Not another e1505 thread!

Ah, yes: my first post here at NotebookReview Forums. Don't be fooled, I've actually been here for about three months now, unregistered, of course, researching which laptop would be best for me. Your help through both asking and answering questions has been invaluable to me.

That being said, I've just received my Dell order confirmation email for my new Inspiron e1505. Obligatory specs follow:

Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2300 (2MB Cache/1.66GHz/667MHz FSB) (Very pleased with this)
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 (will be junked immediately in exchange for Pro)
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife™ (A little worried about this - didn't want to spend $100 extra for the top-of-the-line LCD which, apparantly, is a piece of ****, to put it elegantly. I do hope the TrueLife coating will serve me well. We shall see.)
1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm ) )
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (Was going to go for the most expensive option, but realized it would likely not be worth it, as it would still stink. I suppose I'll have to break out the old playstation for my gaming needs)
60GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive (This thing is going to FLY)
Network Card and Modem Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem (No clue what this means)
24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive (I will never need to burn a DVD as long as I live, so why pay extra?)
Intel® PRO 3945 and Dell 350 Bluetooth Internal Wireless Cards (Most important part of the system - only wish there was a/b/g availiable)

So, then, let me know what you all think, and if someone would be so kind as to link me to a place where I can download some benchmarking software, I'll be more than happy to run it and post the results.

I do, however, have one more question: how is Dell's shipping? I am patient when there's no money involved, but when there is, I want what I bought right away. I'm strange like that. This being so, I specified Next Day Delivery. Expected ship date is April 12 - hoping it will come sooner. What are my odds?

Finally, I would like to ask you all to take a moment of silence in honor of my current computer (Ancient hp pavillion 533w desktop monster - 256mb RAM, 1.99GHz Celeron processor. The new notebook will be a drastic change for sure!), who will be butchered for parts when the e1505 comes. This may very well be one of its last forum posts.

Cheers,

Mike

 

Dell's shipping is great. You just have to remember when it goes into boxing it is actually getting shipped here to the states to get boxed. Which takes 3 business days. Once it is here and boxed, then it gets given to a local courier to the regional distro center and shipped. Next day shipping is kinda weird. I recieved my laptop before I got the tracking number.

*bows head in rememberance of old machines laid to waste*

Welcome to NBR!

 

I ordered my e1505 from Dell on March 24. I recieved it yesterday. This was with the 3-5 Free Shipping. It was expected to arrive on the 25 of April. I think you have nothing to worry about when it comes to the speed of the shipping. It really depends on how long it takes for your parts to arrive and where you are located.

 

Shipping is ever more bizarre for me... Im within the 1 day shipping UPS shipping range of their distribution center... so I get packages from them the next day when their ordered ground or next day.

Heres the wierd part... Next day delivers here in the afternoon, and ground around 11am. So I get orders from dell faster shipped ground then if they are shiped next day.

i got my e1505 yesterday but had to have it exchanged do to a screen issue... and their sending the exchange next day... so ill get it later than if they shipped ground. Lol.

 

^ hahaha, that is weird

 

according to this the Intel® PRO 3945 is a/g/b

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/lea...otebooks&~lt=popup&~series=inspn&~tab=details

 

My notebook is already in the boxing stage! Would I be crazy to assume I'll have it friday?

Mike

 

Well it usually takes 3-days in boxing, because it is shipped from Malayasia to the US. Then it is boxed and shipped to the regional distro center. If you got the normal shipping that will take 3-5 more days. I would think with the normal shipping option you will get it by mid-next week.

 

I purchased overnight shipping, hoping it would make it here by the end of the week. It seems the weeknd is not in my favor, and I'll get it around monday. Unless, that is, they ship on weekends, which I seriously doubt.

Mike

 

HA! I may just have a slight chance of getting this thing before the weekend - according to Dell, it's In Transit to my local carrier. Considering I purchased overnight shipping, I don't see why it should not be here tomorrow. It would, I must say, really stink to have to wait all weekend for it when I knew it was so close to delivery.

Mike

 

I had some crazy problems when I ordered mine through EPP (3/31/06). I signed up for dell's preferred credit and things were held up for days. I finally called on 4/4 and have to admit, the dell support folks went way out their way to accommodate me. My original shipment on date was 4/11/06. It will be here tomorrow (4/7). Not bad at all.

A lot of talk about boxing being a 3 day process. My boxing was actually less than a full day. Strange.

I've been extremely satisfied with Dell thus far.

 

You think thats bad... my first e1505 (getting exchange due to bad screen) arrived at the distribution center in my town on friday... but didnt arrive til monday.. It sat 10 miles away from me all weekend. :-(

 

Yeah, that happens to me every time I order something. The UPS distro center is less than 2 miles from my house. I wish I ould just pick stuff up.

 

From alot of them you can... during the week... they just arent open on weekends... which of course is when everyone wants to pick up something.

 

I placed my order for the E1505 on 3/30 and received it on 4/5, so you should be receiving it very soon.

 

Yeah, Monday. It's literally 3 miles from my house, but I can't pick up. It's rather annoying.

Mike

 

This message is being posted from my brand new e1505. It's perfect - flawless screen, nice touchpad. The thing has none of the problems I dreaded. Not a dead pixel in sight! And you wouldn't believe how much faster this thing is than my previous computer. After neutralizing all bloatware, it absolutely flies. The speakers are not half bad, either.

Mike

 

Congrats... my second one was fairly flawless as well... its a really nice machine IMO!!!

I cleared off most the bloat... replaced McAffe with avast!, replaced the Catalyst drivers with the Omega Drivers (gave me an extra 100 on 3dmark) and have been moving stuff over from my new machine. So far the ONLY thing ive found that makes it break a sweat at all is encoding a dvd... peaked both cpus at about 95%... but would throttle back fine and let me do other things... just used all that power to crank out the dvd faster if nothing else was going on.

 

Alchemist, have you played a DVD inside Windows yet? Mine is all choppy, and I want to know if other E1505 owners are having this issue. I started a thread, but kind of got generic responses...

 

I also have that problem, in MC it gets choppy but only in the center of the screen. Media Player plays them fine. Im thinking of sending mine back anyhow for one with the 256mb video card, that 128 blows real hard even with the gig of ram I added.

Playing simple games like AOEII drags the machine down to a crawl and forget about video editing, but solitaire runs GREAT!! I really like the machine just seems like its not really made for multimedia.

 

A few quick shots...

Dell ****!


Laptop may be harmful if swallowed


Fresh out of the box


First look at the world


NBR Forums on the screen (Widescreen WXGA w/ Truelife)


Digital Blasphemy > all other desktop backgrounds (picture of screen)

 

I tried playing a DVD last night and it played fine... but I was on AC Power. I played it via media center.

Earlier though, I tried out the TV Tuner card and it was very choppy... and I was on battery power... so I put it on AC power and suddenly it was smooth.

My guess is that the default laptop power mode is sucking the life out of the machine. I know it kicks my 2ghz machine down to 1ghz. You can correct it by setting the power profile to one of the non portable settings. Id try that before I returned it... it might just be a bit too agressive on its power saving approach.