E1705 best deal i can get?

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ Duo Proc T2250 (1.73GHz/533MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition with re-installation CD
LCD PANEL 17 inch Wide Screen XGA+ Display
MEMORY 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
HARD DRIVE 80GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
OPTICAL DRIVE 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
WIRELESS OPTIONS Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card (54Mbps)
BATTERY OPTIONS 53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
HARDWARE WARRANTY 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support

This configuration comes out to $1358. After a 20% off coupon applied I come up with $1086.40 + Tax /w Free Shipping.

Is this the very best deal I can get on the system .. the 20% off coupon? Any other advice, tips, whatever on buying you might want to throw my way is appreciated. Thanks in advanced guys.

 

check the dell outlet. I think you can save around 200 dollers if you don't mind it being refurbished

 

Hmm, as long as it has the 7900 GS I don't mind. Problem is finding the darn thing configured with it.

PS: DOH! Looks like this weeks 20% coupon has expired. NOOO!

 

Yea... I was looking at the outlet for one with a 7900GS and gave up...
I found the coupon was the best (I tried using some other things but didn't come close to the coupon!)

 

I can't imagine buying one of those things without a 7900 GS .. I am shocked by the amount returned with the crap video cards in them. E1505 is such a better option if you aren't looking for the performance.

 

Yea... the only reason I GOT a 17 inch laptop was FOR the vid card...

 

Yep, same here.

 

Best deal.. well if you want it now.. that's probably as good as it gets. You could try Ebay - sometimes you can find a better price there. But it's not my favourite place to buy big ticket items though due to the number of scam artists that hang out there. update: it does look like the 20% coupon is now dead.

The usual advice would be to wait 2 - 4 weeks for the next big Dell coupon to come around again. In the past you would see a 30% or even 40% coupon almost monthly. But in the shadow of flat growth & informal SEC scrutiny, Dell announced (mid July) that it would eliminate 80% of it's special deals, starting with notebooks. So it's now anyone's guess as to what we'll see for Dell coupons from now on. I'm waiting a few weeks myself to see if they repeat a $750 off coupon. If they don't, I'll go with HP instead. Dell notebooks are only bargains when you have the big coupons.

More info - http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/story.html?id=f5dbd45f-b936-42e1-ab3d-1ad38e800709&k=5438

Dell coupon history (jpeg chart) - http://www.savefile.com/files/35858

 

You're not gonna like this "PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ Duo Proc T2250 (1.73GHz/533MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache)" but then you can always upgrade to Merom when it gets cheaper. As for the price, I think you will be ok. Too bad you couldn't configure 512 MB ram instead of 1 GB.

 

its kind of disgusting looking at that chart .... 20% off sucks compared to most everything they've done in the past.

 

I feel the same way. They've pulled most or all of the discounts.. but where are the promised price cuts? Seems like Dell's are going to get more expensive. Dell stock was down appreciably on the news. Of course if you read the PR from Dell, they are just doing "what the customer wants" (yeah, right) & it won't affect pricing (double yeah right). Oh well, best to vote with your feet. I guess I can buy HP/Acer/Asus - anything other than Dell if the big discounts are really gone.

 

Problem is Acer's are space heaters, HP don't come with capable graphics cards, and Asus is dealt mostly as whitebox to be built via mom-and-pop "who knows where they'll be in a year" stores.

20% off will be fine I guess .. sadly I am now worried that even that deal may be gone come Thursday morning.