Help me decide, 15.4in. Dell Inspiron 6000 vs. 17in. Dell Inspiron 9300 ???

Im trying to decide between these 2 laptops, the specs i want are:

2ghz Pentium M
512-1gb RAM (i will end up upgrading to 2gb anyways)
128mb video memory (dedicated)
80-100gb HD


...so i made these specs on Dell's website and the 9300 is like $500+ more dollars than the 6000,

1. Is the 17inch screen really worth it? It seems like a lot of money just for 1.6 more inches of screen size. What do you guys think
2. I see that the 9300 has the Geforce 6800, but its another 100$ on top of that, which also im curious is even worth it, And just making sure that the pci express Radeon Mobility x300 is dedicated on both machines correct? is this a decent card for games?

 

Well what are you going to be using the laptop for. If i could pick right now i would go with the 9300. I have always like the 9300 because i really dont need to take it anywhere and i like big screens. If you travel with the laptop, your better off getting the 6000. Just my opinion.

 

mostly school/gaming...i play BF2 a lot

 

If you're gaming or doing graphically intense work, the 9300 w 6800 card is for you. A friend of mine had a laptop built from IBUYPOWER.com and when he saw the difference between my 9300 and his, he sent the custom one back and ordered the 9300. The first thing he raved about was the screen. Then he benchmarked it and....

The only drawback is finding something to carry the beast in because it is so wide. Dell offered no "deals" on carry bags when I ordered mine, and finding something reasonable was a task. Ended up at Overstock.com for the bag @ $25. The 9300 is my first laptop, and I'm enjoying it! The weight vs size isn't bad at all either.

Good luck!

plays BF2 with ease.

 

Yeah weight would not be a problem. I have a 15.4inch screen on my 8600 and it ways 7.2 pounds. My vote for the 9300 then!

 

there's no reason to buy the 9300 without the 6800 card. that is the real selling point of the 9300 since it's about the 2nd most powerful notebook vid card available right now and only a very limited number of OEMs offer it.

 

ok, so its a 9300 with a 6800vid card...**** that puts the price up there, can i go with a 1.86ghz processor? what is this compared to desktop Pentium 4 speed?

 

Oh yeah, i would even go with a 1.73 processor. A lot of people have there 9300 as that. I have a 1.4 on a diff model and it keeps me happy, good luck!

 

Do you know what the 1.86 is compared to a PC processor? im trying to see what my specs are in the laptop compared to required specs for some games, thanks

 

Performance on the 1.86 will be very good. Pentium Ms have more memory on the CPU, shorter pipleline, etc. which greatly increases performance relative to the clock speed. When gaming, the card does most of the work.

 

A 1.86GHz Pentium M is about equivalent to a desktop Pentium 4 3.2Ghz - 3.4Ghz. It really depends on the application. Pentium M is faster in pretty much all of the applications - especially gaming. The only things the P4 does better besides heat your house is rendering/encoding. The PM can handle whatever you throw at it, not to worry.

Yeah, there is no point to getting an i9300 if you aren't getting the Go6800 option - then you're better off with the i6000.

BF2 won't run too well on an X300....but it'll fly on a Go6800!

 

awesome, the 9300 it is, thanks for the help guys...now i just gotta wait for that 25% coupon to come back around

 

I bought the I9300 to take to work etc. I love it, but one major problem, it is a desktop replacement notebook, something that was not really said when I bought it, I did not realise how big it was, not one you can carry around everywhere, it is massive.

So I ended up taking it to work 4 times, because by the time you carry it around it gets to be a pain. So I then went a bought myself the smallest dell I could afford with best bang for my buck and went with the 700m.

Either way you can get the I9300, but get 3 years warranty, because if you are going to move around with it all the time, I do not think it is built for daily carrying and bangs. So with the warranty you can bang it around for 3 years and not worry if something goes bang.

Frankly, out of my Dimension 8300, the I9300 and the 700m, I use the 700m the most, nothing like sitting around the house with a wireless connection having the 700m on your lap and typing away (like now sitting out in the backyard typing in this forum) Luv it.

 

If you need to have the touchpad disabled when using the USB Mouse port, in the newer 6000s this feature has been eliminated. So, the cursor flies around the screen if you hit the touchpad by accident with your finger. It is a REAL pain, and there is NO fix. Other than that the 6000 is lovely.

 

FYI Dell has 30% coupon out right now.

I just recived my i9300 yesterday. Great laptop! I saved $1000 on it with a coupon and discount from my college.

 

I checked out the Dell Coupons and its only for the XPS line, im just getting a normal Inspiron 9300, i tried entering both coupons at my checkout screen and it recognized the coupon but said more things are required...so im pretty sure the ones posted on this site only work for the XPS line.

 

Yeah, I just tried it myself and its not working. Did some more research and found alot of people are having trouble with the coupon with both XPS and 9300's.
Maybe Dell decided to cancel the coupon or online resellers snapped it up fast.

 

the 6800 card on the 9300 is well worth it, can take anything you throw at it and with streaming online multimedia and other things becoming more graphically intense, I would recommend getting the best graphics card you can afford. the 9300 is a great system but if you cannot afford it i would go with the 6000D or just wait a bit. When buying a laptop its best to get the most you can now, getting one with bare minimal requirements can be far more expensive to upgrade and you may find yourself in need rather quickly as new operating systems will require more powerful graphics capabilities, windows vista and future operating systems plan on speeding themselves up by taxing your video card. IF you plan on doing gaming, go with the 9300 and the 6800 grpahics card, the ati x300 card is not going to be able to play new games very well or future games at all and it uses some of your system memory for graphics, the ati x300 is not a completley dedicated graphics card, see the ATI website and anandtech or toms hardware for more information on this.

 

wow, i made this thread a while back, already got my 9300, thanks for the further input though

 

LOL! Well, your thread helped me make up my mind. I'm waiting now for UPS to deliver to me my 9300

Ray

 

awesome! :dell: