Inspiron 1705 question for you owners out there

I am considering buying an Insprion 1705 and have a few questions:

- does the 9 cell battery option fit within the footprint of the laptop itself, or does it extend past it? Batteries which exstend past the footprint of the laptop are a major pet peeve of mine.

- with the 7900GS option, does it support dual-display? For example, a desktop which spans two displays, or a desktop and a full screen game?

- if so, what combinations of displays can be used for dual display?
17" + DVI?
17' + VGA?
DVI + VGA?

- does the s-video out only show what is currently on the 17" display, or can it also be used as a second display?

- if / when I ever want to upgrade the GPU, do I have to go to Dell? Are these proprietary parts?

Thanks in advance...I tried calling dell on this and these questions are *way* too advanced for the technoidiots they have manning the phones.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

Welcome to the forums!

The 9 cell fits within the frame of the notebook.
You can use the s-video as a second display.
The video cards are shaped specifically for certain form factors--you'll have to order a dell part to have it fit.

 

I have an E1705 (9cell batt) and I'm very hapy with it. For the price it is one of the best laptops out there. Definitely get the built in BlueTooth module also. It costs about $17 and lets you use a BT mouse. If you use a non BT cordless mouse you will have one of those USB receivers sticking out of the side...

 

Thanks for the replies folks.

Yes, I'm definately planning on getting the BT support. In fact I already have the MS BlueTooth mouse and keyboard waiting which I picked up on BF for $0 after rebate.

Can anybody confirm that nvidia TwinView works on the 7900GS in this notebook?

I will be using this for game dev. So, for example, what I want to be able to do is drive my primary Desktop on a 24" Dell ws via DVI (oriented vertically for maximum code viewing), while running my game full-screen on the built-in 17" LCD @ 1080p. I do this on my desktop already, and am spoiled and definately don't want to lose this capability.

thanks,
Ryan

 

Just a few comments about the graphics card. You can upgrade the graphics card under 2 conditions: 1.) you have a dedicated card 2.)you can only upgrade to cards that are specifically offered for your laptop. Even if dell offers a better card for your model in the future, you can upgrade to that.

There are some limitations, but generally you can follow those two rules for the inspirons.

 

Thanks for all the help folks. I pulled the trigger last night about 3 minutes before the coupons expired. ;-)

Here is what I have shipping to me on or about 12/7:

Dell Inspiron 1705
2.0ghz Core 2 Duo
2GB DDR2 @ 667mHz
WUXGA
7900GS 256mb
100GB SATA @ 7200rpm
DVD burner
Bluetooth
9-cell

I was amazed at just how cheap this was. The 25% coupon rocked. Overall was *considerably* less than $2k including shipping.

Now comes the hard part...the wait. ;-)

- Ryan

 

That's a nice system man, hope you enjoy it, I know I'm injoying mine.
I hooked up my laptop to my 37" HDTV through DVI-HDMI and the picture quality is stunning!!!! and that's on 1080i not 1080p since my HDTV doesn't support it :/ but still, grab a DVI-HDMI if you have a HDTV with HDMI input and you woun't regret it. Much better than S-video.