Vostro V13 - Core 2 solo and 5100 wireless

The E4300 is over 2000$ up here in Canada and it comes with a core 2 duo, which is still yesterday's cpu.

The v13 is about 900$ with 4gb ram (this config is actually cheaper that the one in the US).

Sure the e4300 is more powerful but it's over twice the price !

I'm considering the v13 so as not to get a tiny 10" netbook that'll be a lot worse. The v13 screen is barely big enough and the keyboard looks reasonable.

Dell didn't get back to me. That's one rep down, time to move on to the next one.

Do any other companies offer on-site NBD service with accidental damage coverage ?

 

Oh, ok, Canada, that makes things different then. I got a well-spec'd (SP9600 CPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Windows 7 Ultimate) E4300 half a year ago for $800 from Dell's US outlet.

 

That's to be expected. Dell is still selling the obsolete E4300, but it doesn't need to discount it, since it isn't a current model. Basically, with obsolete models they only stock them for follow up order from current users and to cover future warranty replacements.

That's not such a good deal. For that money, you can get yourself a white plastic MacBook.

With netbooks moving to dual core Atoms in the next year, I'm not sure that it's altogether wise to move backward towards a single core V13.

As far as price, it's always better to make the investment upfront rather than buying twice because you bought cheap the first time.

That's not such a good deal. For that money, you can get yourself a white plastic MacBook. I'm not an Apple fan, but even I can see that the cheapest MacBook beats the V13 as a relative value at that price.

I'm sure there are third party warranties, which isn't as much of a problem as it seems, since Dell provides NBD on-site service through third parties as well.

I personally would suggest that you're better off with the standard 3-year warranty on real business quality E-series Latitude, than shelling out to upgrade the warranty on the Latitude 13/Vostro V13.

 

Well guys, I've really appreciated your comments, but I don't agree with them

I've spent hours and hours of torment trying to come up with the ideal system
and I don't think it can be found, but I believe I've come as close as I can get.

A couple of hours ago, after reading the above comments, I almost bought
the Vostro 3300, i3, 4gb ram, but then read some more 3300 posts, again,
and a lot of them seem pretty negative so I went back to the V13.

Except, lo and behold, the v13 configuration with 4gb Ram for 900$ is no longer
available. But - the Latitude 13 has come down 300$ and has the core 2
duo and Intel wifi as options, but only 2gb ram.

Being thoroughly exhausted with the process I decided to forget waiting for
Monday and spending an hour with a reluctant rep and bit the bullet.

So to sum up : Latitude 13, 2gb ram ( 2gb more was 240$ ! I'll fix that later),
win7 professional, 250GB/7200rpm hard drive, bluetooth, Intel 5100 wi-fi.

Oh and three years NBD onsite warranty with 3 years of accidental damage.

I'll let y'all know what I think of this machine when it arrives and has been
used a bit. I have a few fingers crossed .

 

I got a Latitude 13 with 2GB ram 160GB 7200 RPM drive Intel 5100 for $396 from the dell outlet with the 25% off coupon they had. I get it monday, can't wait...

 

I'm going to add a Ocz vertex 2 60GB SSD drive and 4GB of ram. That will set me back another $200. So for $600 I got the above plus 4GB and a SSD drive..

 

That's cruel

Let's just say I paid substantially more than that...

 

60GB for $200? That's a joke...I would go no less than 128GB, preferably 256GB. Got my Samsung PM800 for $400.

 

With all my stuff installed I use about 30GB of space....60GB for me is plenty...

 

I wouldn't go less than 128GB because most of my storage space is used up by image backups. I would recommend keeping a backup or two.