M1330 for College: Did I get the specs right?

Hey,

I'm competely new to these forums although I have lurked here quite a bit and let me just start out by saying that I'm a complete moron when it comes to building laptops, computers, finding the most effiecient specs, etc.

I'm pretty much heading into undergrad in a few months and am looking for a good media-built computer that can take care of my student needs as well as last about 3-4 years. After a few days of research I have come to the conclusion that the old, but still apparently amazing M1330 will fit those needs (I heard the new Studio13 was buggy and it's battery life sucked so I decided to stick with an older model).

Hopefully this is the right place to make this thread.. I was wondering if you computer experts could just look over the specs I chose and tell me if I need any adjustments of sorts. I also have a few questions I was wondering you could answer. Thanks in advance!

***This is not supposed to be a gaming system. I intend to do light gaming or maybe even none (maybe some CS, but that would be it)

Here are the specs:

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32-Bit


PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6600 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)

OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1

OFFICE SOFTWARE: Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2007 - Word, Excel + PowerPoint

WARRANTY AND SERVICE: 1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis

LCD AND CAMERA: Slim and Light LED Display with VGA Webcam

MEMORY: 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz

HARD DRIVE: 500GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)


VIDEO CARD: Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100

WIRELESS CARDS: Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-card

BLUETOOTH : Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)

BATTERY OPTIONS: 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)

SOUND OPTIONS: High Definition Audio 2.0

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So just some quick questions:

1. Do I need 4 gbs of RAM? I heard 4gbs of RAM on a 32-bit system isn't worth it, especially when it is not built gaming. It's just RAM is so cheap I didn't see why not to add on to it.

2. Can the X3100 support light gaming such as CS? I read in another thread that it could, I'm just not sure how well it will perform on Vista. I doubt such light gaming would force me to buy the 8400 card. (With the X3100 I think I save some battery life and risk over overheating as well).

3 (last). Should I go with the 9cell? I really want a compact, light notebook. I think by using an LED screen and a weak graphics card I can save a lot of battery life and wouldn't really need the 9 cell. I'm hoping to get about 3-4 hours of battery life from this thing.

I'd be grateful if anyone could give me the slightest answer to any of these questions. Thanks again for looking and sorry for the large wall of text.

 

If you're just going to use the laptop for work, 4GB shouldn't be needed. Even 2GB should be more than enough. My sister has an Inspiron 1525 with a 1.83ghz core 2 duo, 2GB RAM and the X3100 integrated graphics, running on Vista and it runs perfectly with no problems. I notice no difference in speed or performance with general work or internet use when I'm on hers compared to when I'm on my XPS M1530, 2.4ghz core 2 duo, 4GB RAM, 8600M GT.

Her's also plays DVD movies with no problems. I'm sure CS (not CS Source but CS) would run fine with no problems. I installed Sam & Max



on her laptop and while not silky smooth it was running at a perfectly playable framerate...just to give you an idea.

 

DONT GET the M1330, IT IS REALLY buggy. You got to be kidding me to think that XPS13 is more buggy becuase the M1330 suffers from a problem far worse. The Nvidia 8 series glitching/meltdowns/failures/whatever you wanna call it. It fails a lot. If you read about it you would know. Plus it uses very old hardware. Use the XPS13, its much better IMO. Get the one with integrated 9400M, that will run CS much more smoothly.

 

Think he knows about the 8400M GS GPU problem....that's why he chose the X3100 integrated graphics. You won't have any overheating problems with it.

 

The M1330 XPS the spec above be fine but go for 1Gb or 2 Gb ram and if you want more ram buy online far cheaper the from Dell.
WWAN card if you have moblie broadband already will be needed.

 

Ignore this.

I love my m1330. Returned my SXPS13 because of how buggy it was.

 

I have a 1330 that I sold, and a 1340 that I use now. I liked both, I'm sure you will be fine with either, although I would recommend the 1340, I love it. They've released some new BIOS revisions that have helped the problems a lot.

You have to remember that most people come here to post about the problems they have, and not that their laptop is working as they expected from Dell.

Also, it seems as though there's a lot of extremely picky members here that will return a laptop for the dumbest things sometimes, so just take what people say with a grain of salt sometimes.

 

I agreed with the others. 4GB of RAM may be more than you need, depending on which spec you started with as a 'core' for configurating your system.

The LED screen is, mind you, very nice, but not a 'must have' (so says I with the LED screen which was a must have for me ) It does cut the weight, and looks very nice though.

I've installed a few old games to alleviate road boredom on the M1330 (life HL1), but nothing modern. Works fine for older games so far.

If you are looking to save some money and were only going to get the 1 year warranty to begin with, take a look at the outlet M1330s (with X3100 graphics). Some great deals to be had with the extra 15% off coupons that float by just about every other week. Got mine for just a few hairs over $600 after tax and the 15% off coupon.

 

I just finished my freshman year of college and had the m1330 with very similar specs, minus the led screen. It was a great fully loaded pc, light and easy to bring to class and i enjoyed it much more than my roommates macbook. I recently updated to the sxps 13 and gave my mom the m1330. I would defiantly recommend you go with sxps 13, when next to to the m1330 it blows it away. The m1330 is old technology next to the sxps13. I haven't had any problems with my sxps 13 and haven't run into any bugs. Also i would recommend you not to buy the OFFICE SOFTWARE: Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2007 - Word, Excel + PowerPoint from dell. Most universities give this to its students for free or very cheap along with various other software. Save yourself the money because in college your going need it . The LED screen is beautiful on the sxps 13 if you decide to get one also the backlite keyboard is a nice addition.

http://www.delluniversity.com/ (I think this is the student discount site through dell?, not positive)

 

If you want to buy a computer for college I suggest you wait until the summer because dell usually has 20-25% off coupons and the 1330 is pretty much going to be discontinued. Plus technology always gets cheaper with time and they might fix the studio xps 13 problems by then.

 

Get the 3 year complete care warranty, especially for the school.

 

i got a 4 yr warranty for my m1330 last august for college for ~$1300... a similar config would be $1000 now

how much $ is your config?

if you go through Dell EPP (Education/Employee Pricing Program) using delluniversity.com , it may be cheaper... play around with each config... u'll get a different price

i would definitely get a better CPU(get a santa rosa penyrn CPU)

you can use OpenOffice if MS Office is too pricey, or find places like Dreamspark where MS gives their software to students at cost or free

look at Dell Outlet too...

 

I'd definitely suggest choosing the SXPS 1340 over the 1330 if you want the computer to last 4 years simply because of the much better CPU (which also consumes less power), hard drive (7200 RPM), GPU (even if you stick with integrated), RAM (though it is higher latency, it is much higher bandwidth), and 64 bit version of Windows. The only downside I can see is it is slightly heavier, Hybrid SLI isn't supported on Windows XP, and price is likely to go up (though IMO the 1330 is usually overpriced).

If you went with the 1340 and the most graphically intensive thing you do (and plan to do) is play CS then you might as well go with the 9400M G if price or weight are very important. There were benchmarks posted here indicating how much CS:S benefits from the added 9200M GS but CS 1.6 will probably only see minor performance loss if any difference at all.

 

Hey guys,

First I want to apologize for the late response, I'm on a mini vacation and my internet access is limited.

Secondly, thank you for all your responses. I've taken them to mind and thus am having second decisions on whether I should get a 1330 or wait a little for the SXPS 13.

However, I do have a few issues with the SXPS 13 that keep me from choosing it over the 1330:

1)It weighs more.

2)The battery life is significantly worse than the 1330 (by a good hour I heard)

3)It overheats (which is a big problem for me because I usually use most laptops on my lap.)

Not to mention the innumberable bugs that I've heard come with, including a close friend I had who had to return his 3 times until he got a working one.

^^All that can be avoided with a 1330 w/ X3100 Graphics

Although I will wait a little longer and see if they fix most of those problems. If they do they it might be enough to consider switching.

Also, want to thank the guys who linked me delluniversity.com and warned me about coupons and rebates on Microsoft Office that I had no clue even existed. You just saved me a bunch of money. Thanks again.


Other than that, if I do stick with the 1330 I guess I'll go with a smaller RAM size or something, thanks for the advice.

EDIT: Oh and p.s: I didn't intend on this thread becoming a "1330 or 1340" one. I know theres about 50 of these threads on these forums, so apologies

 

1. Weight is definitely a valid claim. I won't object here.
2. Does anyone have any numbers for the XPS 1330's battery life? Logically it shouldn't be too different as long as the same battery is used. The SXPS has a more power efficient CPU and DDR3 RAM. That said, the faster 7200 RPM hard drive probably nullifies those benefits though I certainly do not see how this would skew battery life by an hour. If you go by NBR's numbers, the SXPS 13 does far better in terms of battery life by having comparable numbers to the 1330's 9 cell battery configuration using only a 6 cell battery.
3. I wouldn't say it overheats as the heat does not damage functionality of the computer. That said, this laptop does run warm on integrated graphics and hot with the 9200M GS enabled. I often run the laptop on top of a book or tray that is on my lap though it can certainly be ran without one.

If you go with the 1330, IMO you might as well get 4GB of RAM. The smallest amount of RAM Dell offers is 3GB and it is only $35 to upgrade to 4GB so you wouldn't really save money if you go through a third party vendor (I don't suggest mixing various sticks of RAM). That said chances are you won't need much RAM for what you listed anyways. Note however, the RAM unseen by 32 bit Vista should not be wasted and should instead be used towards the X3100 on the machine as it has no dedicated memory though it wouldn't need that much.

 

Hmmm, I actually just did some more research on the battery life of the 1340 and I may have been wrong. I remember looking at some youtube review on the 1340 and, iirc, the author said the battery life was terrible compared to the older 1330. But looking at some more research, I'll take your word for it.

Regarding weight... I honestly do not care much for it, it's just added plus if it weighs less.

I'll be completely sold on the Studio 13, however, if they fixed the heating issue ;[. That is a huge problem for me. As I said before, I use laptops a lot on my lap, and I don't want to be uncomfortable surfing the web, checking email, etc.

^That said, does anyone know if the Studio 13 only heats if you're gaming? Does it get extremely hot while surfing the web, watching a DVD, or watching streaming videos online for a good amount time? If the heat problem only occurs during gaming then that may just change my mind on it.

...of course, the numerous bugs on the 1340 also concern me. =/