Which options to choose on an M1530?

Hey, Im in the position to buy a Dell XPS M1530, but am holding back...
Firstly - I really don't know what options to choose!!
&
Secondly - I don't want to miss out on something new!!

The colours they have on offer in the UK don't really appeal to me (I really would like an Alpine white one, and the hard drive configuration is something I'm not sure about as well.
I think I'll need quite a bit of room but the largest 7200rpm hard drive on offer is 200Gb, and I'd prefer the 250Gb one, but that spins at 5400rpm. What I'd love to have would be a 250Gb SSD but ATM the largest SSD i've seen on a laptop has been 64Gb and that capacity is too small for me unfortunately
Is there much of a difference between the two hard drives in terms of performance?

Also does/will the M1530 have Intel's new Penryn processor, anything that will give me more battery life, better performance is something I want!

So yeah I'm happy to wait if anything that I want is on the cards to be on sale in the UK, its just will it ever happen & if so... when??!

 

If you're buying an M1530, get the GeForce 8600GT. It's the main reason for buying a M1530 insted of an Inspiron

 

Get at least the 8600M GT and 2Gb of RAM. I'd pick the 1440*900 screen because its a nice blend between desktop real estate and readibility.

CPU and HDD are really up to you what you wan't in terms of speed and space. Anything above 2Ghz should be good. HDD is really up to you. I can't estimate how much space you need for your games, apps and files. My best advise is to let the prices guide you when making this choice.

You should stick with Home Premium as your OS. It's all you need as a home user.

To top it all of you could opt for bluetooth, but thats your choice. This all should result in a great notebook.

 

Yeah, well that is 1 of the reasons I want the M1530, its portable enough and has good performance, a good all-rounder!

 

Then go for it! It's a well rounded 15,4" notebook. XPS support is pretty good too.

 

Thanks The_Punisher, your right about the price guiding me if i'm not sure, have what you can afford, thats good advise!
Oh you know with the M1530 & dell. do they supply a recovery os dick?

 

Yeah. Recovery discs are standard on all XPS systems. XPS customers get a real VIP treatment. I own a Dell XPS M170, XPS M1210 and XPS 720 desktop. Service has always been great. Never had any problems and when you order you're treated like royalty. Guess those salesreps get a nice bonus when they sell a XPS system.

 

I should hope you do get VIP treatment for the ammound you have to pay for some of their XPS systems *M1730 & M2010* (whopse did that slip out!) To me thats an awful lot! But then if you want the best laptop out, you have to pay a premium!
Thanks for the info on the recover OS!

 

I say get the cheapest HD option, buy a standard notebook hard drive option of your choice for cheaper than website upgrade costs and replace it yourself. Its not that hard and ther eare tons of hardware replacement sites with video instructions. Buying stand alone notebook HDD is way cheaper trust me.

And i would go for the SDD option at all. At the current stage of development, the only great advantage of SSD is its mobile design and adaptability into 12 inch notebooks. Sure its faster but testing shows that its not by much, at least not so much to justify the 650+ bucks you'll have to shell out.

If anything, save your money for external hardrive backup storage and ddr3ram memory which you can upgrade to later when it enters mainstream market.

 

Uh..... I got an 8600m gt on my inspiron 1520 that I just ordered last month.....

 

but your 8600GT is running pon (g?)ddr2 ram, what is slower than (g?)ddr3 ram.
It's an 400 3dmakr06 points diffrence.
I want to get an XPS 1530 here in canada, to specify: the product (red) series, does anybody have an code or something for that notebbok to get it less expensive? (and pm it to mee?, i would be VERY grateful)

 

Well if your currently a student you can go google Dell EPP website and buy your notebook from there with 8-12% discount, which is pretty sweet. And if you sign up and pay with a Dell preferred account, they're give you a 4% instant savings. I did both and saved roughly 400

 

In direct reply to the ops post, 7200rpm drive is significantly faster than 5400. M1530 does not have Penryn. However also note that the Penryn's only have 3mb cache, whereas the current ones have 4mb. For this reason I think the same mhz will be faster in general with the current ones. The Penryns would save on battery power. Lastly, if you do not need the gaming performance, the 8400 will consume less power and give you more battery life. The 8600 is not the only reason to get the M1530, I also like the fact that it is thinner and in general cooler looking. Don't forget to select the non-grainy screen option when ordering.

 

Will the M1530 get an LED-backlit screen anytime soon?

EDIT: @ sonicwind -> Penryn comes in 2 variants 9xxx series has 6mb of L2 cache and the lower end has 3mb.

 

Which option is the grainy screen, the only screen option on offer in the UK is
15.4¿ UltraSharp™ WXGA (1280x800) CCFL Display (220nits) with TrueLife™
Is that the grainy one?
One thing that bugs me though, is on the US Dell website you get more options to choose from, you get an extra colour, another processor added to the list, 3 screen options and probably more options elsewhere! It's so unfair!

 

You really don't want a grainy screen. Thats a defect...
Don't sweat the differences. Ever looked around? The configs differ in every country. I looked at all the different European websites Dell has and some countries get a much better deal. Other get ripped off more.
I would never want an SSD drive. They're so tiny with 64Gb! It doesn't take a whole lot nowadays to fill that amount of space. I'll wait a bit longer if it means I can store more if I need to.
Penryn isn't really worth the wait. Its mainly offering better batterylife. You shouldn't wait for every update or refresh becaus then you can wait forever. Every 6 months something new comes along.

 

Ok then, I think I'll soon go for it! If in the future SSD's become bigger in capacity & I want to upgrade it, will that be possible in the M1530?

 

If you really want a lot of hd space, be aware that the 200 gb hd only has about 180 usable unless you reformat. I love mine, plenty for my needs as long as I have a good external hd around.