Still Worth Getting 1520?

Ever since yesterday when that news regarding the 1520 having a slow 8600GT came out, I've been pondering over whether or not to continue waiting for my order or perhaps cancel. I was banking on the 8600GT being top of the line, but what do you know it's the same Dell with its bag of tricks..further, after seeing more pictures and clearly seeing that the 1520 is pretty thick in comparision to other models and that it weighs in at 7.4 POUNDS!!!! with the 9-cell battery, my decision seems to be even more necessary. Add to this that the Dell doesn't come with HDMI, DVI, or even gigabit ethernet...I'm feeling ever more compelled.

Please post your replies on what you think about this and possible alternative models to the Dell 1520 that are in roughly the same price range (up to $1700with tax and shipping) that aren't so bulky, have an 8600GT with GDDR3 running w/ 22.4 GBs graphics bandwidth, and for a bonus perhaps have more features such as Gigabit ether or DVI port.

Thanks

 

Hell yes!
I don't think there is another laptop with similar specs that even comes close to it's price. Even if the video card sucks, which it doesn't. You will still be able to play a lot of the high-end games well. 7.4 pounds? That's only like 3.4kgs, it's like the weight of 4 standard textbooks.

 

Well I can think of one that comes close off the top of my head...Compal IFL-90 / Sager 2090

 

8600GT for $1700AU? Not happening elsewhere!

 

I'm US...not AU

 

It depends on what you wanna do with it. Do you really need HDMI/DVI? Is it that much bigger and heavier than the competition?

The 8600GT isn't a bad videocard, on the contrary: It's one of the best, if not, THE best card you can get for a 15" laptop!

And if you really need HDMI/DVI, i would take a serious look at the new XPS

 

No I agree the 8600GT is one of the best graphics cards for a laptop...it's just that the one in the 1520 is crippled to the max.

 

I think it should be stated, and stated again, the compal ifl90 does NOT have a faster graphics card than the Dell. According to the benchmarking on the compal website, the 3dmark scores are VERY similar.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=138614

 

I completely agree with you there...but at least it's somewhat thinner and has a little more features right (512mb instead of 256 for 8600GT, fingerprint reader, etc.)

 

according to many sources, the 512 mb of ram for the compal ifl90 *this could be false* is actually false advertising, what they mean is that you get 256 which is turbocache up to 512 due to the included ram.

I guess the good thing about dell is warranty right? Sleep better at night, Sager has the worst warranty ever. They're authorized resellers are a different story, but from what I have heard, both Dell and Sager products are not built well but because Dell is a bigger corporation, you can argue your cause and they will comply.

 

uh Sager got their IFL90's from Compal, which has one of the better built qualities. the 512 meg version is not turbo cache, but actual ram and you can ask the people that got the sager 2090 about it... They have the same clocks, hence the similar scores at similar resolutions, but the extra 256mb of ram can be useful for some things...
The Asus C90S is rumored to have a 8600GT 512MB GDDR3 card with a Intel Conroe C2D E6600 and be had for around the 1600USD mark with 2 or 3 gigs of ram if you're interested.

 

hm.. I would disagree as they are said to have poor manufacturing, maybe good built qualities. like i said, when i'm buying a laptop, warranty matters and dealing with compal,sager, or resellers might not be as straightforward as dealing with Dell who sends someone to your house to fix our problem.

i actually got the 512 turbo cache theory from someone on the compal board based on the assumption from the guy from powernotebooks saying that both cards (in Dell and in IFL90) are going to be indifferentiable by the eye. Like I said I don't know much and even if IFL90 has 512, Dell can turbo cache up there as well.

 

Since when is Dell's 8600 GT "crippled" in the 1520 and 1720?

 

It was revealed that the memory for the 8600GT in the 1520 runs at 800mhz instead of 1400 as it should be.

 

What about the 1720?

 

I don't know about the 1720...I'm guessing probably the same thing