Help me customize my M1530!

So I've decided on the M1530 after researching for some time.
I'm trying to customize it but I'd like your advice between some of the options. I haven't been keeping up with a lot of things nowadays so I'm not sure if some of these should be upgraded or just kept as is. If there's a big overall improvement, let me know please! I'd hate to upgrade everything and it not make much difference (plus I'd like to save as much as I can).

Thanks!
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- CPU- it comes with option number 2. Should I go with Option 1 and go down on clock speed but up on the Cache? Obviously #3 is the best of all, and is the 6mb THAT much worth it to just invest in this?

1) Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache) add $0

2) Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB, 3MB Cache) [Included in Price]

3) Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9300 (2.5GHz/800Mhz FSB, 6MB Cache) [add $125 or $4/month1]

-Screen- I have no experience with any of these screens, so will they make a difference? I won't have a high-end Blu Ray player or anything, but I do enjoy movies and gaming... I don't even know what the #3 LED LCD even is.

1) High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LCD(1440x900) & 2MP Camera [Included in Price]

2) High Resolution glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LCD(1680x1050) & 2MP Camera [add $50 or $2/month1]

3) High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LED LCD (1440x900) & 2.0 M [add $150 or $5/month1]

4) Full Hi Definition, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LCD (1920x1200) & 2.0 M [add $100 or $3/month1]

- Hard drive- Typically I've always gone with the 7200rpm over 5400, but I'm also cutting down on space and spending more money. Will this affect performance if I'm already spending more on the CPU?

1) Size: 320GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive [Included in Price]
May delay your XPS M1530 ship date

2) Speed: 250GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive Free Fall Sensor [add $100 or $3/month1]
May delay your XPS M1530 ship date

- Wireless card- I really have no idea on this one. Should I invest in the Wireless-N? I've heard that there are drawbacks if I'm in an area with a B/G connection but I have no clue. Also, Dell or Intel?

1) Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-card [add $25 or $1/month1]

2) Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-card [add $35 or $2/month1]

3) Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card [Included in Price]

- External USB Modem- What the heck is this? I've already got wireless, so I'm not really sure if I'll need this. What's it used for?

1) None

2) Dell External Mini USB Modem XPS M1530 [add $20 or $1/month1]

-Sound card- Option #1 says "Ultra-realistic surround sound" but option #2 must be better...right? Any ideas on this?

1) Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition [Included in Price]
Ultra-realistic surround sound

2) ExpressCard Sound Blaster X-Fi® Xtreme Audio Sound Card [add $50 or $2/month1]

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Thanks for anyone who has time to reply to any of these!

 

Option 2 its a Penyrn which is more efficient and should easily do anything you need.

Option 3 LED use less power, brighter, and better for the enviroment since it has no mercury.

Option 2 if you can spare the money, its not that major if you don't go with it.

Option 2 The intel card is the best and its not much of a price difference.

Option 1 The Modem is for dialup connections

Option X neither get a set of nice speakers instead

 

CPU: The T8300 should suit most people's needs, but if you are like me and would like to "futureproof" your laptop, the T9300 is a good investment.

Screen: I'm not sure what you're used to so I can't be sure what's right for you. Basically the higher the resolution, the more stuff you can fit in your screen, but things such as text also become smaller. If you currently have a 15in laptop, check its resolution and if you think you can handle a higher resolution, go for it, if not, then pick a lower resolution and save some money as well. As for option three, LEDs are advertised to increase battery life but more importantly, they are brighter than standard CCFL displays. Again, if you feel that you can benefit from it, go for it, otherwise, save the $150 and upgrade something else.

Hard Drive: The only differences between the two drives are size and speed. The 250g drive is supposedly faster because of its 7200rpm spindle speed, but the 320g drive also has a higher density in its platters so the read/write performance should be similar (please correct me if I'm wrong). When I bought my M1530, I went with the 320g because space mattered more and the speeds seemed simliar.

Wireless: Go with Intel's Next-gen card, it'll have better performance and better support than Dell's card.

Modem: Do you need a modem?

Sound Card: Ooh, tough... I went with the X-Fi card cause it sounded cool but if audo quality isn't that important, the normal headphone jacks should produce acceptable sounds (I'm typing this at 1:30am after a long day so sry if my grammar's off, nothing sounds right anymore, lol).

Good luck on your purchase!

 

Should be probably in different thread ("What notebook should I buy"). theres a FAQ to follow, so its better for other people to help you. but ok...
well its is all matter of money and your budeget I would say. If you dont care you can max it out all and be happy... but if you want to know my opinion..
CPU: I would go with T8300. compared to T7500 its a new build, T8XX are penryns, they are faster with a little bit lower cache, but they need less power (better battery life) and they dont produce so much heat. Im dont think that T9300 is worth 125bucks. I would invest it elsewhere...

Screen: that is the matter of preference. All I can tell you is that LED screen are brighter and consume less power than normal LCDs. you can look here on the difference : http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=243531
Conserning the resolution, go around some malls and see for yourself, at what resolution you can read the letters the best. There is no point in buying 1920x1020 resolution and then beacuse your eyes hurt using it on lower on. everything will be blurry. screens should run on their nativ resolutions.

HDD: I had the same problem. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=239257

Wifi: read this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=238640
esp. number 7. In general, search XPS more and read some threads here. This forum has some major information on most of the problems that you can face

modem: if Im not mistaken, thats a modem to connect through dial-up. I dont think youll be needing that today at all!! :-D

Soundcard: one is integrated and the second one will be in your slot. depends how much you area a sound freak or if you have 7.1 to connect to your computer. to a normal life (movies, games, using normal external speakers...) youll be perfectly fine with option one.

if this helped, rep please.... http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=64155

 

I read that you would like to save the most money you can so with that in mind heres what i would suggest for you.

PROCESSOR:
go with the T8300, i have heard from reading this forum that the difference between the T8300 and the T9300 are not all that much, cant tell you from personal experience as i have never used the T8300.

THE SCREEN:
I can tell you this from experience. if you go with the 1920X1200 resolution as i did because it sounds like the better one, your going to need glasses on certain websites, because the writing is small, i have gotten used to it and love it now, but thats just a heads up, you can change some of the settings in the control panel (DPI settings, i believe) which i have done, although this makes some of the windows notification pop-ups look a little "off" if you will. but personally iam not bothered by this. and you see a lot of info on the screen at one time, also the main content on the web pages are not small it is just on certain ones, where they have their links on the side bar.

thats all I can tell you on the screen choices, thats really kind of up to you.

HARD DRIVE:
Here is basically how a hard drive works. kind of like bchen06 said, but the thing i like to point out as well is this say you have two hard drives both 100gb and one is a 5400 rpm and the other a 7200 rpm, and say they both have exactly 70 gb of used space on them, the 7200 rpm drive is going to be faster.

i would go with the 7200 rpm drive, simply because if you need to have more storage you can always buy an external for fairly cheep (or reasonable if you will). and i am not sure what you are going to be doing with it, but if you plan on taking lots of pictures and i mean lots, or downloading lots of movies and not getting rid of them after you have burned them, or done what you will with them i would go with the bigger one.

but i like speed so to sacrifice 70gb of hd space, isnt all that much for the speed it will make up for, also the bigger the hard drive the more stuff youll be likely to throw on it, and it will take longer to access info because of this aswell.

WIRELESS CARD: go with the intel wireless card, i am using my computer from the basement and with all of the doors shut and the router in my dads office upstairs and on opposite sides of the house, i still get full bars, sometimes it shuts off once i a blue moon, i run up the steps and across the house reset the router and im up and on the net again. Im also using "wireless N"

MODEM: if you already have a wireless connection with a modem, router etc. in your residence then you dont need to buy one from them!

SOUND:

i bought the sound blaster audigy software edition, and this is just because i didnt really know what the X-fi card was and it look as though you had to attach external speakers to this as well, and i did not want external speakers.

the software edition of sound blaster is good if you ask me, gets way louder than buddies gateway! WAY louder and its clear, even when its on full blast.

hope this helps you, congrats on gettin an XPS man!

 

Thanks for all the help so far! This is great.

My main concern about the CPU is that the 8300 has 3mb while the 9300 has 6mb...that's twice as much, so I figured it would make a huge difference. Guess not then?

 

"HDD: I had the same problem. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=239257"


i must point out that in this they are about half right, because that is relative to the speed, however if you look in there sigs they all chose the 200 gb @ 7200 rpm
as well as if you were to go out and actually buy a 200gb @7200 rpm you are going to pay somewhere around $200 (us dollars). i know cuz i did this!

and are you sure it said 250 gb hd @ 7200 rpm?? or is it 200gb?

like i said in my other one,its really what your going to do with it, if you need all that space and want to sacrifice a little speed then go with the bigger one, if not then go with the 7200 rpm, the $100 may seem like a lot but its actually half price from anywhere else and i dont see these coming down in price for a little while at least but we all know that it will when they have bigger ones that they are willing to release ( and its really just what you want) and the only reason i am posting this is i didnt see his post before i posted my own.

but thats just something to think about.

(ABOUT THE PROCESSOR):
From what i have read on this forum and other things on the internet it does not make all that much difference, i too thought which is why i got the one i did, but that was apparently from lack of research (which i thought i had done) and the fact that i wanted the biggest/fastest of everything i could get in this notebook configuration.

 

yes it says 250gb, you can check their website. maybe they changed it?

i'm now contemplating buying off of the refurbed site...i could get a blu-ray this way! not sure though yet.

 

I would stay away from refurbished stuff. if you can get a warranty with it then id say its good to go.

i dont like refurbished stuff just because 'USUALLY' its not warrantied and its not much cheaper than buying a new product. (keep in mind saving $500 or so to ME is not worth buying refurbished)

Also i view it as this, some one had this computer and a part broke on it so they sent it in, and it was so bad that the company either rufunded their money or sent them a replacement product. and now the company is trying to pawn it off on you to try and recuperate some of their loss.

I havent looked into refurbished stuff for a long while so i dont know really what its like anymore, but id say on refurbished stuff its kind of a toss up on what kind of condition your product will be in as well.

thats just my personal opinion, and thats about all that is, so you can take it for whats it worth!