Inspiron 1520 / Vostro 1500 questions

Been looking to get a laptop, and have near enough settled on the Inspiron 1520 or the Vostro 1500. But I have a couple of questions first.

1 - the screen. I haven't had a laptop before, so I'm not too sure on the resolution I want. I've got the choice of 1280x800 or 1440x900 for the inspiron (and for the vostro the same, but a higher res aswell, which I'm not interested in). What do people think is best for the 15.4" screen? (will be used for web browsing, schoolwork, video conversion, some video watching and gaming).

2 - Also, I've read about grainy screens. Is the inspiron / vostro any more susceptible to this than the other model? And are certain resolution screens more likely to get the problem?

3 - For the Hard drive, how much performance increase would I see going to a 7200 drive? Is it worth me going for a smaller hard drive to get a faster one?

4 - Again, since I've never had a laptop before, battery life is something I've never had any experience with. Using the 6 cell battery, how long would one of the models last for with a 2.2Ghz C2D and a 8600M GT doing things like web browsing, and then gaming? And would it be worth investing in the 9 cell battery (laptop will be used mainly indoors for a year, but when I go to uni next year I'll be carrying it around with me a fair bit).

5 - Something I haven't seen yet while I've been looking around - about how long does it take to fully charge the battery?

6 - Inspiron Vs Vostro. Are there any big differences? I know that you can request that none of the bloatware rubbish is installed on the vostro, the inside of it is black instead of silver, and that there isn't a choice of colours for the vostro. But is there anything else, like build quality or heat/noise?

7 - If I was to get the Inspiron, how would I go about getting rid of all the bloatware? Would uninstalling it all be enough? If not, do dell provide the Windows Vista installation disc (or does the recovery partition install a clean copy?) If not to that aswell, could I just use my friends Vista disc, but install it using my CD key?

Sorry for all the questions, but I am very inexperienced when it comes to laptops.
Thanks for anyone who answers any of the questions

 

For web browsing and schoolwork, the low res is probably best because the fonts and icons will be larger. However you can always adjust DPI to increase font size.
For video watching, it would depend on the resolution of the video. If it's larger than 1280x800, it would be better to have the 1440x900 screen. If the resolution is 1280x800 or smaller, it's better to have the low res screen so more of the video picture fills the screen.
For gaming, it's best to have the low res screen because it's less work for the video card to display at 1280x800 than at 1440x900, and your frame rate will be better at the low resolution. This assumes you're using native resolution to play the game (the screen is sharpest at native resolution).

The low res screen seems less susceptible. But there are always exceptions.

If you're going to be copying a lot of large files, it would probably be worth getting the faster drive. Also, Windows will boot a little faster.

Web browsing shouldn't take much battery life, unless you're using wireless.
My 6-cell lasted 2 or 3 hours, depending on what I was doing.
Gaming will eat a lot of battery life. You should probably plan to be plugged in somewhere when gaming. Get a portable surge protector if you plan to game while away from home.

I'd recommend the 9 cell. It sticks out from the laptop a bit (maybe 3/4 of an inch), but I think it's worth the extra battery time.

I'm not sure. I ran mine down by accident -- watching a movie and didn't notice the remaining charge got too low and the screen shut off. I plugged it in and two and a half hours later it was charged. But it may have taken less time than that.

No. If you don't care about getting a colored lid, just check the price.

It might be enough for you. It is for some people, not for others. The advantage of just uninstalling what you don't want is that you don't have to worry about getting your Bluetooth or whatever configured.

Yes Dell will provide you with a disc which is almost clean. It installs Dell specific software, but you can get rid of that.

I don't know if a Dell key would work with a non-Dell install disc.

 

you dont enter the vista key...its embedded in the vista dvd.