question about buying a dell xps m1530

hey im a newbie to laptops but ive been learning more about them lately. i want to buy a dell xps m1530 but im not sure what specifications i should have if all i want to do is: word processing, storing lots of music/movies, web surfing, maybe some gaming and graphic design, photoshop cs3 . can someone tell me what specification i should have and also how much it would cost? i live in california. also anyone know whens the next price drop? thanks!

 

next price drop: probably never.... if the m1530 is to be refreshed....

if that's what u'r doing(word procssing, photoshop, gaming), any processor would do, the graphics card would depend in what gaming(newer games = 8600, older = 8400, but just go for the 8600)

do u have access to dell EPP?(Or a college studetn?)

 

Why don't you take your time and read through the thousands of XPS posts on the m1530 and that will answer all your questions. You don't want to take the advice of a handful in this post when you can get more info the other way.

 

You could get an M1330 if you wanted to since what your doing is pretty basic. If you want an M1530... just choose LED display for quality, and the rest can basically just be barebones. You will want a T8300 at the very least for the battery saving capabilities. Hard drive, you might not need so much space, so 160GB might be enough though if you want, you can get a 250GB just for some more insurance. You only need a 5400RPM drive since you arn't going to be doing any video encoding or anything of the sort. Though getting a 7200RPM drive will increase your startup times and you will have faster access times. However since you want to save some money, a 5400RPM drive is fine for your purposes. As for Bluetooth, it really isn't necessary unless you intend us using any Bluetooth enabled devices in the future, or if you use it currently. I recommend just getting it just because it is only $20 and you never know when it might come in handy.

 

wow thanks for the very helpful answers!! so what are the differences with the m1330? also if i get 160gb, i wont have to worry about space?

 

Even if you were to run out of space, which you most likely won't for a quite a while... you can upgrade your harddrive later on if you want.

The only real difference with the m1330 is the fact that it does not have the 8600GT graphics card and comes with an 8400GS which is already more than enough for your purposes, even the integrated graphics are more than enough.

Also the LED screen for the m1330 actually makes the display itself thinner and lighter and overall has a much ligher/sleeker form factor because of its size.

 

m1330 = smaller and much lighter(~4pounds vs M1530's 6 pounds)

though u might want to read a little about the mobo failures and GPU problems

 

GPU problems.. you already know its not really a real widespread problem as actual failures have been minimal, just read the other threads and you'll see what I mean, no need for me to explain it here.

The mobo failures I can explain. There is a design flaw with the M1330 in its cooling mechanism due to its size, it causes the thermal goo that is used to melt and move around if you use it for a long period of time, and when you turn off your system, it dries up. Of course you don't notice it much unless you actually open up your M1330 and actually see it for yourself and is like "oh, whats this mess". Though it really doesn't have much effect on the M1330's performance except from the heating issues that arise. Someone on the forums has already come up with a way to prevent such a thing from happenening though with a mod involving copper that isn't too difficult to do and will be very helpful in preventing such an issue from happening. That can be found here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268081

The M1530 however is much better in terms of cooling obviously due to the additional space it has, so it doesn't suffer from such a problem.

Also, just to add on about the GPU issue, it is commonly triggered when running stressful things such as gaming. So the best way to find out if you have a defective card is to game on it and see if after many hours it decreases in performance or not.

The concept is like a piece of metal that gets bent back and forth until eventually it snaps.

However, due to what your using the laptop for... it really won't make any difference even if you do get one of the defective cards as you will most likely catch the problems as within the 21 days you have and can simply get a replacement no questions asked.

If you are really over paranoid.... you can just stick to the Intel Integrated X3100 graphics as it does not have any issues, and still serves good for your purposes.