maybe a little tingle to it. But skin-burning, flesh eating hot? No, no... not at all.
Dead Pixels Still haven't found any. (Yes I have looked.) Does that answer your question?
Battery Life
I was on a bus from Chicago to Champaign and used my notebook to edit a PowerPoint (mostly changing text around; touchpad on a bus isn't very accurate) for about twenty minutes. I shut it off, and at about 7:30PM, turned it back on to use PowerPoint, Pro/E, Microsoft Picture Manager, AIM, and the internet (Firefox). It lasted me until around 10PM when I finally got down to 10%. Keep in mind Pro/E is a very GPU-intensive program and editing and managing pictures isn't quite surfing the net. So I'd say this thing gets pretty good battery life -- a little over three hours running several applications at once isn't too bad.
Other Notebooks
I didn't notice the Sager 3790 when I was thinking about laptop buying. Or, if I did, I don't remember now because it didn't stick out as being a very cost-effective machine. (I didn't know of PCTorque at the time, remember.) If I did, I may have gone with it... but because I didn't, I really can't compare the 8600 with it.
The notebook I found out about on these forums as being a better fit for me was the Dell Precision M60 (in the business section; read the FAQ). After receiving my laptop, I actually went back and configured several M60s, but none were anything less than $900 more than my 8600. Simply putting it, my parents would not let me return the 8600 for the M60. I was freaked out the 8600 wouldn't run Pro/E... but man, does it ever! Running it on my laptop is actually quicker than running it off of the UNIX machines in the Mechanical Engineering Lab (and those machines -- Sun comps -- are no slouches). Would I have chosen the M60 had I known about it? Maybe. Right now -- or about a few days ago -- yes. The price on it has come down substantially; the sales rep I talked to (yup, after I received my 8600 I called another sales rep) offered to lower my price by another $300... quite a nice deal. But just to get a M60 because it has that video card in it... I don't know. I have no problems with the build quality of my 8600. Although I will agree that the M60 looks nicer and is definitely better-built, I'm not sure that's worth the extra dough and consequent d'oh. Okay, very poor attempt at humor. Failed. But my gosh, the 8600 is fast. It runs every program I have (not very many, but Pro/E is HUGE -- nearly one gig) very, very smoothly and very, very well.
Software
About the time I discovered the M60, I reformatted my 8600. Not a difficult process at all; courtesy of Stu, Jumbie, and Axiom, I was able to format and fix any errors in the morning alone. I had two boot operating systems; Jumbie pointed me to a fix. Stu and Axiom helped answer driver issues (at depth) and general reformat issuse (partioning, for example). This forum is a great place to post questions... so long as they haven't been asked before or covered in the FAQ. (So read the FAQ, people!)
After reformatting, I installed the necessary drivers, then the programs. Office, AIM, Firefox (yup, Firefox is the way to go), and so on. Pretty straightforward.
I use Avast! antivirus (free) and Sygate Personal Firewall (free), both of which, combined with all other running processes, use 1% of my CPU. That's compared to 34% or more when I used McAfee... plus, after the McAfee trial ended, I couldn't get it to shut up. Avast has been great. (I had Norton on the 8600 prior to the reformat; it worked all right but did use quite a bit of system resources as well.)
My two adware detection programs are Spybot and Ad-Aware... they've been great as well.
I'm definitely a proponent of fangui and speedswitch. I usually don't change my settings for speedswitch until I'm running Pro/E; the computer runs perfectly fine before, but the extra boost is slightly noticeable. Fangui manages my fans and is a nice toy to play with.
ObjectDock is a good program to use... keeps the desktop clean and uncluttered. Maybe not quite as customizable as YzDock, but one is available for free; the other is not. I no longer use it; I just have everything in the QuickLaunch area (three icons visible; rest available via the two arrows).
I haven't really used Wireless too often. It appears the card finds networks very easily but has somewhat of a problem connecting to them. (But not staying connected to them.)
Cons and disadvantages
Yes, there are problems with the 8600. It only has two USB ports, which is a headache if one port is for the mouse and the other a printer. If you want to use a flash drive, something has to go... which is annoying considering the 8600 can support a third USB connection (as the D800 and M60 illustrate).
The screen does creak at certain angles when opening and closing for me. Not a big deal, but other notebooks don't do it... I'm sure Dell could makes theirs not as well.
The GPU could be better, but I don't game. The 9600PT is fine for what I do. I'm sure the 9700 wouldn't handle CAD much better.
Lots of extra, miscellaneous plastic everywhere. Kinda detracts from overall appearance -- but again, I find my laptop more visually appealing than almost every other one on the market (save the Sager 3790 and M60).
Speakers kind of weak. And whose notebook's speakers are super-de-duper?
Not really big deals, if you ask me... even the IBM R51 has only two USB ports.
Compared to other machines...
I typed on my roommate's laptop a few times, and let me tell you, my keyboard is better. It's more responsive and doesn't mush. His keyboard seems to have very soft keys that are too easy to press down. This isn't bad, per se, but I love the feel of mine. It even beats my friend's R51's keyboard... and IBM is known for great keyboards. I may have gotten lucky, but if all Dell keyboards are this good, I may stick with Dell for that reason alone.
The 8600 is a very, very quiet machine. I can sit in my dorm room with the door and windows closed and I won't be able to heard the HD. There are clicks every so often, but it's not a big deal for me and does not detract, in my opinion, from watching a DVD. The fans are usually on slow for me (as those are my settings for FanGUI), whereas the fans on my roommate's machine are absolutely friggin' loud. I think they're always at high.
Widescreen is nice. The 15" on the Ferrari and R51 seems to square to me. The widescreen is great for watching DVDs. And the best part? I was able to write a report with two pages side by side, meaning I could refer back to page 1 while typing page 2... very nice not having to scroll. (Keep in mind this applies to web-browsing as well.)
Another friend has a 17" Toshiba monster, and, well, I think that pushes size a little too far. Sure it's a nice machine, but there is a reason notebooks aren't desktops...
Roommate's screen -- eMachines 6805 WXGA -- also has light leakage. What a surprise; Dell machines are not the only machines with it.
For those who say Dells are not well-built, well, I am another survivor of having a dropped notebook. My Samsonite bag's strap snapped off today and the bag, with notebook inside, fell. Other than a small crack on the bezel and a slightly dislocated case, everything was safe and sound -- the notebook feels a little different now, but nothing serious. Poor quality? Not so much...
I hope that helps somewhat. I am biased in favor of the 8600, but simply haven't noticed a better laptop for me out there yet. Most machines that are more powerful (by a fraction) are also $1000 more expensive; that's not what I'm looking for. I'm still in college. Besides... the 8600 runs games fine and doesn't have any serious drawbacks. I have no reason to say it's not appropriate for my needs.
Xing
I was pretty certain I wanted a Dell to begin with. However, my friend was very fond of his IBM R51, so I made sure I looked into that as well. My basic requirements were just that -- very basic. The laptop would be for college, but I'm not a gamer, so I really wasn't very concerned about getting an amazing desktop or a really nice laptop (as in really expensive). My goal was to stay under $2000 pre-taxes (free shipping), and with the system below, with no coupons and no haggling, I got my goal. I came out to be around $1970 before taxes.
Okay, so my requirements. I wanted a machine that was light (hence portable), powerful enough for my needs, and perhaps most of all, that would last as close to four years as possible. (Curiously, this is already getting some questions as I'm looking into my next laptop already... :groans:.) Perhaps more importantly than anything else, I wanted to be able to run CAD software on it without glitches and without the machine bogging down every time I wanted to modify a part. I did quite a bit of research in order to make my decision; I was actually looking at a desktop strongly at the beginning but switched over to a laptop sometime in June. I was set on the 8300 but a few friends convinced me to go laptop... and I couldn't be happier with me 8600.
I looked seriously at the IBM R51. I didn't know about the T42 until after my 8600 purchase, but the price tag on that -- compared to a similarly equipped 8600 -- would have been over $1000 higher for the T42. I didn't want that. The R51, although about the same price, had only the option of 1 stick of 1024 RAM -- which was $828.00. That's quite an addition to the $1600 price for a 512 RAM machine, and I didn't want that. So... the 8600 became the winner.
I looked at the 5150 (now 5160), 9100, and 600m. A friend bought the 600m and loved it; I didn't want the smaller GPU. Same with the 5160. I'm not concerned about battery life as I'm always plugged in so the 9100 wasn't out of the running. However, its weight and heat production seemed a little bit awry for me; I didn't want to have to worry about excessive heat. Carrying the laptop isn't too big a deal for me, but even the 8600 gets tiresome after slinging it on the shoulder for twenty minutes. I couldn't imagine how the 9100 would feel. I suppose toting it by hand would be acceptable.
I'll admit: I did not know enough about notebooks when I ordered. If I did, I would have gone with the M60 rather than the 8600. Although the two have the same chassis, screen (less XGA for the M60), and size, the M60 offers a CAD-oriented GPU -- the nVidia Fx Quadro series. It also offers Legacy support, and since I'm using a five year old laser printer that only gets 6 ppm, I wanted a parallel port. But alas I'm using a dongle, which transfers the data much, much faster. Where with a parallel I would wait about three seconds for the indicator light to start blinking, with the USB-parallel dongle the light blinks right away. Nice touch. Anyhow -- I also wanted a notebook at the time... and... *gasp* had not found this site. I had no idea Sager notebooks were out there; if the 3790 were available (to buy) in June and I knew of PCTorque, I may have gone that route. (A Sager may be next for me... or the M60 or whatever it's called in the future.) I looked at the Sager site, I did, ay, but did not find what I wanted for the price I wanted. Alas, I went with the 8600.
For the first time dealing with Dell... I called in my order. I didn't bargain, didn't hassle. Just had the guy give me the system I wanted (I had called him before and he helped me out greatly, so I purchased from him) and boom, everything was in motion. I placed the order on a Tuesday evening and received the notebook the following Tuesday evening. I don't have pictures of the machine (at any stage), so I apologize for that. Luckily y'all know what the 8600 looks like.
First Impressions
The box was acutally quite large, but unlike desktops, there was only one. I still got a manual and the detailed instructions on the big poster paper of how to "set up" a laptop... Not that there are any cords to the monitor or anything...
I was very surprised by the size -- almost thought I would have to return it. It was simply larger than any other laptop I had seen before. The pictures on Dell's site do not do justice to the size of the 8600... it's pretty large if you're used to the old 12" and 13" machines. I let it charge, then opened it up. Didn't know a thing about light leakage or pay attention to dead pixels. It was a beautiful screen. Set up all the brightness options and screen size. Installed Microsoft Office. Noticed that there were no parallel/serial connections, but I wasn't too worried. At the time, I was planning on buying a new printer. (But kept the printer and bought a dongle instead.)
Physical Aspects
So... I was a complete noob when I got the machine. I knew about dead pixels, but I mean, come on, I wasn't that worried. And no reason to be. I don't believe my machine has a single dead pixel... if there is one, it's hiding and I definitely haven't a) found or b) noticed it. The one thing that got me was the blurred icons in IE (mostly). Some icons just looked fuzzy. I started to get irked by this so did a search in Google... that yielded exactly this forum. It was then that I noticed the topics of keyboard flex... light leakage... heat issues... dead pixels... M60 vs. 8600... but lads, no worry. My 8600 had no problems that I really took offense to (at least, not after I fixed the blurry icons).
Keyboard flex: yes, I have keyboard flex. If I push down on the two empty spaces to the left and right of the up arrow, I can move the keyboard about one millimeter. Every other key is completely fine. I can mash my fingers down on them and the machine does not budge. If you are worried about keyboard flex on a Dell machine, well, unless you happen to get a really crappy keyboard, it's not that big a deal. I have had mine for four months now, and still no problems with flexing. at all those who think every machine Dell ships has some defect.
Light leakage: again, yes, mine has some. But guess what? I can't even bloody notice it when I'm watching a movie in a dark room. The movie is simply too bright for me to notice two bright spots along the bottom of the screen. If I'm running the Windows XP screensaver, OMFG, I can see some white light! But my screen saver... well, for one, I don't have a screensaver because they're not necessary for LCD displays, but secondly, I wouldn't use the Win XP display anyhow. Would other screen savers reveal light leakage? Well, yes, if they are pitch black except for a small icon that moves around that proclaims "Microsoft Windows XP Professional." Honestly? Light leakage is NOT that big of a deal. My roommate's computer (eMachines) does not have as much, but its screen is not nearly as bright or nice as mine. I'm telling you, this screen is the mother of all screens. I love it. It's extremely crisp, even if I'm running Pro/E (CAD program for engineering and modeling parts or assemblies) and the lines are jagged. I can see every minute detail.
Heat of the 8600: okay, so it feels warm under the left palm. Let's see... what is under the left palm? Maybe the hard drive? Ah yes, a rather large heat source. So getting warm is simply routine. It's not unusual; it's not disastrous (unless the plastic is melting). Just because the heat is not necessarily as evident in other laptops does not mean it's not there. It's simply somewhere else. Think about it this way: even given the temperature differential of hard drives in general, do you really think a 7k60 in a dell is going to be different in how it produces temperature to a 7k60 in an HP? It's the same bloody drive... just possibly in a different location.
Now I will admit that it is possible the GPU and RAM covers get warm. I don't use the notebook on my lap; when I did once (while watching "Gettysburg" -- a four hour movie), I didn't really find the heat to be anything other than "warm." Not hot and not scalding; just warm. Maybe a little tingle to it. But skin-burning, flesh eating hot? No, no... not at all.
Dead Pixels Still haven't found any. (Yes I have looked.) Does that answer your question?
Battery Life
I was on a bus from Chicago to Champaign and used my notebook to edit a PowerPoint (mostly changing text around; touchpad on a bus isn't very accurate) for about twenty minutes. I shut it off, and at about 7:30PM, turned it back on to use PowerPoint, Pro/E, Microsoft Picture Manager, AIM, and the internet (Firefox). It lasted me until around 10PM when I finally got down to 10%. Keep in mind Pro/E is a very GPU-intensive program and editing and managing pictures isn't quite surfing the net. So I'd say this thing gets pretty good battery life -- a little over three hours running several applications at once isn't too bad.
Other Notebooks
I didn't notice the Sager 3790 when I was thinking about laptop buying. Or, if I did, I don't remember now because it didn't stick out as being a very cost-effective machine. (I didn't know of PCTorque at the time, remember.) If I did, I may have gone with it... but because I didn't, I really can't compare the 8600 with it.
The notebook I found out about on these forums as being a better fit for me was the Dell Precision M60 (in the business section; read the FAQ). After receiving my laptop, I actually went back and configured several M60s, but none were anything less than $900 more than my 8600. Simply putting it, my parents would not let me return the 8600 for the M60. I was freaked out the 8600 wouldn't run Pro/E... but man, does it ever! Running it on my laptop is actually quicker than running it off of the UNIX machines in the Mechanical Engineering Lab (and those machines -- Sun comps -- are no slouches). Would I have chosen the M60 had I known about it? Maybe. Right now -- or about a few days ago -- yes. The price on it has come down substantially; the sales rep I talked to (yup, after I received my 8600 I called another sales rep) offered to lower my price by another $300... quite a nice deal. But just to get a M60 because it has that video card in it... I don't know. I have no problems with the build quality of my 8600. Although I will agree that the M60 looks nicer and is definitely better-built, I'm not sure that's worth the extra dough and consequent d'oh. Okay, very poor attempt at humor. Failed. But my gosh, the 8600 is fast. It runs every program I have (not very many, but Pro/E is HUGE -- nearly one gig) very, very smoothly and very, very well.
Software
About the time I discovered the M60, I reformatted my 8600. Not a difficult process at all; courtesy of Stu, Jumbie, and Axiom, I was able to format and fix any errors in the morning alone. I had two boot operating systems; Jumbie pointed me to a fix. Stu and Axiom helped answer driver issues (at depth) and general reformat issuse (partioning, for example). This forum is a great place to post questions... so long as they haven't been asked before or covered in the FAQ. (So read the FAQ, people!)
After reformatting, I installed the necessary drivers, then the programs. Office, AIM, Firefox (yup, Firefox is the way to go), and so on. Pretty straightforward.
I use Avast! antivirus (free) and Sygate Personal Firewall (free), both of which, combined with all other running processes, use 1% of my CPU. That's compared to 34% or more when I used McAfee... plus, after the McAfee trial ended, I couldn't get it to shut up. Avast has been great. (I had Norton on the 8600 prior to the reformat; it worked all right but did use quite a bit of system resources as well.)
My two adware detection programs are Spybot and Ad-Aware... they've been great as well.
I'm definitely a proponent of fangui and speedswitch. I usually don't change my settings for speedswitch until I'm running Pro/E; the computer runs perfectly fine before, but the extra boost is slightly noticeable. Fangui manages my fans and is a nice toy to play with.
ObjectDock is a good program to use... keeps the desktop clean and uncluttered. Maybe not quite as customizable as YzDock, but one is available for free; the other is not. I no longer use it; I just have everything in the QuickLaunch area (three icons visible; rest available via the two arrows).
I haven't really used Wireless too often. It appears the card finds networks very easily but has somewhat of a problem connecting to them. (But not staying connected to them.)
Cons and disadvantages
Yes, there are problems with the 8600. It only has two USB ports, which is a headache if one port is for the mouse and the other a printer. If you want to use a flash drive, something has to go... which is annoying considering the 8600 can support a third USB connection (as the D800 and M60 illustrate).
The screen does creak at certain angles when opening and closing for me. Not a big deal, but other notebooks don't do it... I'm sure Dell could makes theirs not as well.
The GPU could be better, but I don't game. The 9600PT is fine for what I do. I'm sure the 9700 wouldn't handle CAD much better.
Lots of extra, miscellaneous plastic everywhere. Kinda detracts from overall appearance -- but again, I find my laptop more visually appealing than almost every other one on the market (save the Sager 3790 and M60).
Speakers kind of weak. And whose notebook's speakers are super-de-duper?
Not really big deals, if you ask me... even the IBM R51 has only two USB ports.
Compared to other machines...
I typed on my roommate's laptop a few times, and let me tell you, my keyboard is better. It's more responsive and doesn't mush. His keyboard seems to have very soft keys that are too easy to press down. This isn't bad, per se, but I love the feel of mine. It even beats my friend's R51's keyboard... and IBM is known for great keyboards. I may have gotten lucky, but if all Dell keyboards are this good, I may stick with Dell for that reason alone.
The 8600 is a very, very quiet machine. I can sit in my dorm room with the door and windows closed and I won't be able to heard the HD. There are clicks every so often, but it's not a big deal for me and does not detract, in my opinion, from watching a DVD. The fans are usually on slow for me (as those are my settings for FanGUI), whereas the fans on my roommate's machine are absolutely friggin' loud. I think they're always at high.
Widescreen is nice. The 15" on the Ferrari and R51 seems to square to me. The widescreen is great for watching DVDs. And the best part? I was able to write a report with two pages side by side, meaning I could refer back to page 1 while typing page 2... very nice not having to scroll. (Keep in mind this applies to web-browsing as well.)
Another friend has a 17" Toshiba monster, and, well, I think that pushes size a little too far. Sure it's a nice machine, but there is a reason notebooks aren't desktops...
Roommate's screen -- eMachines 6805 WXGA -- also has light leakage. What a surprise; Dell machines are not the only machines with it.
For those who say Dells are not well-built, well, I am another survivor of having a dropped notebook. My Samsonite bag's strap snapped off today and the bag, with notebook inside, fell. Other than a small crack on the bezel and a slightly dislocated case, everything was safe and sound -- the notebook feels a little different now, but nothing serious. Poor quality? Not so much...
I hope that helps somewhat. I am biased in favor of the 8600, but simply haven't noticed a better laptop for me out there yet. Most machines that are more powerful (by a fraction) are also $1000 more expensive; that's not what I'm looking for. I'm still in college. Besides... the 8600 runs games fine and doesn't have any serious drawbacks. I have no reason to say it's not appropriate for my needs.
