NinefootXPS

Well. I spent about 3 nights shopping at local stores and online. Best thing for me right now was to order the XPS M140.

Yeah yeah yeah... similar to the i9300, I know.

I went for something that's fast but nothing I'll game on. I don't plan to game on the machine anyway since my home systems are plenty fast and already 'geared' for my gaming pleasure. Plus, I can't seem to adjust to the ergonomics of laptop gaming. Screen too close, keyboard to small, etc.

Somehow I played with the coupon codes, advertised specials, more coupon codes and percent off deals and got :

XPS M140 Intel® Pentium® M Processor 760 (2GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)

Display 14.1 inch WXGA TrueLife™ LCD Panel
14XGAS
[320-4419]

Memory 1GB Shared DDR2 SDRAM 2 Dimms

Video Card Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900
INTVID
[320-4414]

Hard Drive 80GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
80GB
[341-2790]

Operating System (Office software not included) Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
WMCE

Integrated Modem and NIC Internal 56K Modem and Integrated Network Card 56MPC

Optical FREE 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability 8XDVDRP

Wireless Networking Cards Intel® PRO 2915 and Dell 350 Bluetooth Internal Wireless Cards


Battery 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (

Hardware Warranty 2Yr Ltd Warranty, 2Yr Mail-In Service, and 2Yr HW Warranty Support

Media Center Enhancements Remote Control for Windows XP Media Center Edition
RMTMC

PRICE - 1067.00

oh, 18mo no interest too

I wish I could repeat how I did it cos I'd order another for my girlfriend.

I'll post more info when it comes in. I ordered it last night at like midnight or so (1/12/06)

 

Nice system. Hope you enjoy it.

 

Excuses!!! Just like my brother, he never made Mario, on the original NES, make the first jump properly because of "excuses" like that. Now he's pretty much screwed as he can't play a few Star Wars games with my PS2 (no keyboard), lol. j/k

 

Oh, I game... trust me. Ya don't drop $2k on a home built system and NOT game! Just can't do it sitting that close to the machine. Bigger monitors, larger keyboards and faster mice make my gaming experience DESK BOUND.

and i'm not j/k haha.

 

Tell us how it goes - we always love opinions!!

 

now I'm looking at a b130 for the ole' lady.

gotta research that model first, you know the drama.

She just checks email, does some spreadsheets, a little digital picture crap, surfs a little.

A Celeron should handle that eh?

I plan to get the lowest memory possible since I can upgrade it myself from newegg for WAY less.

 

i used to think that way about laptop gaming too, but then i realised how fricking cool it is to be able to play video games in front of my tv downstairs. There's no way I can fit a 55" widescreen in my room. I always thought it was stupid to pay such a premium on portability, but jeeze, this laptop is just mega awesome. I think it still a huge premium to pay, and the 1900 I spent on this laptop would get me a bleeding edge PC, but I seriously can't put a price on being able to play BF2 while watching basketball.

 

Hahahaha, that's why I use a laptop, I'm more of a multitasker. When I was in college, I used to study and do homework while watching TV and playing the stereo. I also like playing on my laptop while watching TV, lol. I like portability! You will sendom see me around a desktop (now that I have this laptop). My brother could never undestand the "styleness" of that.

 

Well, I ordered the unit Friday night after midnight.

It's TUESDAY and I have the unit. I had to chase down the order since it was shipped to my NEIGHBOR'S house and not MINE! (i checked on dell.com, my info entered correct, unsure who dropped the ball). I had to wait until 7:30pm to go to the local UPS office and collect my goods.

That's pretty ****ed fast. Order SAT early AM and rec'd Tuesday evening. Yes a did a few upgrades as well.

I have ONE QUESTION.

All of the 'shared video' systems I've seen has the amount of ram allowed to the video adapter adjustable in the BIOS. I can't for the life of me (yes I skimmed the manual) figure out where I'm supposed to up the video memory amount. It's at 8mb now and I"d like to max it at 64.

I've installed my single stick of 1gb Muskin (another on order).

Is the XPS 140 using dual-channel memory? ANyone?

Nothing I find online answers my questions.

 

I thought that the system was supposed to automatically allocate the memory, but I could be wrong. I read it somewhere on one of Dell's webpages.

 

I think you're right SG - the Intel GMA 900/950 dynamically allocates system RAM depending upon what you're doing. When you're doing general productivity, the GPU will only take the minimal amount to free up RAM. In gaming situations, it'll allocate the max. amount of system RAM allowed to the GPU.

 

Ok, the shared video card on the XPS M140, I'm told will automatically allocate appropreate video memory according to what you are doing. For example 8MB's of Graphics memory is more then enough for browsing the web, but if you want to try to run some semi-demanding games, it should bump it up to 64 or 128Mb's. The Intel GMA 900 can support 128 of "shared" GPU memory.

The XPS M140 does use duel channel memory, and the memory runs at 533 Mhz.

 

Thanks guys. Didn't see anything about the 'auto allocation' in the manual, then again, I sorta skimmed thru it.

While I don't intend to game with the system, I do plan to run a few benchmarks before and after varied changes I make to the original system config / software config.

So, if I format and kill all the lame partitions and put MCE 05 on a freshly formatted drive, I can get all the dell support softwares and other crap from dell, I presume? Of course, I have a home machine and will burn off needed wares prior to the procedure.