Hi I'm new, and thinking about buying a Dell Latitude. Please help me decide what its insides should be.

Hello, I found this forum after reading a laptop review on the main site. The forum seems to have a very well-organized, and well educated community, so I hope you don't mind answering a few questions I have....

I've decided to invest in a Latitude D531 after reading a review here. It has a sleak, sturdy, modest design/layout; a full, comfortable looking keyboard, and plenty of rear ports. It also doesn't come with unnecessary additions like a built in camera or a DVD burner. AND it seems to be reasonably priced (as well as quiet, according to the review). My question pertains to what technical specifications I should choose since I'll most likely be ordering it through Dell's website.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=bldwisd&s=bsd

Which processor to choose -
AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Processor TL-56 (1.80GHz 1M) [add $40]
Mobile AMD Athlon TK57 (1.90GHz 256K) Dual Core [included in price]
AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Processor TL- 60 (2.00GHz 1M)[add $60]

I don't want to spend more than I have to but I wouldn't mind doing some video editing on this laptop. I also plan on doing some Flash work, and I probably won't be using Photoshop too often. My current PC isn't that fast so I'm not expecting much.

LCD Panel:
15.4 inch Wide Screen WXGA LCD Panel [Included in Price]
15.4 inch Wide Screen WXGA+ TrueLife™ LCD Panel [add $70]

What's the difference here besides price? The review I saw had a TrueLife monitor and the reviewer was complaining about reflections. Is it worth the extra money?

HardDrive:
80gb 7200 or
120gb 7200

This is seems like a no brainer, but I was wondering if anyone here has any experience with Dell harddrives and whether or not its better to just invest in a third party one.

Last but not least - WiFi. I've never used WiFi before so I'm not really sure what to do here. There are three options and I'm thinking about sticking with the cheapest one unless someone says otherwise. The three options are:

Dell Wireless™ 1390 802.11g Mini Card [Included in Price]
Dell Wireless™ 1490 802.11a/g Dual-band Mini Card [add $19]
Dell Wireless™ 1505 Draft 802.11n Mini Card [add $39]

Thanks for reading this. Any response is appreciated so don't be shy.

Thanks again, IN

 

I'm surprised it costs $70 to add TrueLife! It really depends on wether or not you want a glossy screen. Colors are more vivid, but glare may be an issue. But is it worth $70?!

I've had no problems with Dell hard drives; I think mine have been Hitachi, but my friend's is Toshiba.

 

You're supposed to tell me! :laugh:

Are they pretty silent?

 

The WXGA has 1280X800 resolution and is non-glare while the WXGA+ has 1440X900 resolution and is glossy.

In my opinion, non-glare is best in most cases, except for movies. Non-glare is definitely better for work and study, especially reading, photo editing and graphic design.

The higher resolution 1440X900 is best for spreadsheets and side-by-side windows. The lower resolution is somewhat better for people who have trouble reading small text, but the smaller font size of the 1440X900 can be increased in Windows settings.

 

Hey! TrueLife is supposed to have much deeper blacks and more vivid colors. But glare is a big factor. With my last three laptops I always opted for matte screens as I tend to work outdoors and at Starbucks' and Seattle's Bests more often than I do inside my dark cave. So obviously glare was not an option for me. However, if you're going to use the system for multimedia and entertainment on the side, a glossy screen is great. I borrowed my dad's 17 inch Pavillion 9000 while I was getting mine fixed and watching DVDs on that screen is a MUCH better experience than on a matte sceen.

Also, WXGA is 1280x800 while WXGA+ is 1440x900. It's up to you, really, what resolution best fits your needs.

Regarding the Wi-Fi cards, in the end I find having it in there and not needing it too often is much better than not getting it and one day finding you DO need it. I mean, it's less than 50 bucks more, right? I opted for the Intel 4965 a/g/n card. Most wifi hotspots here are either a or b (and mostly b) and I don't have an N router at home either. I just wanted to make sure I was relatively future-proofed in case I decide to upgrade to a faster router within the lifetime of this computer.

Hope this helps you!

 

You beat me on ALL fronts by ONE minute, Fuzzy! Hahaha!

 

I recommend 7200 rpm.

Third-party drives are cheaper, but, since these Dell driives are pretty cheap, I'm not sure whether the savings are worth the hassle of re-installing the OS and software.

Given these prices, the main reason I would look at third party drives is to get higher capacity 7200 rpm drives. 120 GB would not be enough for me. I think Vista uses about 35GB and Dell includes a recovery partition. Restore points take a lot of room if you enable them. If you plan on storing RAW photos, a lot of music or any video, 120 GB is not enough, unless you won't be keeping the laptop for over a year. However, keep in mind that the website only shows some of the options; you can probably get a higher capacity configuration if you order by phone instead of online.

 

I have several D531's at work. Nice laptops.

Anyway, for your uses, particularly for your editing etc I would go for the following...

1. The fastest CPU you can - 2GHz from your list above. the price difference is small so you may as well step up to it. remember, you cant really upgrade components in the notebook after purchase, so you may as well go for the better processor since the price difference is so small.

2. The panel is up to personal preference. The TruLife panel looks really nice, and colours are sharp and vivid, but it suffers from glare in daylight. So this depends on where you are using the laptop. If glare is not an issue for you, then go for the TrueLife.

3. Biggest HDD you can get - especially for editing. I have known Dell to send out Hitachi HDD's usually. These drives are fine, especially if you get the 7200rpm, which i do recommend. You need a 7200rpm drive, and the more drive space you can get, the better. Then again, its very easy to upgrade the HDD later on to something bigger if you need to, from a third party manufacturer. I tend to go for seagate's, since they are cooler and a little quieter then Hitachi.

Heres a guide I made on changing your HDD, it will be exactly the same process for your D531...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg_EhfPcZX4

4. You didnt mention RAM? The more the better! The D531 should support up to 4GB. Bear in mind a 32bit OS wont be able to see a full 4GB - it will see around 3.25GB. The amount of RAM you go for depends on your OS. If you are using Windows XP, go for 2GB RAM as a minimum. If you are going to use Vista push this up to 4GB. Even though the OS wont see the full 4GB, you will benefit from dual channel mode, since both RAM sticks will be the same size and speed.
If you do go for 2GB, try to ensure its a single 2GB stick. Dell sometimes add in 2x1GB sticks. Laptops only have 2 RAM slots, and if they put in 2x1GB sticks, thats your slots full. If they use a single 2GB stick, at least you have a spare slot in which you can add more RAM from a 3rd party manufacturer in the future.

Again heres another video I made on how to add more RAM to your system. Bear in mind your laptop will come with RAM installed under the keyboard, so you should easily be able to upgrade via the panel under the laptop. Check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvCEmKvqxfQ

Hope that helps.
Ifti

 

I just bought a D530 which is quite similar, except that it's Intel vs AMd...

I'd agree with the above replies...I specifically avoided the glossy screen as I'd seen those in stores and they have WAY too much glare for me!

I picked the std b/g wi-fi as that's the most common that I'd run into..."n" is, to me, too much in flux still...and unless you have a "n" at home/work, it may be of minimal use.

The larger HD with 7200 makes more sense for you...I took the 5400 as I'm doing mostly text type processing...and while it's fairly easy to swap drives, it's more compicated to swap CPU's so going for best one there makes more sense, IMO.
Also, I got XP as I have no use for Vista now...and there was only a extremely small special Dell partition.

I priced mine via web and then talked with a sales rep who gave me some additional discounts that I'd not have gotten just by buying straight from web.

I also got the additional in-home service for total of 4 yrs as that's minimally how long I'll be relying on it for business use, so not having a PC for more than 1-2 days (weekends) is not an option for me!

 

I told you the pros and cons, and so I'm asking if you really want to pay $70 for that.

Yep, they're pretty silent.

 

Wow, thanks for all the nice replies!

(on a side note, this forum moves really fast)

 

well Im a fast mover

 

Another thing. This may not be relevant for many types of home video editing, but if you do a fair amount of certain types of high definition video editing, you might want to wait a few weeks for a Penryn CPU (models T8100, T8300, Y9300, T9500).

The Penryn's use a new instruction set that is far faster for doing certain types of video compression. At this point, there is very limited availability of software able to use the new instruction set, but this will improve.