Last check before I buy... (Z70v)

Right... college student looking for first laptop, blah blah blah.

So, did a bunch of research... I was pretty taken by the Dell Inspiron 9300 at first (pretty rushed research because the $750 coupon expires 8/4 and I leave tomorrow for a week). The 17" screen struck me as rather large, though, and at 8 pounds it was pretty hefty. Graphics card was nice, of course. However, it soon became an obsession to find a laptop with pretty much the same specs as the 9300, but 1.6" smaller and a couple pounds lighter, and I figured I could settle on a more mid-range graphics card.

My search took me through way too many laptops, consuming far too much of my time, and I was about to give up before stumbling upon the review of the Asus Z70v. Playing around with the configurations a bit, it seemed like this was THE perfect laptop (if only it had 64MB more dedicated video memory... but I'll live). Same processor, same harddrive, same DVD-RW capability, more mid-range graphics card, 15.4" moniter, and a couple pounds lighter. Not to mention the clearly superior styling... the Dell looked (and is) pretty much a thick chunk of plastic.

So, before I hit the buy button, I thought i'd run it through with you guys to see if there was anything I had possibly missed.

From ISTNC:

ASUS Z70v

Intel Pentium M 740 (1.73Ghz) 2MB cache 533FSB
Hitachi 60GB 8MB 7200rpm HD
-- No Memory --
PCI Express ATI x600 64mb
DVDRW- Dual Layer (24x CD read/write, 8x DVD read/write)
Intel 2915 a/b/g wireless card
Smart Li-ion battery 4.5-5.5 hours
Windows XP Home (upgrade to Pro with hopefully college student discount)
1 Year Warranty
Included Deluxe Carrying Case

Cost: $1472

+

Transcend 1GB 200-Pin DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Notebook Memory - $98.55

Total Cost: $1,570.55

About $60 more than the 9300, but I think (hopefully?) the reduction in screen size and weight (good design is a bonus) would be worth it.

Did I miss anything? Is it hard to insert your own memory?

... is 17" really not a big deal at all and I'm stupid for not going with the 9300?

How light is the Z70v?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Oh yeah... um... this would run WoW as well/better than my current system with AMD 2500+ & ATI 9600 Pro, right? Of course this isnt the sole basis of any of my laptop decisions but um .. erm..

 

Looks good, nothing wrong with the memeory, I've heard it works great with no problems.

And 17" is really huge and not suitable unless you need a desktop replacement.

It's around 6 pounds I believe, the z70v

 

It *is* sort of a desktop replacement, I guess you could say.

I won't be bringing my desktop to college as I live in Virginia and I'm headed out to UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Still, I'd need something that could be carried to library/other friends dorm rooms/etc. And its not like the Z70v is a slouch performance-wise...

EDIT: Wait... do I qualify for the college student discount? Would I have to add RAM though?

 

well u are a college student...so u should qualify for the discount but IM istnc and ask them. there are 2 slots for adding ram, one below the keyboard which is kinda hard to get at, and one on the bottom of the laptop. if you have one stick i'd suggest putting it on the bottom of the laptop so u dont risk screwing up something major.

 

I'll have to get his AIM information somehow..

Um, one last thing. College starts for me on August 19th... should I just wait for the Z70v refresh? would it have arrived by then? x700 128mb video card would make it absolutely perfect... (sort of borderline on the 64mb dedicated).

 

Read the feedbacks on the Trancend Memory at Newegg. I would stay away from them...

 

The ETA for the z70va is unknown, it could be tomorow. it could be September 2nd, it could be in October.

We don't know for sure.

 

5 star average out of 108 voters? Doesn't seem too shabby...

Argggg... the video card is the killer here. Especially since the Dell has the ridiculous Geforce Go 6800 256mb.