Warranty information, please look

I am going to buy my m15x today with the following specs..
i5 540
128 hd ssd
1gb ATI 5730
4gb ram
9cell batt

What I am wondering is the effectiveness of the basic warranty vs. the advanced (second level). I feel like dell is just trying to scam a little bit of money and will actually fix accidents with the basic warranty although that is the main feature of advanced. Anyone have any experience dealing with this? Could just use a little feedback otherwise I think I may be spending the extra money on level 2

Thanks in advance, Des

 

Go for the 5850 graphics card, it is significantly more powerful than the 5730 and you most certainly won't regret the price difference.

Also, do you have any particular budget? I'd recommend if you have a little extra to spare after that to drop the solid state drive to the base hard drive. Buy a different solid state drive and fit it in yourself; the Samsung SSD that Dell uses, while fast, is far from the SSD market leaders such as the Intel X25-M.

Those are just a few tips. Not so sure on the question of warranty though.

 

That's good advice, thanks. Any advice on which ssd to replace it with? 64 to 128mb.

 

Drop the SSD and upgrade the processor to the I7 720QM. The faster memory and processor will more than make up for the HDD slow access time, and you can upgrade the HDD to a SSD when they become cheaper. Extended warrenties are a large profit centre for Dell, if your computer makes it a year without issues it will make it the extra two just fine, (but if you need the warm and fuzzy feeling go for it)

For the price, if you can swing it, get the 5850 - will last at least two years before you will need to upgrade for a directx12 card.

 

Well, the Intel X25-M (which I've pretty much only heard good about) comes in 80GB and 160GB (and larger, but those are really expensive, so...). As for which one to replace it with, well...That really depends on how much space you need.

I'm personally upgrading in a few months and I'm going for the 160GB model because I have a LOT of games. My Steam folder alone is over 80GB now, and that's without the other non-Steam games I've got!

While the X25-M comes in 80GB and 160GB, most come in 64GB and 128GB. And again, it depends on how much space you need. If 64GB is enough for all of your storage (keep in mind the OS itself is 20GB) then go for it. If not, go for 128GB. It's that simple.

Do some research into SSDs first. If you're looking for the very fastest then look up comparisons; they're headed by the likes of the Intel X25-M and the OCZ Vertex Turbo. Also make sure that ANY SSD you buy supports TRIM.

I actually disagree. A faster processor does virtually nothing to speed up drive access times; yes, some (and I emphasize some, not most) programs will run faster with a faster processor, but that doesn't change the fact that his operating system will take 4 times longer to boot up, and programs will take many times longer to open and won't run anywhere near as smoothly.

Plus, most users will not see the benefit out of the quad core i7 720QM. Most will get more benefits out of the dual core i7 620M, if they need a faster processor.

Nevertheless, an i5 processor will suffice for most. They are significantly faster than i3 processors; i3 processors don't feature the TurboBoost function which automatically overclocks the processor when you need the extra power, heat and power allowing. And if you're only using one of the two cores, it can shut one core out and seriously overclock the other, for very high single core performance.

 

Corsair and Mark, thank you both very much. I will definitely be using your advice today.... Now I just don't know if I'm going to survive the shipping time!!

 

Don't worry, the shipping time is not THAT long.

Just as an extra tip you can get quite a large discount if you phone in and haggle them down.

 

yeah like others said upgrade to 5850 and get the cheapest hdd possible and buy aftermarket. accidental covers drops and spills, thats a major difference. i have the advance complete care myself.

 

So if I buy this aftermarket sdd, can I just use the reinstall disk of w7 to put it on there? And the drivers? Sorry haven't purchased a computer in a while

 

yes you can reinstall win7 with the disk. as for drivers go here:
Drivers & Downloads

but i don't see the ati drivers posted yet but should be up soon, or just go to ati's site and download it there.

 

Thanks for the help

 

Yeah, ATi's drivers are available on their official site and they do support mobile GPUs with their latest drivers. So best thing to do in a reinstallation would be to grab the latest drivers from ATi's website.