How does this spec sound??

[sm1]

Hi all,

As you may have seen from my other post, I am looking at getting a laptop. I have chosen this spec from Dell, what do you think? I generally surf the internet (around 5 tabs in firefox at one time!!), listen to music, sometimes use Photoshop, on messenger and need a fairly powerful machine. Dell have £150 off until Wednesday on this... do you think I should order really soon or can I wait and still get a good deal?? Sorry for the length of it!!

OPERATING SYSTEM - Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English

HARDWARE SUPPORT - Base Warranty - 1 Year XPS Premium Hardware Support (incl. Gaming and On-Site Support)

COLOUR CHOICE - 2.0 mega pixel Camera & Tuxedo Black for CCFL Display

LCD - 15.4" Widescreen™ WXGA (1280x800) TFT Display (220nits) with TrueLife™

BIOMETRIC IDENTIFICATION - Biometric Fingerprint Reader with BLACK accent

MEMORY - 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]

HARD DRIVE - 250GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive

GRAPHICS CARD - NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 8600M GT with 256MB dedicated graphic memory

OPTICAL DRIVE - Fixed 8x DVD+/-RW Slim Slot Load drive, including SW

PRIMARY BATTERY - Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)

Accessories

BLUETOOTH - Dell™ Wireless 355 Bluetooth 2.0 Module (up to 3Mbps) with Enhanced Data rate - Eur

MOUSE - Logitech V220 Cordless Mouse

WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY - Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-Card - Europe - Core 2 Duo Processors

MICROSOFT SOFTWARE - Microsoft® Works 9.0 - English

Services & Software

Also included with your system

Shipping Documents English Documentation with English/Irish Power Cord - 3 PIN

Power Supply AC Adapter 90W - 3 Pin

Keyboard Uk/Irish Internal Keyboard (QWERTY)

Standard Warranty Base Warranty - 1 Year XPS Premium Hardware Support (incl. Gaming and On-Site Support)

TV Tuner and Remote Control Dell™ Travel Remote Control

 

[MichaelG]

"I generally surf the internet (around 5 tabs in firefox at one time!!), listen to music, sometimes use Photoshop"

LCD - 15.4" Widescreen™ WXGA (1280x800) TFT Display (220nits) with TrueLife™

The screen size is way too small for what you do most - unless you are getting a stand-alone 20" widescreen to go with it

 

[sm1]

Cheers, however I have seen a 15" widescreen and I believe it is big enough. I currenly use a 17" but not widescreen. This is ideal.

Thanks

 

[Cornish Steve]

From a practical perspective, especially given the resource hogging of Vista, don't compromise on memory.

 

[sm1]

Cheers Steve, the next upgrade it 4GB - Is this recommended?

 

[sm1]

I should say the total of this is £708.99 - that includes a £20 mouse

 

[brownie]

Sounds expensive, what CPU has it got?

 

[Dwebs-Ltd]

Never ever, ever buy a laptop without a 3 year warranty.

Usually if the screen dies you bin the laptop as they are expensive to replace.

Always get a 3 year warranty minimum.

 

[stugster]

Never ever, ever buy a laptop without a 3 year warranty.

Usually if the screen dies you bin the laptop as they are expensive to replace.

Always get a 3 year warranty minimum.

I wouldn't spend money on a Warranty. I'd be going at them with my statutory rights. Product wasn't fit for purpose intended.

 

[Dwebs-Ltd]

I wouldn't spend money on a Warranty. I'd be going at them with my statutory rights. Product wasn't fit for purpose intended.

You can only do that if its a manufacture fault like they do with battery recalls, stuff like that, random failures aren't covered.

 

[stugster]

Weird, I was under the impression when purchasing a product from someone you had a few certain pieces of Legislation that helped the consumer when faulty products were sold.

Must be another country that offers consumers a healthy variety of statutory rights.

Why would the monitor stop working if it wasn't a Manufacturing fault?

 

[Dwebs-Ltd]

Every electrical product has 12 Months warranty required by law with the retailr plus you get 1 Month on top of that so effectively you get 13 Months. Note you should never go to the manufacture for warranty replacement / repair you should always go to your place of purchase that's trading standards official line. A lot of internet retailers ebuyer for example after 30 days on some of their products they tell you to go to the manufacture directly for warranty replacement but this is incorrect for the first 13 Months its the responsibility of the retailer.

I've been stung before, samsung TFTs purchased from staples, 5 months in two die at the same time, go to the manufacture wait 10 days they don't have any stock takes 48 days for them to get stock but if i had gone to the retailer they have to repair / replace within 28 days from what i remember plus if they don't have stock your entitles to an alternative or refund.

 

[stugster]

I'm sure we've had this debate many a time.

Lets face it though, if the product is going to be faulty because of a manufacturing fault, it'll be within that one year time-frame. Very unlikely it's going to die after this time through proper use.

Yes, your contract (Sale of Goods Act helps you here) is with the Retailer, and not the manufacturer. I'm sure one of the intellectual forum users here previously advised to simply drop off the faulty product with the retailer, obtain proof that the product has been left in their possession and file a small claim for the item.

 

[GreatSEO]

Speak to Simon at CPLTD

0845 249 1779

Highly recommended and will definately get you a better deal.

He is our official IT supplier

Regards

Dave

 

[brownie]

Lets face it though, if the product is going to be faulty because of a manufacturing fault, it'll be within that one year time-frame. Very unlikely it's going to die after this time through proper use.

Very true normally, however I've lost count of the amount of notebooks I've seen where the video cable running through the hinge to the screen panel has eventually given up.

I wouldn't touch a notebook without a decent 3 year warranty, just for piece of mind.

 

[asonda]

3 Year Warranty My A*se.

13 Months is good enough for most people and aslong as you don't abuse the item it'll last for ages.

Laptops for example are extremely durable when you think about it. They get thrown all over the place, put in the back of cars, lid/screen slammed down all the time yet they carry on.

Laptops failing is usually down to numpties blocking the air vents underneath and causing it too overheat and dropping them ofcourse. Neither of which would be covered under warranty.

Look after it and it's fine.

BTW Rock have a very good reputation and many prefer them over AlienWare.

 

[Dwebs-Ltd]

3 Year Warranty My A*se.

13 Months is good enough for most people and aslong as you don't abuse the item it'll last for ages.

Laptops for example are extremely durable when you think about it. They get thrown all over the place, put in the back of cars, lid/screen slammed down all the time yet they carry on.

Laptops failing is usually down to numpties blocking the air vents underneath and causing it too overheat and dropping them ofcourse. Neither of which would be covered under warranty.

Look after it and it's fine.

BTW Rock have a very good reputation and many prefer them over AlienWare.

They do break, the LCD panel is the most common cause of fault i've seen, dodgy wiring coming loose or it just died. Each to there own but if a customer asks me about laptops the first thing i say is “make sure you get a 3 year warranty”.

 

[stugster]

the first thing i say is “make sure you get a 3 year warranty”.

Currys would love you

 

[Dwebs-Ltd]

Currys would love you

Probably would but if it dies curry's have limited time to fix or replace same for pc world, rather than dealing with the manufacture etc.

Its up to the customer but if they spend £800 on a laptop 18 months down the line the LCD panel dies lol i'd have paid the extra £150 for 3 years warranty

 

[asonda]

They do break, the LCD panel is the most common cause of fault i've seen, dodgy wiring coming loose or it just died. Each to there own but if a customer asks me about laptops the first thing i say is "make sure you get a 3 year warranty".

Fair Enough but you have to admit, when it comes to laptops, the ratio of failures from general faults compared to human misuse is in favour of the manufacturer.

just to let people know, I've sold LOTS of laptops, From totr HPs, Toshibas to cheapy Acers and I haven't had one back!

The only fault I keep seeing with older laptops is the power terminal/socket.

They like getting broken.


P.S - do you have a thing against TFT panels?

 

[sm1]

Cheers all, much appreciated.The CPU is Centrino Dual Core 2 x 2.4GHz - not sure why I cut that off!!!

Is it a good deal for a dual core with that speed?

Cheers

 

[brownie]

The only fault I keep seeing with older laptops is the power terminal/socket.

I recently dropped my Dell on the floor with the mains plugged in, it damaged the power socket. :redface:

 

[stugster]

Doh!

I've had many a fun time trying to source a new power jack to solder to the motherboard.

I find the cheaper and easiest solution is to go and buy two jack connectors (male and female), chop away the jack on the A/C cable and put the new one on there.

Doesn't look very sexy, but when you say to customers: This will be £50, plus £4.99, instead of: this will be £50 plus £25. They usually succumb

 

[sm1]

lol