First Off, Thanks to all for your postings in this forum which after months of research helped me decide on a Dell Laptop. Every kernal of knowledge you can gain in these forums will eventually help you decide on a laptop.
What I wanted: A somewhat future proof laptop with the best capable graphics, good dothan processor, large harddrive 15.4 inch screen, 1500 dollar budget.
What I finally decided on: The Inspiron 9300
What I considered: Precision M70, Inspiron 9300, Inspiron 6000, Latitude D810.
Big Dilemmas: Screen size, the burning question ofcourse was do I go with WXGA, WXSGA or WUXGA. Video....is 256 meg 6800 card too much? Is the X300 card enough now and in the future? What about sparklies and tiny fonts and screen brightness? Is the 9300 too big? These issues had me goin nuts for a while which is why I am posting my thoughts on how I came to my decision.
First Off, I explored every site possible to get reviews on the forementioned systems to see how they stack up, not just user opinions which were also quite valuable by the way. Things I looked for in the reviews were performance benchmarks, build quality, size and weight, keyboard flex, case sturdiness and the issue many seem to overlook, thermal issues/heat dissipation and how warm the laptops feel. Notebookreview.com was most helpful with the reviews, I also looked at user reviews here and cnet,zdnet,tomshardware, anandtech and others (use google on each model and include "reviews" in your search thread and read them all).
SCREEN: many sights and this forum give personal opinions on screen issues with regard to resolution, I wanted a bright screen with good viewing angles with resolution that will not make fonts to small and no shiny coatings. It is hard to resolve screen and resolution dilemmas without exhaustive forum and reveiw searching as many peoples opinions are somewhat less than professional or leave out important information. Many people sing the praises of the WSXGA and the WUXGA saying they are much better screens as far as picture quality, yet in the same sentence would complain about the size of fonts and all the settings adjustments they would have to make in order to make the screen "readable". Many would also talk of gaming and how much better it was on higher resolutions.( is your video card up to the task of these higher resolutions?? ) Many also loved the true life shiny coatings too. So I went to best buy and looked at the matte screens and the plastic coated shiny ones. The shiny coated ones gave alot of background reflections, I could see myself in them, not to mention the flourescent lights hmmm this is no good I decided. This would be even worse outdoors. The only shiny coated screen I liked was the fujitsus, they are beautiful and near CRT quality, but cost way too much. I also looked at resolution, on a 15.4 inch I found the 1280x800 was readable and quite fine, but wsxga was not unless you raise the dpi or use a non native resolution. Using non native resolutions on an lcd screen is never a good idea, if you buy a larger resolution as many here have and use non native lower resolutions to get the readable sized fonts you sacrifice the quality of the screen and hence makes it silly to even buy them in the first place. Also larger resolutions tax the video card which in some dell models, was not the best card to begin with. ( I also went to the dell kiosque to view dells since I would afterall be buying a dell). My preference was for the matte screens, dvd's looked great and I couldnt see my reflection in the screens, a definite plus in my book as this was very distracting with shiny plastic coated screens where background lighting was always going to be a wild card. Ever watch TV with a bit of sunshine peering onto the screen or the light coming from a window blind? You know what Im talking about. Dvd's and games looked great on all the matte screens, dell and other brands included. How would either look outdoors? Well, more reflection in a shiny plastic screen for sure, unless you have 2500 to shell out for a fujitsu laptop!! and besides I thought, how often do you see anyone using a laptop outdoors or for more than two hours without an electrical outlet handy??? In an office or school setting, your going to see flourescent light on those shiny plastic coated screens. I also found detailed information on this issue at the fujitsu website with regards to why lcd screens coated or not, behave the way they do, I highly recommend you stop by their website as they give greatly detailed information about this. ( too bad I cannot afford a fujitsu lifebook n6210!!) ( fujitsus have 300nits of brightness and their coated shiny plastic screens look simply georgeous, Theirs is the ONLY screen I would accept that wasnt matte finished. Battery users beware though, these lovely screens take alot of juice!!
Now my Dell concerns were screen brightness and resolution, the sparkly problems and soo forth and light leakage and most importantly, will I be able to read the screen???
To answer this I used my 19 inch desktop and put in the resolution values for wxga, wxsga and wuxga. I found wxsga and wuxga to be far too tiny, please bear in mind that I have better than 20/20 vision and am in my thirties. Many people loved the wxsga on the 6000 because of its brighter screen but had to use a larger dpi to read text. It seems all anyone with wxsga and wuxga talk about is all the work they have to do in order to make their lcd screens comfortable to read, but then they are sacrificing overall quality to do this. To me, this wasnt a good idea, especially since these screens cost more I mean, why buy them then??? So I can have two pages of office documents up at one time and squint squint squint?
VIDEO: It's important I feel, to get the best dedicated video solution you can, there is the possibility of upgrade down the road ( though with a laptop you should buy the best option available now as an upgrade is either far more expensive after purchase or may not be available at all). An example of this is the 6000, I almost bought one of these knowing that the X300 card is a low end dedicated card and would probably suit my needs now ( office use, streaming multimedia with realplayer and WMV, maybe some gaming? Having the option is nice but the x300 isnt capable of playing some of the latest games not to mention six months from now.) but there are no further upgrades for the 6000 and no indications that dell will ever offer one. Getting any laptop with an integrated graphics solution means that you will NEVER have a chance to upgrade the graphics on your laptop an many of these use your system memory for graphics! I almost bought the 9300 with the x300 card since it would meet my current needs and then I could buy a 6800 card down the road if I needed too. A note on this for budget buyers...I checked the Dell site and you cannot even buy this card. One other thing to consider folks, even though with the centrino platform you get pci express which makes one think there is a glimmer of hope to buy a graphics option later from dell or somewhere else, thats not the case. Laptops are proprietary, it's not like buying an upgraded video card for your desktop where you have lots of companies and options, the only way to upgrade your laptop video is if the manufacturer of your laptop offers a solution for your specific model of laptop. A sony laptop video card cannot be used in a dell, a dell 9300 card cannot be used in a different dell model (even if its the same model of graphics card, like the x300 for example). The moral here? DO NOT buy a laptop thinking down the road you can upgrade it, maybe you can? most likely you cannot. IN the case of the 9300 if you bought an x300 card, it isnt likely you can get an nvidia 6800 card down the road when you have more money, I spent alot of time with dell on the phone about this and with dell spare parts they didnt have any "spare parts",having "spare parts" is generally not profitable for computer companies. Sure you can upgrade IF, Dell were to offer an upgrade for your specific model, say for example, dell comes out with an upgrade for the inspiron 6000. That's an extremely big IF. The 6000 couldnt handle a 6800 card or an x800 card b ecause of size and thermal issues, the 6000 model ONLY HAS ONE COOLING FAN. Laptops that offer better graphics solutions normally have two fans, an independent one for graphics cooling.
Perhaps though not likely in the future, laptops will be come less proprietary as ATI and Nvidia would both like, the Laptop manufacturer would rather see you buy a new laptop every year or buy a more expensive one to meet your needs so dont count on this either.
SCREEN/LAPTOP SIZE: I really wanted a 15.4 inch widescreen laptop.
Again, to decide, I went to best buy and dell kiosque to look at laptops and get a feel for them. To me the 15.4 inch screen is the perfect size, not too big, not too small. Anything less than 14 inches? FORGET ABOUT IT unless you like to squint or have really small dainty hands and dont mind typing on a keyboard that isnt full size. Keyboards and typing comfort by the way, are very important considerations for a laptop, TRY THEM OUT and dont settle for anything less than you are comfortable with. ( for all you students thinking of ultraportables with less than full sized keyboards especially all you guys out there). I typed on all of em, HP's, Toshiba, Sony, Dell, IBM. Hands down the IBMs are the best keyboards out there. Second best are the Dell 9300 and 6000. HP was also very good but many had flex and the toshibas and sony's had poor tactile feel and lots of flex, overall inferior keyboards. I also found as many others have, that the 17 inch laptops offer a more comfortable typing experience because of the extra real estate for your wrists to be on. Comparing 15.4 inch laptops in the store to 17 inch laptops, the size on most isnt that daunting as one might think. I found the sony vgn a690 was quite nice size wise but a bit thin, the hps a bit thicker though still not soo large that I wouldnt consider buying them though a 15.4 inch screen was generally just right and what I really wanted. With this in mind, I explored the forementioned dell models, the D810, 6000, 9300 and M70.
Dell Inspiron 6000, what I orignally wanted but then realized, the wxga screen may not be as sharp or bright as I would like, Netspots has alot to say in regard to this though finally in a response to one of my postings, buried one of my worries, that the wxga on the 6000 wouldnt be bright enough, but that it was just dull. Why is this? The wxga on the 6000, d810 and m70 are not Ultrasharp, only the 9300 has ultrasharp wxga which brings to the table a brighter screen ( about 200nits compared to the 6000's 180 nits). So go with the wxsga some said........185 nits compared to 180nits on the wxga for the 6000, hmmm, not a big difference although the viewing angles were much better and agaiin, at normal resolution of 1680 x1050, the wxsga resolution on a 15.4 inch lcd inspiron 6000 is much too tiny, you have to play with fonts and such to make it readable, which in turn alters the viewing quality of icons and such on the screen. Wuxga? I wouldnt even consider it and I have better than 20/20 vision!! Who wants to squint? NOT ME! paying more money for the option squinting....NEVER Overall picture quality is better you say??? The specs say......not soo much better, especially after all the tweaking you have to do to READ. I would also like to add that some with the wxga screen on the 6000 said they loved it though not many felt this way. For me, the video card was the clincher in not going with the 6000. The atix300 card, according to ATI, has 64 megs of dedicated ram and uses 64 megs of system memory for a total of 128 megs. This is straight from ATI's website, they make the chipset, not dell. While this may be okay for my needs, it may not be, and while I game on my desktop and have no reason to game on a laptop, the option is nice, besides, who is to say what the future may hold except that the future is dim for the x300 video card. I also worried that the 9300 though much nicer optioned, was just too darned big which got me to looking at the next option....
Dell Latitude D810: This boy offers the 15.4 inch screen, again the wxga is not ultrasharp and about the same as the 6000's. The D810 brings to the table an x600 video card with 128 megs of ram, this time all of the ram is fully dedicated, no system memory stolen for it. In looking at performance reviews of the x600 card however, the performance increase is only very marginal, the x300 gets 3dmark 05 of roughly 1000, the x 600 gets 1400to 1500. Furthermore, the x300 is underclocked and when clocked to ati specs as opposed to Dell's, the performance is almost identical. For me this meant the extra cost of the D810 was not justified, except that it's a tougher laptop although the inspiron 6000 and 9300 are very well built. At best buy I could press my finger on the back of the lcd panels for the pricey HP's the sony vgn 690, and the Toshibas and compaqs and see my finger pressing on the lcd screen, I wasnt able to do this on the 6000 or the 9300, hats off to better quality on the inspiron line. I could only buy a D810 at similar price points with the features I wanted to the inspiron line if i bought it from the outlet store. Many reivews and user opinions of this model indicate heat problems, I suspect due to it's chassis which doesnt allow access to the two fans unless you take the lcd off it's hinges, a maintenance nightmare!!
DELL PRECISION M70: This model offers sturdiness thats better like the latitude line, and offers a nice graphics option, performance wise at least, the nviddia quadro card ( offered as a solution for cad) offers performance thats almost as good as the 6800 nvidia card on the 9300. Here again, many users report heat issues and very low battery performance as the quadro card requires lots of juice and runs hot. Again, the m70 could be had at a reasonable price compared to inspirons if one bought it from the outlet store.
I almost bought one of these m70's but the heat issues that professional users report ( by this I mean architects and engineers, the people for whom the m70 was designed for to begin with) and the overall lack of any good detailed reviews on this system kept me from buying one. The wxga screen here is again not an ultrasharp.
DELL INSPIRON 9300: After lots of research, I finally made the decision to purchase this model and here's why. Size was an issue of concern for this model, it's too big and heavy I thought, as do many it seems. To clarify if this was a valid concern I looked at 17 inch models at best buy and dell kiosque. Most best buy models are 15.4 inch but they do have hp's and sony's in the 17 inch flavor, having played with them I felt my fears of "gigantic size " were unfounded. I also cut out of poster board some templates of the 6000 and the 9300 for some perspective, and found some pictures here at notebook forums for comparison, really its not that much bigger, check out the pics on this forum!!
Here are some stats for each model:
Inspiron 6000 1.52 inches thick, 14.02 inches wide, 10.45 inches deep and 6.65 pounds with base lcd and 6cell. higher res screens do add some weight and so do extended batteriies. 15.4 inch screen with 1280x800 non ultrasharp. 180 nits brightness wxga resolution.
Inspiron 9300 1.6 inches thick, 15.5 inches wide, 11.3 inches deep and 7.5 pounds, 17 inch screen with 1400x900 resolution, 200 nits brightness and ULTRASHARP.
Latitude D810 1.6inches thick, 14.2 inches wide, 10.3 inches deep and 6.5 pounds wxga screen like the 6000, non ultrasharp, 180 nits brightness
Precision M70 1.67 inches thick, 14.2 inches wide, 10.3 inches deep and 6.69 pounds with 6 cell battery. Wxga 180 nits brightness, again, not ultrasharp.
YES, the 9300 weighs more, about a pound more, again, where do people come up with this gigantic and too heavy crap? you cant carry an extra pound? You need to exercise
Looking at these specs from the dell website and seeing these beasties in person, I have to wonder how the hell people come up with GIGANTIC, when comparing the 9300 to these other models, its about an inch and a half (get your rulers out boys and girls) wider and about half an inch deeper depending on which model you compare it to above. For perspective, again, cut out form posterboard the dimensions of the 9300 and the other models, lay the 15.4 template over top of the 9300 template and tell me what a drastic difference about an inch and a half will make on your desk or on your lap?? or in an airplane seat for that matter?? Also check out on this website in the Dell pics forums the nice comparison of a 700 m and 6000 and 9300 stacked on top of one another, its really not that big of a deal.
Now having said this would I still prefer a 15.4 inch laptop??? YOU BETHCA!!
Until we look at what each brings to the table with regards to video cards and screen quality and sound quality.
The 9300 beats em all for the following: The Screen, its 17 inches and 1400x900 resolution, like the sony vgn a 690, the text is very readable and youre also getting 26 percent more viewing screen area without having to go with a higher resolution screen. It also has a 200 nit brightness( this is the only dell with an Ultrasharp screen at wxga resolutions) and 25ms response compared to the 35ms response in the 15.4 inch models. Not a bad at all when you have been thinking of a smaller screen with higher resolutions. SQUINT SQUINT or TWEAK TWEAK and lose overall screen quality. Comparing nits to nits of brightness, the wxgas on the other models offer 180 nits, the wxsga on the other models offers 185nits while this one at wxga offers 200 nits. ( see dell specs per model). The viewing angles are also better with the 9300 thanks to the wxga ultrasharp. ( see dell specs per each model) Once again I remind readers that I am in my thirties and have better than 20/20 vision. So in hopes of ending the never ending resolution saga keep that in mind. (resolution does not improve picture quality!! it only increases screen area and improves viewing angles as well as brightness in some cases though not always very much, while it creates eye strain when reading at normal dpi, dont buy a high res screen thinking that the picture quality is improved) ( also keep in mind that most peopel who sing praises of wuxga never seem to mention how good their vision is or how old they are...hmmm )Also keep in mind that even if you are 19 and have 20/20 vision, or whatever age you are, your eyesight is only going to go in one direction sooner or later and that is worse!!, (possibly from your wxsga or wuxga screens as quite a few of these screen owners complain about eyestrain and headaches).
The video card: the 9300 offers the best video card out there for the models in this comparison. the nvidia 256 meg 6800 go card, its similar in performance to a desktop 6800 gt. Do I really need this good a card? MMM Probably not but its there and it offers a good deal of future proof protection, something no one would say about the x300 card in the 6000.
THE SOUND: the 9300 offers a subwoofer, though its small, it does add significant sound quality to the laptop, something the other models dont offer at all although the 6000 does offer good quality, second best of the compared dell models.
TWO EXTRA USB PORTS: Okay, this might be overkill but again, more than you need now means less that you'll regret later....
DVI PORT AND VGA PORT: again, more than I need but the option is nice to have, the other models do not offer dvi output at all.
TWO COOLING FANS: the 6000 only has one and the m70/d810 are less thermally efficient chassis compared to the inspiron 6000 and 9300 both of which users report run very cool, in fact ive seen no heat issues with either model except for some who had defective models or turned their fans off. I prefer to let them run, higher when possible, cooler means longer lasting PERIOD!! the warmer your laptop runs, the shorter it's life span will be, Im amazed at people on this subject. The 9300 has two cooling fans as mentioned, so do the m70 and d810 though again the d810's video card is still sub par and the m70 quadro card is a hot
performer. Why chance it with the m70 I decided, that has inferior overall features to the 9300 and costs a whole lot more just like the d810.
PRICE: the 6000 and the 9300 are very similar in price, not enough difference at all to exclude the 9300 just on this issue. Here is what I ordered on my 9300 which I paid 1500 dollars for with a 750 off coupon, they are out there quite often for you savvy buyers out there.
I ordered a 1.86ghz Dothan processor, WXGA+ screen (ultrasharp), intel 2915 abg wireless card, 256 megs or ram (why buy a gig from dell, you dont know what kind of memory your going to get and furthermore, you can buy it at a significantly lower price from new egg or tigerdirect and other sites.) A 9cell battery, windows xp pro, a 24xCDRW DVD drive, ( I have DVD burner on my desktop, why burn them on a laptop? same goes for cd's? why?, talk about heat folks, I went with the 24x CDRW because it also has the option of reading dvd's and the cdrw burner offers me the option of backing up things off of the laptop quite cost effectively., An 80 gigabyte 5400rpm hard drive ( they perform about as well as the 7200 speed drives, are cheaper and give me more space, see anandtech or toms hardware on this issue., and finally a Dell Deluxe Nylon carrying case all for 1500 dollars!
Now if I had gone for the 6000 inspiron, I could have gotten all of the same hardware features for the same price with coupon plus a snapcover and one gigabyte of memory but would have sacrificed, the better sound, the brighter ultrasharp screen with better viewing angles, the bigger screen, the much better graphics, and better cooling through two fans. Remember, more than you need now is less that you'll regret later in terms of video card and screen quality and processors. So essentially, I paid a hundred dollars more for the 9300 because I bought the gig of memory elsewhere, for that extra hundred dollars, I got a video card easily worth the extra cost plus a much better screen quality and larger screen and better sound. I can always buy a snapcover later if I want to. Other wise, the purchasing configs I ran on the 6000 and the 9300 with a 750 off coupon were exactly the same.
One final Issue I would like to mention that people get stirred up about, Pin Modding.......can I make my 1.6 processor into a 2.0ghz?? the pin modding only works if you bought a system with the 400mhz bus, if you have the better 533 mhz bus, you cannot pinmod it and this procedure is very risky anyhow and there are no guarantees that it will be stable, its best for most not to even think about doing a pin mod. Especially if you dont know what you are doing to begin with.
Dell using 400mhz ddr2 in my 533mhz system?? If you go with dells memory, you'll notice this on the 6000 line, Dell is not frauding you or ripping you off, do some research on ddr2 and know your hardware. The 533mhz doesnt offer any performance gain over the 400mhz ddr2, with latency, chances are the opposite is the case.
DUAL CHANNEL??? again , extensive research leads to the following, the sonoma/alviso chipsets do not gain anything special performance wise from operating at dual channel so dont worry about going with just one stick of memory, see toms hardware and anandtech if you wish to explore this topic.
I hope readers will find this rather long winded post useful in their purchasing decisions, my comments are not meatn to inflame others who bought different systems than I did. If you like glossy screens, fine get one, Personally I dont like a screen that I can comb my hair and shave in.
You want wuxga or wxsga? fine go and get it, but I wouldnt if I were you, those eyes.........those eyes!!! The only benefit of higher resolution is covered in the FAQ thread from this forum, I suggest you read it as it will help dispense with the common misconceptions consumers have when purchasing these screens on a lap top. If you have a desktop, though not widescreen, try the resolutions at home and see what you think. Most importantly, go out and look at some models in person, even if they are not dells, to get some perspective on these purchasing issues that drive us all mad.
I have yet to receive my Dell Inspiron 9300 but as soon as I do I will be happy to report my experiences with it. Again thanks to Each and Every one of you who post their thoughts on these forums, without them, I not have made a very good laptop purchasing decision.
What I wanted: A somewhat future proof laptop with the best capable graphics, good dothan processor, large harddrive 15.4 inch screen, 1500 dollar budget.
What I finally decided on: The Inspiron 9300
What I considered: Precision M70, Inspiron 9300, Inspiron 6000, Latitude D810.
Big Dilemmas: Screen size, the burning question ofcourse was do I go with WXGA, WXSGA or WUXGA. Video....is 256 meg 6800 card too much? Is the X300 card enough now and in the future? What about sparklies and tiny fonts and screen brightness? Is the 9300 too big? These issues had me goin nuts for a while which is why I am posting my thoughts on how I came to my decision.
First Off, I explored every site possible to get reviews on the forementioned systems to see how they stack up, not just user opinions which were also quite valuable by the way. Things I looked for in the reviews were performance benchmarks, build quality, size and weight, keyboard flex, case sturdiness and the issue many seem to overlook, thermal issues/heat dissipation and how warm the laptops feel. Notebookreview.com was most helpful with the reviews, I also looked at user reviews here and cnet,zdnet,tomshardware, anandtech and others (use google on each model and include "reviews" in your search thread and read them all).
SCREEN: many sights and this forum give personal opinions on screen issues with regard to resolution, I wanted a bright screen with good viewing angles with resolution that will not make fonts to small and no shiny coatings. It is hard to resolve screen and resolution dilemmas without exhaustive forum and reveiw searching as many peoples opinions are somewhat less than professional or leave out important information. Many people sing the praises of the WSXGA and the WUXGA saying they are much better screens as far as picture quality, yet in the same sentence would complain about the size of fonts and all the settings adjustments they would have to make in order to make the screen "readable". Many would also talk of gaming and how much better it was on higher resolutions.( is your video card up to the task of these higher resolutions?? ) Many also loved the true life shiny coatings too. So I went to best buy and looked at the matte screens and the plastic coated shiny ones. The shiny coated ones gave alot of background reflections, I could see myself in them, not to mention the flourescent lights hmmm this is no good I decided. This would be even worse outdoors. The only shiny coated screen I liked was the fujitsus, they are beautiful and near CRT quality, but cost way too much. I also looked at resolution, on a 15.4 inch I found the 1280x800 was readable and quite fine, but wsxga was not unless you raise the dpi or use a non native resolution. Using non native resolutions on an lcd screen is never a good idea, if you buy a larger resolution as many here have and use non native lower resolutions to get the readable sized fonts you sacrifice the quality of the screen and hence makes it silly to even buy them in the first place. Also larger resolutions tax the video card which in some dell models, was not the best card to begin with. ( I also went to the dell kiosque to view dells since I would afterall be buying a dell). My preference was for the matte screens, dvd's looked great and I couldnt see my reflection in the screens, a definite plus in my book as this was very distracting with shiny plastic coated screens where background lighting was always going to be a wild card. Ever watch TV with a bit of sunshine peering onto the screen or the light coming from a window blind? You know what Im talking about. Dvd's and games looked great on all the matte screens, dell and other brands included. How would either look outdoors? Well, more reflection in a shiny plastic screen for sure, unless you have 2500 to shell out for a fujitsu laptop!! and besides I thought, how often do you see anyone using a laptop outdoors or for more than two hours without an electrical outlet handy??? In an office or school setting, your going to see flourescent light on those shiny plastic coated screens. I also found detailed information on this issue at the fujitsu website with regards to why lcd screens coated or not, behave the way they do, I highly recommend you stop by their website as they give greatly detailed information about this. ( too bad I cannot afford a fujitsu lifebook n6210!!) ( fujitsus have 300nits of brightness and their coated shiny plastic screens look simply georgeous, Theirs is the ONLY screen I would accept that wasnt matte finished. Battery users beware though, these lovely screens take alot of juice!!
Now my Dell concerns were screen brightness and resolution, the sparkly problems and soo forth and light leakage and most importantly, will I be able to read the screen???
To answer this I used my 19 inch desktop and put in the resolution values for wxga, wxsga and wuxga. I found wxsga and wuxga to be far too tiny, please bear in mind that I have better than 20/20 vision and am in my thirties. Many people loved the wxsga on the 6000 because of its brighter screen but had to use a larger dpi to read text. It seems all anyone with wxsga and wuxga talk about is all the work they have to do in order to make their lcd screens comfortable to read, but then they are sacrificing overall quality to do this. To me, this wasnt a good idea, especially since these screens cost more I mean, why buy them then??? So I can have two pages of office documents up at one time and squint squint squint?
VIDEO: It's important I feel, to get the best dedicated video solution you can, there is the possibility of upgrade down the road ( though with a laptop you should buy the best option available now as an upgrade is either far more expensive after purchase or may not be available at all). An example of this is the 6000, I almost bought one of these knowing that the X300 card is a low end dedicated card and would probably suit my needs now ( office use, streaming multimedia with realplayer and WMV, maybe some gaming? Having the option is nice but the x300 isnt capable of playing some of the latest games not to mention six months from now.) but there are no further upgrades for the 6000 and no indications that dell will ever offer one. Getting any laptop with an integrated graphics solution means that you will NEVER have a chance to upgrade the graphics on your laptop an many of these use your system memory for graphics! I almost bought the 9300 with the x300 card since it would meet my current needs and then I could buy a 6800 card down the road if I needed too. A note on this for budget buyers...I checked the Dell site and you cannot even buy this card. One other thing to consider folks, even though with the centrino platform you get pci express which makes one think there is a glimmer of hope to buy a graphics option later from dell or somewhere else, thats not the case. Laptops are proprietary, it's not like buying an upgraded video card for your desktop where you have lots of companies and options, the only way to upgrade your laptop video is if the manufacturer of your laptop offers a solution for your specific model of laptop. A sony laptop video card cannot be used in a dell, a dell 9300 card cannot be used in a different dell model (even if its the same model of graphics card, like the x300 for example). The moral here? DO NOT buy a laptop thinking down the road you can upgrade it, maybe you can? most likely you cannot. IN the case of the 9300 if you bought an x300 card, it isnt likely you can get an nvidia 6800 card down the road when you have more money, I spent alot of time with dell on the phone about this and with dell spare parts they didnt have any "spare parts",having "spare parts" is generally not profitable for computer companies. Sure you can upgrade IF, Dell were to offer an upgrade for your specific model, say for example, dell comes out with an upgrade for the inspiron 6000. That's an extremely big IF. The 6000 couldnt handle a 6800 card or an x800 card b ecause of size and thermal issues, the 6000 model ONLY HAS ONE COOLING FAN. Laptops that offer better graphics solutions normally have two fans, an independent one for graphics cooling.
Perhaps though not likely in the future, laptops will be come less proprietary as ATI and Nvidia would both like, the Laptop manufacturer would rather see you buy a new laptop every year or buy a more expensive one to meet your needs so dont count on this either.
SCREEN/LAPTOP SIZE: I really wanted a 15.4 inch widescreen laptop.
Again, to decide, I went to best buy and dell kiosque to look at laptops and get a feel for them. To me the 15.4 inch screen is the perfect size, not too big, not too small. Anything less than 14 inches? FORGET ABOUT IT unless you like to squint or have really small dainty hands and dont mind typing on a keyboard that isnt full size. Keyboards and typing comfort by the way, are very important considerations for a laptop, TRY THEM OUT and dont settle for anything less than you are comfortable with. ( for all you students thinking of ultraportables with less than full sized keyboards especially all you guys out there). I typed on all of em, HP's, Toshiba, Sony, Dell, IBM. Hands down the IBMs are the best keyboards out there. Second best are the Dell 9300 and 6000. HP was also very good but many had flex and the toshibas and sony's had poor tactile feel and lots of flex, overall inferior keyboards. I also found as many others have, that the 17 inch laptops offer a more comfortable typing experience because of the extra real estate for your wrists to be on. Comparing 15.4 inch laptops in the store to 17 inch laptops, the size on most isnt that daunting as one might think. I found the sony vgn a690 was quite nice size wise but a bit thin, the hps a bit thicker though still not soo large that I wouldnt consider buying them though a 15.4 inch screen was generally just right and what I really wanted. With this in mind, I explored the forementioned dell models, the D810, 6000, 9300 and M70.Dell Inspiron 6000, what I orignally wanted but then realized, the wxga screen may not be as sharp or bright as I would like, Netspots has alot to say in regard to this though finally in a response to one of my postings, buried one of my worries, that the wxga on the 6000 wouldnt be bright enough, but that it was just dull. Why is this? The wxga on the 6000, d810 and m70 are not Ultrasharp, only the 9300 has ultrasharp wxga which brings to the table a brighter screen ( about 200nits compared to the 6000's 180 nits). So go with the wxsga some said........185 nits compared to 180nits on the wxga for the 6000, hmmm, not a big difference although the viewing angles were much better and agaiin, at normal resolution of 1680 x1050, the wxsga resolution on a 15.4 inch lcd inspiron 6000 is much too tiny, you have to play with fonts and such to make it readable, which in turn alters the viewing quality of icons and such on the screen. Wuxga? I wouldnt even consider it and I have better than 20/20 vision!! Who wants to squint? NOT ME! paying more money for the option squinting....NEVER Overall picture quality is better you say??? The specs say......not soo much better, especially after all the tweaking you have to do to READ. I would also like to add that some with the wxga screen on the 6000 said they loved it though not many felt this way. For me, the video card was the clincher in not going with the 6000. The atix300 card, according to ATI, has 64 megs of dedicated ram and uses 64 megs of system memory for a total of 128 megs. This is straight from ATI's website, they make the chipset, not dell. While this may be okay for my needs, it may not be, and while I game on my desktop and have no reason to game on a laptop, the option is nice, besides, who is to say what the future may hold except that the future is dim for the x300 video card. I also worried that the 9300 though much nicer optioned, was just too darned big which got me to looking at the next option....
Dell Latitude D810: This boy offers the 15.4 inch screen, again the wxga is not ultrasharp and about the same as the 6000's. The D810 brings to the table an x600 video card with 128 megs of ram, this time all of the ram is fully dedicated, no system memory stolen for it. In looking at performance reviews of the x600 card however, the performance increase is only very marginal, the x300 gets 3dmark 05 of roughly 1000, the x 600 gets 1400to 1500. Furthermore, the x300 is underclocked and when clocked to ati specs as opposed to Dell's, the performance is almost identical. For me this meant the extra cost of the D810 was not justified, except that it's a tougher laptop although the inspiron 6000 and 9300 are very well built. At best buy I could press my finger on the back of the lcd panels for the pricey HP's the sony vgn 690, and the Toshibas and compaqs and see my finger pressing on the lcd screen, I wasnt able to do this on the 6000 or the 9300, hats off to better quality on the inspiron line. I could only buy a D810 at similar price points with the features I wanted to the inspiron line if i bought it from the outlet store. Many reivews and user opinions of this model indicate heat problems, I suspect due to it's chassis which doesnt allow access to the two fans unless you take the lcd off it's hinges, a maintenance nightmare!!
DELL PRECISION M70: This model offers sturdiness thats better like the latitude line, and offers a nice graphics option, performance wise at least, the nviddia quadro card ( offered as a solution for cad) offers performance thats almost as good as the 6800 nvidia card on the 9300. Here again, many users report heat issues and very low battery performance as the quadro card requires lots of juice and runs hot. Again, the m70 could be had at a reasonable price compared to inspirons if one bought it from the outlet store.
I almost bought one of these m70's but the heat issues that professional users report ( by this I mean architects and engineers, the people for whom the m70 was designed for to begin with) and the overall lack of any good detailed reviews on this system kept me from buying one. The wxga screen here is again not an ultrasharp.
DELL INSPIRON 9300: After lots of research, I finally made the decision to purchase this model and here's why. Size was an issue of concern for this model, it's too big and heavy I thought, as do many it seems. To clarify if this was a valid concern I looked at 17 inch models at best buy and dell kiosque. Most best buy models are 15.4 inch but they do have hp's and sony's in the 17 inch flavor, having played with them I felt my fears of "gigantic size " were unfounded. I also cut out of poster board some templates of the 6000 and the 9300 for some perspective, and found some pictures here at notebook forums for comparison, really its not that much bigger, check out the pics on this forum!!
Here are some stats for each model:
Inspiron 6000 1.52 inches thick, 14.02 inches wide, 10.45 inches deep and 6.65 pounds with base lcd and 6cell. higher res screens do add some weight and so do extended batteriies. 15.4 inch screen with 1280x800 non ultrasharp. 180 nits brightness wxga resolution.
Inspiron 9300 1.6 inches thick, 15.5 inches wide, 11.3 inches deep and 7.5 pounds, 17 inch screen with 1400x900 resolution, 200 nits brightness and ULTRASHARP.
Latitude D810 1.6inches thick, 14.2 inches wide, 10.3 inches deep and 6.5 pounds wxga screen like the 6000, non ultrasharp, 180 nits brightness
Precision M70 1.67 inches thick, 14.2 inches wide, 10.3 inches deep and 6.69 pounds with 6 cell battery. Wxga 180 nits brightness, again, not ultrasharp.
YES, the 9300 weighs more, about a pound more, again, where do people come up with this gigantic and too heavy crap? you cant carry an extra pound? You need to exercise
Looking at these specs from the dell website and seeing these beasties in person, I have to wonder how the hell people come up with GIGANTIC, when comparing the 9300 to these other models, its about an inch and a half (get your rulers out boys and girls) wider and about half an inch deeper depending on which model you compare it to above. For perspective, again, cut out form posterboard the dimensions of the 9300 and the other models, lay the 15.4 template over top of the 9300 template and tell me what a drastic difference about an inch and a half will make on your desk or on your lap?? or in an airplane seat for that matter?? Also check out on this website in the Dell pics forums the nice comparison of a 700 m and 6000 and 9300 stacked on top of one another, its really not that big of a deal.
Now having said this would I still prefer a 15.4 inch laptop??? YOU BETHCA!!
Until we look at what each brings to the table with regards to video cards and screen quality and sound quality.
The 9300 beats em all for the following: The Screen, its 17 inches and 1400x900 resolution, like the sony vgn a 690, the text is very readable and youre also getting 26 percent more viewing screen area without having to go with a higher resolution screen. It also has a 200 nit brightness( this is the only dell with an Ultrasharp screen at wxga resolutions) and 25ms response compared to the 35ms response in the 15.4 inch models. Not a bad at all when you have been thinking of a smaller screen with higher resolutions. SQUINT SQUINT or TWEAK TWEAK
and lose overall screen quality. Comparing nits to nits of brightness, the wxgas on the other models offer 180 nits, the wxsga on the other models offers 185nits while this one at wxga offers 200 nits. ( see dell specs per model). The viewing angles are also better with the 9300 thanks to the wxga ultrasharp. ( see dell specs per each model) Once again I remind readers that I am in my thirties and have better than 20/20 vision. So in hopes of ending the never ending resolution saga keep that in mind. (resolution does not improve picture quality!! it only increases screen area and improves viewing angles as well as brightness in some cases though not always very much, while it creates eye strain when reading at normal dpi, dont buy a high res screen thinking that the picture quality is improved) ( also keep in mind that most peopel who sing praises of wuxga never seem to mention how good their vision is or how old they are...hmmm )Also keep in mind that even if you are 19 and have 20/20 vision, or whatever age you are, your eyesight is only going to go in one direction sooner or later and that is worse!!, (possibly from your wxsga or wuxga screens as quite a few of these screen owners complain about eyestrain and headaches).The video card: the 9300 offers the best video card out there for the models in this comparison. the nvidia 256 meg 6800 go card, its similar in performance to a desktop 6800 gt. Do I really need this good a card? MMM Probably not but its there and it offers a good deal of future proof protection, something no one would say about the x300 card in the 6000.
THE SOUND: the 9300 offers a subwoofer, though its small, it does add significant sound quality to the laptop, something the other models dont offer at all although the 6000 does offer good quality, second best of the compared dell models.
TWO EXTRA USB PORTS: Okay, this might be overkill but again, more than you need now means less that you'll regret later....
DVI PORT AND VGA PORT: again, more than I need but the option is nice to have, the other models do not offer dvi output at all.
TWO COOLING FANS: the 6000 only has one and the m70/d810 are less thermally efficient chassis compared to the inspiron 6000 and 9300 both of which users report run very cool, in fact ive seen no heat issues with either model except for some who had defective models or turned their fans off. I prefer to let them run, higher when possible, cooler means longer lasting PERIOD!! the warmer your laptop runs, the shorter it's life span will be, Im amazed at people on this subject. The 9300 has two cooling fans as mentioned, so do the m70 and d810 though again the d810's video card is still sub par and the m70 quadro card is a hot
performer. Why chance it with the m70 I decided, that has inferior overall features to the 9300 and costs a whole lot more just like the d810.PRICE: the 6000 and the 9300 are very similar in price, not enough difference at all to exclude the 9300 just on this issue. Here is what I ordered on my 9300 which I paid 1500 dollars for with a 750 off coupon, they are out there quite often for you savvy buyers out there.
I ordered a 1.86ghz Dothan processor, WXGA+ screen (ultrasharp), intel 2915 abg wireless card, 256 megs or ram (why buy a gig from dell, you dont know what kind of memory your going to get and furthermore, you can buy it at a significantly lower price from new egg or tigerdirect and other sites.) A 9cell battery, windows xp pro, a 24xCDRW DVD drive, ( I have DVD burner on my desktop, why burn them on a laptop? same goes for cd's? why?, talk about heat folks, I went with the 24x CDRW because it also has the option of reading dvd's and the cdrw burner offers me the option of backing up things off of the laptop quite cost effectively., An 80 gigabyte 5400rpm hard drive ( they perform about as well as the 7200 speed drives, are cheaper and give me more space, see anandtech or toms hardware on this issue., and finally a Dell Deluxe Nylon carrying case all for 1500 dollars!
Now if I had gone for the 6000 inspiron, I could have gotten all of the same hardware features for the same price with coupon plus a snapcover and one gigabyte of memory but would have sacrificed, the better sound, the brighter ultrasharp screen with better viewing angles, the bigger screen, the much better graphics, and better cooling through two fans. Remember, more than you need now is less that you'll regret later in terms of video card and screen quality and processors. So essentially, I paid a hundred dollars more for the 9300 because I bought the gig of memory elsewhere, for that extra hundred dollars, I got a video card easily worth the extra cost plus a much better screen quality and larger screen and better sound. I can always buy a snapcover later if I want to. Other wise, the purchasing configs I ran on the 6000 and the 9300 with a 750 off coupon were exactly the same.
One final Issue I would like to mention that people get stirred up about, Pin Modding.......can I make my 1.6 processor into a 2.0ghz?? the pin modding only works if you bought a system with the 400mhz bus, if you have the better 533 mhz bus, you cannot pinmod it and this procedure is very risky anyhow and there are no guarantees that it will be stable, its best for most not to even think about doing a pin mod. Especially if you dont know what you are doing to begin with.
Dell using 400mhz ddr2 in my 533mhz system?? If you go with dells memory, you'll notice this on the 6000 line, Dell is not frauding you or ripping you off, do some research on ddr2 and know your hardware. The 533mhz doesnt offer any performance gain over the 400mhz ddr2, with latency, chances are the opposite is the case.
DUAL CHANNEL??? again , extensive research leads to the following, the sonoma/alviso chipsets do not gain anything special performance wise from operating at dual channel so dont worry about going with just one stick of memory, see toms hardware and anandtech if you wish to explore this topic.
I hope readers will find this rather long winded post useful in their purchasing decisions, my comments are not meatn to inflame others who bought different systems than I did. If you like glossy screens, fine get one, Personally I dont like a screen that I can comb my hair and shave in.
You want wuxga or wxsga? fine go and get it, but I wouldnt if I were you, those eyes.........those eyes!!!
The only benefit of higher resolution is covered in the FAQ thread from this forum, I suggest you read it as it will help dispense with the common misconceptions consumers have when purchasing these screens on a lap top. If you have a desktop, though not widescreen, try the resolutions at home and see what you think. Most importantly, go out and look at some models in person, even if they are not dells, to get some perspective on these purchasing issues that drive us all mad.I have yet to receive my Dell Inspiron 9300 but as soon as I do I will be happy to report my experiences with it. Again thanks to Each and Every one of you who post their thoughts on these forums, without them, I not have made a very good laptop purchasing decision.
