I'm ordering tomorrow - you have 24 hours to stop me!

[Darius Wey]

Well, the time has come for me to get a new laptop. Here are the specs:

Dell Inspiron 8600

Intel Dothan 1.60GHz - 2MB Cache and 400MHz FSB

15.4" Widescreen WUXGA 1920 x 1200 Resolution

Microsoft Windows XP Professional

768MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM

60GB UATA 7200RPM HDD

8x DVD+RW/+R with CD-RW Combo Drive

Dell Wireless 1450 (802.11a/b/g) MiniPCI Card

128MB DDR ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro Turbo


Well those are the main specs. If you think I shouldn't be ordering this, please come up with some good reasons and let me know. :p

I've searched high and low, and I figured that this would be the best one for my needs. And if you think that resolution is psychotic...it's because I'm that kind of person. I need a high resolution! :D That was actually one of the main reasons why I went ahead with this model.

On a side note, Microsoft Works is bundled with this by default. I was looking to order this by phone. Do you think if I asked the sales consultant on the other end of the line to get rid of this (because I really don't need it as I have Office for it already), they would drop the price of the package?

I look forward to gung-ho responses from those who choose to mock my purchasing decision. :devilboy:

[PetiteFlower]

It's possible but I don't know. They do build the PCs to order so you never know. Works doesn't add a whole lot to the cost though. Maybe you could work out a "trade" for another software package or hardware upgrade or something.

[Darius Wey]

It's possible but I don't know. They do build the PCs to order so you never know. Works doesn't add a whole lot to the cost though. Maybe you could work out a "trade" for another software package or hardware upgrade or something.

I was hoping for something like that. Perhaps I'll get them to upgrade my hard disk from its original 5400RPM to what I've listed there - 7200RPM, although I am asking for a blessing. :roll:

[ironguy]

Get the faster hard drive and dump Works. Does your DVD player at home read these types of DVD that you'll burn? It's something to consider when getting a burner or you'll be stuck watching them on your laptop.

Do you have discount codes? Check www.techbargains.com. It might be prudent to wait until the school rush is over. Also, subscribe to the Dell email newsletter. I get some deal or another every week. Also check the differences between buying it through Small Business and Home/Home Business. I found that my last PC cost a little more through Small Bus, but there was no shipping so the overall price was less.

[Darius Wey]

Get the faster hard drive and dump Works. Does your DVD player at home read these types of DVD that you'll burn? It's something to consider when getting a burner or you'll be stuck watching them on your laptop.

Yep. I was planning to dump Works, if possible. I'll find out tomorrow when I call Dell. Thankfully, my DVD player at home reads all types of DVDs, so there's no problem with that one.

Do you have discount codes? Check www.techbargains.com. It might be prudent to wait until the school rush is over. Also, subscribe to the Dell email newsletter. I get some deal or another every week. Also check the differences between buying it through Small Business and Home/Home Business. I found that my last PC cost a little more through Small Bus, but there was no shipping so the overall price was less.

Yeah, I've subscribed to the Dell newsletter for a while now. I just thought I'd finally go with it, seeing as though for this week, the video card and memory is upgraded for free. But I'll check out Techbargains. Thanks for the link.

Haha, as I speak, I'm doing an online quote of the same system through the Small Business section to see if I can save a few quick bucks. 8)

[draiken]

I have the same an Inspiron 8600, since it's about a year old it only has the b-wifi card...

The only suggestion I have for you is to get the 80GB HD and check how small the fonts are goint to be in the screen, maybe you can downgrade to the 1600x1050 and save a few bucks as well as your eyesight :)

[maximus]

Well those are the main specs. If you think I shouldn't be ordering this, please come up with some good reasons and let me know. :p


Two things : Price, and Mobility Radeon 9700.

http://www.ecsusa.com/products/g556.html

:)

The Dothan 1.8G, 512K PC333, DVD+/-RW, 60G HDD, and Mobility Radeon 9700 retails for USD1600 in Taiwan. Dell makes good laptops ... but they are generally too expensive.

Once you played with Mobility Radeon 9700 .. there is no turning back. :mrgreen:

[Darius Wey]

The only suggestion I have for you is to get the 80GB HD and check how small the fonts are goint to be in the screen, maybe you can downgrade to the 1600x1050 and save a few bucks as well as your eyesight :)

Well that was the thing. The 80GB doesn't come in the 7200RPM variant, and I'm willing to give up 20GB for the extra speed. With faster load up times and generally faster access speeds, I'd prefer the 60GB 7200RPM.

Besides, 60GB should be fine for me at the moment, as I have a USB2.0 40GB HDD for it as well, plus I won't be storing all of my files on there. I've got >500GB on my desktop which will be used for storage of most of my files.

I'd consider downgrading the resolution but I usually prefer the high resolutions as I do a lot of graphic editing and video editing, as well as a lot of DJ work in my spare time and would appreciate the extra screen space. I operate at a very high resolution on my desktop so I'm kind of used to the high resolution already.

Two things : Price, and Mobility Radeon 9700.

http://www.ecsusa.com/products/g556.html



The Dothan 1.8G, 512K PC333, DVD+/-RW, 60G HDD, and Mobility Radeon 9700 retails for USD1600 in Taiwan. Dell makes good laptops ... but they are generally too expensive.

Once you played with Mobility Radeon 9700 .. there is no turning back.

Thanks Maximus. Appreciate the link. The thing is I'd prefer a local solution so that if anything drastic were to happen, I could get it fixed on the spot.

The Radeon 9700 is certainly nice but for most of my gaming, I'd probably end up doing it on my desktop anyway. On a side note, did you know that there's a Mobility X600 out already? 0X

Thanks though. Your comments were appreciated.

[Fishie]

Dont do it man.
Think of the children, please I beg you think of the children.

[CTSLICK]

My only advice would be to lurk in the refurb Dell website for a week to see if one happens to pop up and hit your specs. This is how my friend at work scored his 8600 and saved a couple of bucks in the process. He's been very happy.

Other than that...I say go for it.

[juni]

How can you order if you dont have a mouth, Mr Anderson?

http://www.digitalproducer.com/pages/matrix/matrix_mouth.jpg

[Darius Wey]

How can you order if you dont have a mouth, Mr Anderson?

Funny you say that. I've had a bit of a croaky voice for a while and haven't really felt like talking. :wink:

Dont do it man.
Think of the children, please I beg you think of the children.

I have no children...yet. :D LOL! And why the plea? :p

My only advice would be to lurk in the refurb Dell website for a week to see if one happens to pop up and hit your specs. This is how my friend at work scored his 8600 and saved a couple of bucks in the process. He's been very happy.

Other than that...I say go for it.

Well here's the lowdown. I decided to go ahead with it. And I managed to kick off $300 by bargaining (I've developed good skills over the years ^_^), plus get a free deluxe leather case thrown in too. I guess I'll turn into ultra-geek mode playing with it 24/7 as soon as the Dell guy arrives at my front door. :robot:

[Fishie]

You wanted us to stop you yes?
If ya dont have kids do it for someone elses then.
Think of someone elses children, I beg you please think of someones elses children.

[Darius Wey]

You wanted us to stop you yes?
If ya dont have kids do it for someone elses then.
Think of someone elses children, I beg you please think of someones elses children.

LOL! Only with a compelling reason! Although you've scared me enough to rethink my decision. :mrgreen:

Congratulations. You win DJ Apod's Award of Weird Yet Wonderful Wake-Me-Up Calls. :D

[Fishie]

Cool what do I get?

[Darius Wey]

Cool what do I get?

Um.... I don't know. :?

Would you like a picture of my laptop once I get it?

Actually, how about a Gmail invite? Unless you already have one of course.

[Fishie]

I cant seem to get rid of my own invites.

[Darius Wey]

I cant seem to get rid of my own invites.

LOL! Looks like we're in the same boat. I'm trying my best too...and sometimes I really do get rid of my invites. Two days later...BAM!...you can invite 6 friends to Gmail. 8)

[Fishie]

Werent people like paying crazy prices on ebay for em early on?

[Darius Wey]

Werent people like paying crazy prices on ebay for em early on?

Yup! I remember that phase. People were even paying between US$10-20 for an account. I don't even want to know what the highest bid for an account was. :|

If only they could see the Gmail community now. A huge number of users. A huge number of invites. Who needs to pay now? ;)

[Hyperluminal]

In its hayday, people were paying $100-200 for an invite... 8O

So you actually bargained $300 off the price of a new notebook from Dell?! You can bargain with them? Did you agree to give up anything, or did you just talk them down?

[Darius Wey]

In its hayday, people were paying $100-200 for an invite... 8O

So you actually bargained $300 off the price of a new notebook from Dell?! You can bargain with them? Did you agree to give up anything, or did you just talk them down?

$100-200?!? Jeepers. They'll be crying now!

With the Dell...yes, I managed to bargain off around $300 off a new notebook. That is why I prefer to order over the phone than online, because there's a sales consultant that I can talk to. I did not give up anything. I just talked down the price, and got them to throw in a leather case. Nice huh? :wink:

[CTSLICK]

Soooooo....what's the due date? :)

[Darius Wey]

The 10th. It's already been produced, checked, and has commenced shipment. :)

I can't wait. 8)

[Fishie]

Poor kids.

[Darius Wey]

Poor kids.

Oh...I'll make it up to them...just you wait. :wink:

[Hyperluminal]

Wow, I didn't know you could bargain with Dell.
This changes things... 0X

How much did you end up paying anyway?

[Darius Wey]

A$3500 - I pretty much maxed out all the possible options in the specs, minus the D-Port Replicator, MS Office, and CPU.

[digitalnomad]

I cant seem to get rid of my own invites.


I'll take on of those invites! :lol:

[Fishie]

I cant seem to get rid of my own invites.


I'll take on of those invites! :lol:

Send me a private message with yer current email addres and full name and ill send ya an invite

[maximus]

A$3500 - I pretty much maxed out all the possible options in the specs, minus the D-Port Replicator, MS Office, and CPU.

Uh, so the brand new laptop is without CPU ? :mrgreen:

[Darius Wey]

A$3500 - I pretty much maxed out all the possible options in the specs, minus the D-Port Replicator, MS Office, and CPU.

Uh, so the brand new laptop is without CPU ? :mrgreen:

Oh come on! :D You knew what I was talking about. :roll: But actually, yeah...what I said sounded pretty stupid. :oops:

Let me rephrase: I did not max-out the speed of the CPU, which IMHO, does not justify the extra price. :)

[maximus]

Ha ha. Just kidding.

With regards to the processor, yours is still a dothan, right ?
The extra 1 megs cache is really worth the difference in price.

[Darius Wey]

Ha ha. Just kidding.

With regards to the processor, yours is still a dothan, right ?
The extra 1 megs cache is really worth the difference in price.

Yep. The processor is a Dothan - 1.60GHz with 2MB L2 Cache. I weighed up the performance and benefits with that of the extra price and found the 1.60GHz to be the sweet spot. To move it to a 1.70GHz, I had to pay around A$150-200 extra, and to a 2.0GHz, it just wasn't even worth considering. And besides, the performance gain from a 1.60GHz to a 1.70GHz is minimal when conducting most tasks.

[nuka_t]

damn, didnt see this thread in time. you should have gotten the xps with the 9800 video card, or the d800 with 9600 video card and integrated bluetooth and wifi so you can sync to the pda.

[nuka_t]

well, i priced a d800 for you, integrated bluetooth and wireless a/b/g, 512 ram, 40 gig hdd, cdrw(removable, so you can add a dvdrw in the future. id advise this as they are pretty slow right now), 128mb fx 5650 go(they changed the video cards!) same screen, 1.8ghz procesor, the reason for the d800 is just hte size and weight is awesome, and the 5 hourish battery life. it ended up being 2589.

the XPS, which is the other extreme(super performance, no battery life and weighs 10 pounds)

[Darius Wey]

I chose against an XPS because of the fact that it runs a P4. The last thing I want is my battery to run out within the hour. A lot of P4 notebooks out there are priced well below the Centrino ones because of the different technologies implemented.

Is your quote for the D800 in US dollars? Because that would work out to about A$3600-3700 anyway, which is A$100-200 more than I payed for the 8600. The size and weight is certainly nice, although specs-wise, it fails to live up to the current configuration I have for my 8600. Also, Anandtech provides a good comparison review of the 128MB GeForce FX 5650 Go and the 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600. The Radeon beats the GeForce FX 5650 Go by far, and bearing in mind that the one included on the 8600 is the Pro Turbo as well, you can add a few FPS on to their benchmarks.

I'd love to have the Radeon 9800 on my notebook, but those are only offered on Dell's range of P4 notebooks, so I thought I'd just stick with the 9600 Pro Turbo.

[nuka_t]

oops, didnt realize you were an aussie. :mrgreen:

i guess yours works right in the middle, although i dont see why they dont have 9600's for the d800. however, seeing as how its geared for bussinesses and the possible need to run linux, i can see why they chose nvidia. but they should have at least included a 5700 go.

if i personally had to choose, i would have gone with the xps cause well...daaayum.

the d800 was TWOthousand500 dollars, is hte aussi dollar that low in comparison to the US dollar? maybe you guys should sail your island over to europe and start using the euro instead :wink:

[Darius Wey]

if i personally had to choose, i would have gone with the xps cause well...daaayum.

the d800 was TWOthousand500 dollars, is hte aussi dollar that low in comparison to the US dollar? maybe you guys should sail your island over to europe and start using the euro instead :wink:

Don't worry...I know what you mean. I'm a performance hog as well, but this time I decided to make a compromise so I chose the 8600 instead. :)

Well the AU:US exchange rate used to be A$1 = US$0.80, but I think these days, it's somewhere between A$1 = US$0.70 to 0.75. Sailing over to Europe may be an option...but it's too "far". ;) After all, we do get labelled as being "down-under". Europe and US are on the other side of the world to us. :mrgreen:

[maximus]

After all, we do get labelled as being "down-under". Europe and US are on the other side of the world to us. :mrgreen:

I am currently in Indonesia, so I considered that Europe and US are on another planet (in term of prices of hardware, that is) :mrgreen:

[Darius Wey]

After all, we do get labelled as being "down-under". Europe and US are on the other side of the world to us. :mrgreen:

I am currently in Indonesia, so I considered that Europe and US are on another planet (in term of prices of hardware, that is) :mrgreen:

Yeah! Hardware is so cheap in our region! 8)

[Carlos]

Have prices gone up? I got my 8600 in February and paid US$1429 for the 8600, 1.4GHz, DVD+RW, 40GB 5400RPM, 512MB, W-UXGA (fantastic screen, highly recommended), 11B/11G/Bluetooth wireless, 64MB video, remote control, etc. I did use a couple of Techbargains coupons.

Really nice machine, except the new ones have dropped a couple of things that are important to me. They no longer have legacy ports, and they don't have a pointer stick. This wouldn't be so bad if the trackpad was decent, but it is HORRIBLE. Absolutely useless. If you plan to use that a lot, you should get your hands on one to try; I'd return the machine if it didn't have another pointer option.

Otherwise, great screen and very good performance all around. Great battery life. I would reformat and reinstall any machine from Dell with the latest drivers, as they ship it with old drivers and lots of junk software pre-installed.

[Darius Wey]

Have prices gone up? I got my 8600 in February and paid US$1429 for the 8600, 1.4GHz, DVD+RW, 40GB 5400RPM, 512MB, W-UXGA (fantastic screen, highly recommended), 11B/11G/Bluetooth wireless, 64MB video, remote control, etc. I did use a couple of Techbargains coupons.

Really nice machine, except the new ones have dropped a couple of things that are important to me. They no longer have legacy ports, and they don't have a pointer stick. This wouldn't be so bad if the trackpad was decent, but it is HORRIBLE. Absolutely useless. If you plan to use that a lot, you should get your hands on one to try; I'd return the machine if it didn't have another pointer option.

Otherwise, great screen and very good performance all around. Great battery life. I would reformat and reinstall any machine from Dell with the latest drivers, as they ship it with old drivers and lots of junk software pre-installed.

Prices are about the same. Don't forget that in February, there were no Dothans.

If you weigh it up, I think on average, the price I paid for mine is similar to what you paid for yours in terms of a parts/price ratio. Don't forget that there are different variants of the 8600.

I realise that they have dropped the pointer stick mouse control. A shame isn't it? Thankfully, I hardly ever use the onboard mouse controls anyway, so it's not that much of a bother to me.

Anyway...I should be getting this machine any minute now.... :D Well, slight exaggeration. Not really within the minute - but within this week anyway. :D

[maximus]

I somehow felt that 'serious sleeping disorder' syndrome is coming to sidney :p

[Darius Wey]

Well it's finally here! Fast! Beautiful! And oh-so-pleasing! 8)

[CTSLICK]

Well it's finally here! Fast! Beautiful! And oh-so-pleasing! 8)

Awesome! I know it sounds stupid but I LOVE opening new hardware...mmmm...that new hardware smell. Its almost as good as a new car.

[Darius Wey]

Well it's finally here! Fast! Beautiful! And oh-so-pleasing! 8)

Awesome! I know it sounds stupid but I LOVE opening new hardware...mmmm...that new hardware smell. Its almost as good as a new car.

True. But can a new car run Doom 3? ;)

[CTSLICK]

Well it's finally here! Fast! Beautiful! And oh-so-pleasing! 8)

Awesome! I know it sounds stupid but I LOVE opening new hardware...mmmm...that new hardware smell. Its almost as good as a new car.

True. But can a new car run Doom 3? ;)

No...but Doom3 can't haul my butt from 0 to 60 mph in 5.5 secs :twisted:

So you can see...its a give and take thing :wink:

[Darius Wey]

Well it's finally here! Fast! Beautiful! And oh-so-pleasing! 8)

Awesome! I know it sounds stupid but I LOVE opening new hardware...mmmm...that new hardware smell. Its almost as good as a new car.

True. But can a new car run Doom 3? ;)

No...but Doom3 can't haul my butt from 0 to 60 mph in 5.5 secs :twisted:

So you can see...its a give and take thing :wink:

Need For Speed can! :p

[CTSLICK]

Well it's finally here! Fast! Beautiful! And oh-so-pleasing! 8)

Awesome! I know it sounds stupid but I LOVE opening new hardware...mmmm...that new hardware smell. Its almost as good as a new car.

True. But can a new car run Doom 3? ;)

No...but Doom3 can't haul my butt from 0 to 60 mph in 5.5 secs :twisted:

So you can see...its a give and take thing :wink:

Need For Speed can! :p

I like Need for Speed but I actually prefer playing it on the PS2 versus a PC. Now if I could just get a full motion simulator to sit in while I play it!

And for the mods...I respectfully submit this post for consideration as deepest use of the quote feature...also known as the most annoying use of the quote feature :twisted: :wink:

[maximus]

I like Need for Speed but I actually prefer playing it on the PS2 versus a PC. Now if I could just get a full motion simulator to sit in while I play it!

Playing Need for Speed on a simulator with force feedback .. extremely cool.


And for the mods...I respectfully submit this post for consideration as deepest use of the quote feature...also known as the most annoying use of the quote feature :twisted: :wink:

ha ha.

[CTSLICK]

Playing Need for Speed on a simulator with force feedback .. extremely cool.

So...are you saying you've done this? If so, please share!

[maximus]

Playing Need for Speed on a simulator with force feedback .. extremely cool.

So...are you saying you've done this? If so, please share!

I saw that on one of those game show in Taipei. There is a collaboration between Electronic Arts and Apexi, a local taiwanese company specializing in game gears. They installed NFS underground on Apexi's force feedback machine, and people get a chance to try the setup. I did not get a chance to try it though, because the queue was like 200+ people by the time I got there. The force feedback machine follows the car's position in the game, so it is very cool to watch a player crashed/totalled/flipped up because he/she is actually rocked in the direction of the car's position in the game. Helmets and shoulder/knee pads are required. I remembered everyone getting out of the booth with their two thumbs up.