Inspiron 8600 Dothan

I just was on Dell's site and saw that they added options for the new Dothan processors with the i8600. With specs of the 1.8 Dothan, 512 ram, 128 meg video card, 60 gig 7200rpm hard drive, it comes to around 2200 with the discount. Do you think this is a good deal, or should I wait until Dothan is tested more extensively?

 

I think if you have the money, I would go for it. However, if you do wait a little bit more, the prices may come down a bit. I think that's a decent price, although you might consider just getting 256 RAM, and upgrading to 512 on your own. That might save you some money.

I think the Dothan chips will be okay, since they are building on the previous chips.

 

I doubt Dell will be shipping those units right away though...there could be an extra waiting period.

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The other question I had was why Dell would make the price of the 1.8 Ghz Dothan (745) equal to the price of the old 1.7 Ghz P-M.

 

Dell's pricing schemas often don't make sense, so don't try and figure it out for too long [ ]

Dell has a note up saying that the 2.0GHz Pentium could cause delays in shipping, but I would guess they'll be slower on the 1.8GHz too. If you can wait for 2 - 3 weeks to get the notebook then all should be well. I agree, if you can afford the step up then go for it, it's always nice to be on the cutting edge and as these chips were finished a while ago and the only issue has been production capacity I'm sure it's safe to assume the chips won't have any problems.

 

The chips were delayed because of a "problem with one circuit, which impaired yield and quality. We decided to push it out. Since we had the Centrino with Banias, it was cost-effective to delay the product" (http://www.theinquirer.net/)

They had ample time to fix it in the 6 month delay, though, so I say go for the new guy, I sure as hell am

I'd look at tomshardware.com at their 8600 review. Granted, most ppl take his reviews with a grain of salt since he seems to push some things in his review (maybe money is changing hands [xx(]) but he makes an interesting comment. The 8600 is made out of cheesy plastic and the people who used it said it squeeked when they opened it and felt it might warp over time.

I'd definately go dell if they started selling the D800 with a 9700 mobility and dothan, but I think they're going to reserve the 9700 for their xps and 9100. You should take a look at the new Acer models (Aspire 2025 and Travelmate 8000) as well as the Sony which may be coming out tomorrow if that rumor isn't a hoax with photoshopped pics.

 

Nevermind, the D800 came and and although Cnet likes it PCMag sure as heck didn't. Slugglish and fat.