Dell Pricing for a XPS M1710 and some other questions

I was wondering how you all get such good prices on this laptop. I've tired multiple times to get a discount, but have had no luck.

The only thing they seem to do each time is give a free warranty extension.

I put together an XPS M1710 as below...
T2500 processor
2 Gigs of RAM (Shared?!)
NVIDIA7900 GTX
Wireless card with Bluetooth
100 Gig HD
Sound Blaster Upgrade
Windows XP Pro
4 year warranty including accidental

The lowest I can get this for is about $3,800. I've tried multiple times to haggle, but it got me nowhere.

How do you all do it!

Also, why is the 2 gigs of memory listed as shared? The last time I've seen "shared" memory was when they used to share memory with onboard video. So what does that mean?

Why does upgrading from XP Home to XP Pro cost $149, when I can go out and buy the OEM version of XP Pro for $120 or less!

I'd really like to get this laptop, but from reading around these forums and others, it looks like I would be getting ripped off at that price.

Something else I've been wondering. I have 10 licenses of XP pro + other OS's from Microsoft's dev pack, so I really don't need an OS on this machine. How come there is never an option to get a machine without an OS? Is this some kind of pressure from Microsoft because of piracy?

thanks for any suggestions

 

Would you consider buying a used or refurbished system?

 

Not really, I'd like a new system.

I don't mind the price, as long as I'm not getting ripped off. It just seems like everyone else is getting better deals than this.

 

Then try and find a "previously ordered new" dell XPS M1710 in dell outlet, with the specs your looking for... You could save quite a bit.

As for why it says shared.. I have no idea! It should be 100% dedicated! The GPU has 512MB's of onboard memory.

There have been 30% off EEP coupons, there were some around a couple weeks ago. You could buy one off ebay for only like $2, then save several hundred $.

 

Well, I went ahead and purchased it, $3,845 total. Hopefully it's all it's hyped up to be!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=53902

 

Yeah, I would try techaholic's deals.

Or, you could consider the Sager NP5760, which is much less:
http://www.sagernotebook.com/pages/notebooks/product.cfm?ProductType=5760

 

About a month or so ago, I was in the same exact position you're Zeeker. I would wonder "how do some of these people get such good deals on such a high end machine?" There was just no way I could justify paying close to or over $4000 for a laptop. Escpecially because at the time, I wasnt a hardcore gamer. However, with a little patience, I was lucky enough to have a few people here give me some tips. About two weeks back I ended up paying a little over $2400 for a configuration that would have cost me $4000.

 

The RAM is shared. That has nothing to do with graphics. I don't really know what shared RAM is, but believe me, the 7900GTX has 512 dedicated vRAM. I think shared RAM means that the two sticks of RAM share information between themselves rather than allocating certain tasks to each stick, but I could be completely wrong there.