Deals/Cheapest place to buy a Dell M6400?

thanks... btw would it be cheaper for me to buy a 2GB RAM unit from Dell and upgrading to 8GB RAM myself, or is it roughly similar buying it from Dell?

 

Almost all the time it is cheaper for you to upgrade the machine on your own.

 

sweeet... i'm guessing/hoping upgrading RAM isn't anymore complicated than just throwing chips into the available slots.

So since I'm looking into buying the m6400, would it be best for me to get the basic unit? and upgrade RAM, HD, Graphics card myself to my liking? or would some of these parts not be available except through Dell?

 

I would think it is very expensive to upgrade video. Question is how hard is it to upgrade the CPU? RAM, HD and wireless should be an easy upgrade (Wi-Fi and bluetooth).

 

wifi and bluetooth are cake, ram and HD as well. The cpu is a tad more tricky, what are you looking at??

 

I was thinking of getting a refurb m6400 with 8400/8600 CPU from the outlet and then buying x9000/x9100 processor on ebay. How hard would be to do the replacement for that?

The main thing then would be for me to find a box with UXGA LED or E2E LED and FX3700, which is much easier then trying to get precise config with a decent CPU.

Edit: Also, I was just thinking, how hard and expensive is it to order the UXGA LED screen for the m6400?

 

how much would it cost/how convienient would it be to put togethar an M6400 unit similar to your M6400 covet specs, minus the 2x500GB HD? ... 300GB HD should be enough for me for now. I'm looking at refurbished units atm but wouldn't mind new if it can be done for a good price.

 

They have some in the outlet area for 2300-2400 before a 15% coupon.

 

If you look on the web outlet and then call them up and talk to a sales person, you can get 20% off even when there's a 15% off coupon.

I got a refurbished m6400 for $2450 with QX9300, 8gb ram (4 dimms), WUXGA RGB-LED, Nvidia 2700M, 2 x 160gb 7200rpm hard drives (would prefer larger but went w/what was available..now am deciding if it's worth it to upgrade and which hd to go with?), Backlit Keyboard, FIPS fingerprint reader, Intel 5300, blue tooth, and a 3 year complete care NBD warranty when I called up and mentioned that there was a 15-20% off coupon. Regular Outlet price was $2679, Warranty was $270. Oh, there was also a free 3 day shipping sale at the time as well. Oh and tax was $177.42.

Granted, the laptop stopped working the first day and they're replacing it now (I believe with a new m6400 because the "invoice" doesn't list anything as refurbished and it's "in production" and I probably won't receive it for another month - they said 10-21 days). I loved the laptop in the brief time I had a chance to work on it. The replacement is coming with the Slim adapter, which is good because I cannot find it for the life of me.

Update: Replacement laptop shipped already - next day fedex. Since Monday is a holiday, I should receive it on Tuesday. The invoice for the replacement laptop lists the price as $3982 before taxes and $4220.92 after. Note: this is the price of the laptop itself, not including warranty. Also note: I do not have to pay anything for the replacement or to send the other one back.