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    Inspiron 9400 Questions

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by sgoldman, May 15, 2006.

  1. sgoldman

    sgoldman Newbie

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    Just saw the ad for the 9400 in the paper yesterday. I was wondering if anyone has compared it to the 1705 at this point. The only major difference I can see (based on what you can customize - not on the base laptop) is that the 9400 comes with XP Home or Professional and the 1705 has XP Media Center available. I know that the XP home costs more than Media Center but for what I want to do (edit and watch DVDs, streaming video, music, desktop publishing, basic Word, Excel, Powerpoint. it seems like XP Media Center would be a better choice, but it is not available as an option for the 9400.

    Is Media Center a good thing for what I want to use it for?

    Does anyone think that Dell might customize a 9400 if I called them?

    How much (and difficult) would it be to change over to Media Center right when I get the laptop (while it is theoretically clean).

    I ask since it looks like the 9400 may be a lot cheaper with pretty much the same specs.

    Thanks, Steve
     
    sgoldman, May 15, 2006
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  2. doughy

    doughy Notebook Consultant

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    Hi,
    Im in the UK and when i got my i9400 it came with Windows XP MCE, and the E1705 here comes with XP Pro. I like the idea of the media centre but its not that neccesary to have it, there are loads of alternatives out there to the media centre. Nero do a package which covers nearly everything you could need.
    If you get XP Pro it wouldnt be hard to change over to MCE just a case of getting the correct cd and installing it but i wouldnt bother in my personal opinion.

    Cheers
     
    doughy, May 15, 2006
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