Do I choose a 9 cell battery or LED screen?

I have my XPS m1530 order ready for my work - unfortunately its a little over budget and my boss will not approve it, so I need to reduce the price by ~$200. Should I -

- get the 56Whr battery instead of 85Whr?
- get the LCD instead of LED screen (both are 1440x900)
- get a slower and non-Penryn cpu?

Is the LED that much brighter and easier on the eyes? I can live with the added weight. I don not want to sacrifice that but on the other hand battery life is important too! Is it cheaper to get the bigger battery off ebay?

 

I would get the LED. I think the Macbook Pro are using LED. They look so much nicer. You can always ask your boss for a new battery down the road. Plus the batteries are so expensive these days because of the factory fire. Wait a little while and the price will come down (not like the gas price).

 

Get the LED, you can find an upgraded battery on ebay for a lot cheaper!

 

When I ordered my m1330 I went with the 9-cell battery as IMO the extra cost for the LED screen wasn't worth it.

 

i'd drop the battery, you can probably buy 1 a year later when the 6 cell has a weak charge and much cheaper once the battery factory fire issue is resolved

 

You can always buy another battery, but you can't always upgrade your backlight. Get the LED screen.

 

Ok, the LED it is. So now my choice is -

cheaper batter ($169 difference)
or
T8300 vs T9300 ($125 difference)

This is a developer machine so I want at decent battery life while compiling (i.e heavy cpu usage), so I can get through all those meetings and get some work done!

I'm leaning towards T8300 since from all accounts the real world difference is not much, but then again "you can't upgrade the cpu".

Did I mention I'm indecisive

 

Uhm......yes you can.

 

drop the battery battery prices right now are rediculous because of the LG Chem factory fire.. give it a few more months to get back to regular production and the prrices on batterires will drop quite a bit

 

LOL you cant give your boss 200 bucks for the overprice?? im just kidding.

id keep the LED screen and go with a smaller battery for reason as everyone else said, and down the road no matter what battery you get they all wear out!

as for the processor I like my T9300, personally never used the T8300 but i dont see why you wouldnt be able to upgrade the processor.

 

If its gonna be doing cpu intensive tasks I'd get the cpu, wait for the battery prices to drop.

 

I would drop the Proc from T9300 to T8300, You will not notice a difference as it is at most only 6.5% slower and on average less than 3%, the other options are tougher calls IMO. what exactly will you be running?

 

As others have mentioned, battery prices are extremely high right now due to the supply shortage created by a fire at the LG plant. My advice: get the T9300 and LED,