Latitude D520-Good idea for college?

Hi everyone. Was just wondering if the D520 is a good machine for a soon to be college student. I looked at the Inspiron line, but wanted the support and service of the Latitude line. A few of my questions are as follows:

1. Is anyone running Vista with all Aero effects enabled? Does the GMA 950 integrated graphics put a significant dent in performance with about 1 or 2 gigs of RAM? I'm asking this because if I choose this notebook I'll pick Vista Business as my operating system.

2. How is the screen quality? I'm asking this because in the D520's review thread ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=76195&page=2) one member (possukana) said that the screen as well as some other components were horrible. Does your impressions of the system match his or hers?

3. Should I choose the SXGA+ screen?

4. Latitude Service and Support-Is it better than what I would get on an Inspiron ordered from small business with the "Gold Technical Support" option?

5. The ordering process from Dell small business-Does the site require you to be a small business?

That's all for now
Thanks

 

well, i'm gonna answer 2 of your questions based on my experience.

3. sxga+ screen always beats xga+, coz it gives you 70% more view range than xga. especially, if you need to do some programming or editing works, then sxga improves your efficiency dramatically.

5. the small business name is required. the name of my univeristy works for me.

 

thanks a bunch i suppose I should move this to the "what notebook should I buy" forum to see if i get more responses

 

my friend has a m1210 with GMA 950, he says it runs vista areo just fine

 

read this review on the Dell XPS M1210 with Intel GMA 950 Graphics card has screenshots and score. This will give you a idea of what Windows Vista will be like.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=110289