HELP! E1505 Configuration Questions

Hi, I am looking to buy an E1505 for mainly school work and playing World of Warcraft in the dorm (the latter more than the former haha).

I am going to be ordering a little later this week and plan on taking advantage of the 20% off coupon so I am building a system around $1000.

This is the configuration I came up with which is my "bare minimum". It came out to $889. So I am looking at some free upgrades. What to upgrade tho?

Inspiron E1505 Intel® Core™ Duo Proc T2050 (1.60GHz/533MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache)
Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition with re-installation CD
LCD Panel 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife™
Memory 512MB Shared Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM 533MHZ, 1 DIMM
Video Card 256MB ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory™
Hard Drive 60GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
Combo/DVD+RW Drives 8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Wireless Networking Cards Dell Wireless 1390 802.11b/g Mini Card (54Mbps)
Primary Battery 53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support
QuickSnap Options Mediterranean Blue QuickSnap™ Cover
Free SKIN Promotion 15 - Free Promotion for 15 inch Skin


So what to upgrade?

I could upgrade from a 1.60ghz to 1.86ghz cpu, but I feel like it would be a waste considering how much of a bottleneck the GPU will be. Am I right about this?

I could upgrade the WXGA screen to WSXGA (1280x800 upgraded to 1680x1050). This seemed to be REALLY attractive to me as the higher resoultion screen is brighter as well, but I think that would really ruin my chances of playing games on this thing. Higher native resoultion = more system power needed. Again, confirm or deny please. ANYONE who plays World of Warcraft, and has this laptop with the x1400 PLEASE post about performance. If I could get away with the higher resoultion I think I would deffinatly go for the upgrade!

I could upgrade to 1gb of ram instead of 512mb for $60. Here's my issue with that. I was sort of planning on spending $180 at newegg to just max the ram out to 2gb. I could probally get by pretty well with only 1gb, and I think $60 is a fair upgrade price. Considering with 256x2 I am going to just throw them in a box for warrenty purposes. 1gb vs. 2gb. $60 1gb from dell, $180 2gb via newegg. (Dell want's $270 for this HAHA!)

I could upgrade the warrenty, but honestly, I have never been a fan of warrenty add-ons. Seemed like throwing money away.

I could always spend more money on a bigger hard drive. I could even spend it on a faster hard drive, but I don't see what would benifit from 7200rpm vs. 5400rpm when I am just typing word documents and playing World of Warcraft. Obviously more space is great, and I was leaning towards going to 120gb 5400rpm for the $68 premium. Am I wrong about 7200 vs. 5400 in my situation?

I am gonna go ahead and TLDR my own thread cuz I realize it's somewhat of a wall of text . For those who did take the time to read thank you so much and if you have a response to just one of my questions please reply! I hate making big purchases and I have been jumping from model to model trying to find something I won't regret.

 

If I were you I would get an S96J/HEL 80, etc... which will end up around the same price but be much better....

 

I really enjoy the WSXGA+, and it does NOT mean that you'll be forced to play your games in this resolution. The workspace is great at 1680x1050, and for games, you can always play them at lower resolutions!
So, go for it. And 1gb of ram too.

 

Believe me I have considered the S96J as well. The problem is that equally equipped the S96J comes out around $1300. $450 price premium isn't the same. The $450 does buy me the x1600 so sure it'll run games better, but this is World of Warcraft we are talking about. Not F.E.A.R.

When all is said and done this system should come out to $850 shipped. I like the sound of that quite a lot.

The other machine I still have in the back of my mind is the Acer 5672wlmi x1600 model. This machine has crazy good options for $1100. Configuring a S96J to match would put it $1600+. The reason I am shying from the Acer is the heat issues everyone and their mother is reporting. Which actually leads to a question I forgot to ask.

How is the heat dissapation on these E1505? Are they another lapburner like the Acer and Macbooks?

 

Actually fear runs pretty good on the X1400, it runs on High/Medium on my laptop online . (FEAR Combat)