Is it worth getting anything other than base spec M1330?

All

Am now very interested in the M1330, but am generally apalled at the amount Dell asks European customers for most of the upgrades. They key ones here are the processor and memory.

T5250 (1.50 GHz,667MHz,2 MB L2 cache) [Included in Price]
T7100 (1.80 GHz,800MHz,2 MB L2 cache) [add £129.25]
T7300 (2.00 GHz,800MHz,4 MB L2 cache) [add £223.25]
T7500 (2.20 GHz,800MHz,4 MB L2 cache) [add £340.75]
T7700 (2.20 GHz,800MHz,4 MB L2 cache) [add £517.00]

Bearing in mind that £1 = $2, this is plain silly. Can anyone suggest how much difference these processors actually make to day-to-day usage?

As far as memory is concerned, they charge £110 for an extra 1Gb. I can buy 1GB for £40. If I simply buy a 1Gb or 2Gb module from elsewhere, and partner it with the 512Mb module still in the machine, will this be ok for the DDR to work effectively, or do they both have to be the same (2x1Gb etc)?

Thanks for your help everyone

Alex

 

Dell have always charged silly prices for extra RAM and bigger HDDs, presumably because many people will pay. The £849 version comes with a T7100 and 2GB RAM and I think the upgrade to the LED backlit display is worthwhile. But I value battery life over graphics performance but a downgrade to the X3100 GPU is not an option with that version.

The RAM is easily accessible on the M1330, but the HDD may be more difficult.

John

 

Thanks John, I never saw the £849 version before, you really have to poke around the site to get all the offers!

I assume the difference between the T7100 and the T7300 will be minimal on this sort of machine (with average GFX card etc)?

As regards the battery - I know the 9 cell sticks out the back a lot, what about the 6 cell?

 

The 6 cell does not stick out, it's just a bit heaver than the 4 cell.

 

The £799 and £849 versions were there on Thursday, were absent on Friday and are now back again.

The T7300 is around 15% faster than the T7100 due to higher speed and bigger cache. However, the difference is not noticeable unless you run applications which heavily load the CPU for significant periods. I am a little wary of the T5250 since Intel have yet to publish the detailed specs. It might be fully functioning or it might be missing something.

Had I been able to downgrade the £849 version to the Intel graphics I might well have put in an order. The dedicated graphics clearly hit the battery life. To quote Dell:

If you want a good spec in the 13.3" size but don't need the dedicated graphics, look at the Rizeon S37E. If you want a good spec with a basics dedicated GPU and a good price then The Samsung Q70 is an alternative and is in stock now.

John