How is this XPS M1530 setup?

On Dell.ca, XPS notebooks systems are on sale, and I selected one at $999, and added $100 more worth of upgrades... here it is:

Dell XPS M1530 (everything is default except for GPU,+$100)
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5550 (2MB cache/1.83GHz/667Mhz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium Edition
Midnight Blue
Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch LCD (1280x800) & 2.0 MP Camera
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms)
160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GT with GDDR3
8X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card
56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition
TOTAL=$1,099; saved $150

Unfortunately, I could barely go any higher than $1,099, and I expect a great performance laptop good for at least 3 years and I will be doing a little gaming, Internet, and word processing; so does this setup look good enough for at least 3 years or a little more?

 

Yes, it's pretty future-proof.

 

My only suggestion would be to order only 1GB of Ram (ask for it as 1 Dimm, they might say yes) and then buy more ram from newegg or wherever for cheaper. For Vista I would say 3GB ram is a must IMHO.

 

Actually, everything is default. I only upgraded the GPU to the 8600M Gt for another $100...

 

Yes I had a similar config on the website. So I called and told the CSR I only want 1GB. He had to check with a supervisor or something but came back and said OK. So he knocked $70 off the price and downgraded me to 1GB from 2GB. Than I bought 3GB for $50 and am selling the 2x512MB. If I would have been smart enough at the time to ask for 1 Dimm of 1GB I could have saved even more and only bought 1x2GB for $30 myself.

 

Hmmm... sounds pretty smart. Could do that, but I feel that the RAM may not be the biggest thing to worry about compared to the other specs... how would you say my setup is despite the RAM than?

 

If you had anyway to squeeze a faster CPU into there I'd upgrade that. But honestly for everything you want to do the T5550 will be just great. And if you are planning on using this thing for extended periods on battery power I would most definitely upgrade the battery. I don't use battery much so for my needs the 6 cell is fine. I am only on battery occasionally for less than 2 hours at time. It will last a little over 2-2.5 hours I think with normal use.

 

I'd also spring for the Draft-N card. But that's neither here nor there. Maybe you can call them and ask to swap a gig of ram for the wireless card upgrade?

 

I have the basic wireless card and it works awesome with my WRT54G. But I have not really tested it outside much.