Thinking of making a few changes to my order - Help me decide, Please.

I placed an order for my Inspiron 1520 earlier today - I am thinking of making 2 changes and wanted to see what your thought was on this. This is my current config:

Inspiron 1520, Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, 2.0GHz, 800Mhz, 4M Cache
Jet Black Color with Matte Finish
1GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
15.4 inch Wide Screen WSXGA+ TrueLife LCD for Inspiron 1520
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
160G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, English
DELL RESOURCE DVD,BACK-UP INSP 1520
Media Direct 3.3
Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem, for Inspiron
Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0, for Inspiron
8X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive
Roxio Creator Basic
Integrated High Definition Audio 2.0
Intel 4965AGN Wireless-N Mini Card
Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
Creative Earbud EP630
Chose the promotional security package with service
WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery, for Inspiron 1520
3 Year Consumer Complete Care
Network Associates McAfee 8.0 English, 3-Year Subscription
DataSafe Online 10GB for Dim/Ins/XPS
3 Year Limited Warranty with Next Day Support
Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Mod


1) I saw the discussion in the 1520 owners lounge regarding WSXGA+ (1650 X 1200) and WXGA+ (1440 X 990). I order the WSXGA+ because it had the highest resolution and was the most expensive leading me to beleive that this was the best option. But from what I have read on the forums turns out the WXGA+ has 250 Nits whereas the WSXGA+ has only 200 Nits. Does this mean that WSXGA+ is not as bright and crisp as the WXGA+? Will I be able to tell the difference between the two? Also I hear that games will not run that good natively (Whatever that means?) on the higher resolution. I want the brightest / Most clear display with a good amount of real estate. I will not be connecting the laptop to an external monitor. I will be playing games and watching TV (Slingbox HD content) and DVDs on my laptop. Which screen should I get?

2) I chose the 160GB 5400RPM HD as I thought that I will not be able to detect difference in speed between the two and that I would get better battery life with the 5400RPM. But since I will be doing some gaming such as HL2 / FPS etc. should I upgrade to the 7200RPM as everything will be read of the HD or will I not see much of a difference. I will be transfering files occasionally between my laptop and external HD but a few minutes here and there will not kill me. I would like to have the best possible performance while running games, however. Do you think I should upgrade to the 7200RPM? Or will I not notice that much difference with the 5400RPM in it?

Please let me know if I should change these 2 options. Thanks!!

 

I don't know if you plan on doing this, but with Vista, its recommended you have at least 2 GB's of ram. So what you should do is maybe purchase some RAM offline and INSTALL IT YOURSELF (thanks to Sirius_GTO). It's not that hard of a process.

Look at the Hot Ram Deals thread (thanks to Gophn) for some good prices on ram.

 

Thanks Larson - That was the plan all along. I wanst paying $150 for 2 gigs of ram from Dell when I can get for half the price at Newegg. I just need some input on the Screen / HD. Anyone? Thanks.

 

1) I hardly think it will be noticable, considering you will most likely not be running it on max brightness to save battery life. Its a 25% increase in max brightness at the tradeoff of a 33% increase in "real estate," as you put it. I would rather have the real estate but that's just me. As for "crispness," they are equally crisp.

2) You could do what I'm doing: Get a 7200RM external and make disc images and store them on there, and then simply run your games etc off the external. This is how I keep my gaming separate from my work.

 

Iro - That's a great idea. I was thinking about getting the 160 GB 7200 RPM HDD when I was customizing my Dell, but it was about a $130 price increase to do that from the 120 GB 5400 RPM HDD. So I decided I would just put that $130 towards a nice external HDD. Is there a company that you would suggest investing in for an external? My friend has a Western Digital, and it looks really nice.

and sry vcash, I wish I could help you with the screen, but I'm unsure about those kinds of things.

 

Good suggestion IRO - but I already have a 80Gig 5400rpm USB 2.0 Iomega HD and will not have space to lug a second HD around. Hmmm.......

 

Can someone help explain the whole native game resolution thing? And advantages / disadvantages of having the WSXGA+ for viewing HD content and Movies?

 

native resolution just means that its the resolution that the monotor is supposed to be at. its where 1 pixel = 1 pixel.

Let me expain better:
If you have a 100pixel x 100pixel monetor then playing a game at 50pixels x50pixels will mean that every pixel will have to work as two pixels. this will of cource not look as good as where every pixel in-game is 1 pixel on the screen.

So if your going to be playing games on a 1680x1050 screen the best quality will be at 1680x1050, this is high resolution and ends up being problematic in that the GFX card will have to work more and you will not get the best preformance.

While on a 1220x900 (im realy messing up the screens but you get what i mean) will run better on higher settings and it will run at native resolution.

EDIT: In terms of HD content and movies. if your running a 15.4" screen at 1280x900 then thats way below HD. 1680x1050 is roughly 720p and if you want full HD then you need 1920x1200 on a 15" screen. the only company that ive seen offering that is Alienware. Movies will run better on the higher resolution due to more pixel space.

 

Thanks - So let me see if I got this:
1680 X 1050 - Game Performance suffers but HD performance is good at 720p
1440 X 900 - Games will run better natively but I won't get True HD content.

Damn..... I can never get my cake and eat it too.

 

Ok well im not gonna let you starve. what one can do. 1) you can knuckle down the screen to what ever resolution you want through the hardware. What will happen is your screen will only run at what ever resolution you need but it will have black scaling bars around the screen. Its not that bad. its like playing in windowed mode where the window is completely surrounded by black.
EDIT: The screen will only go down to that res when running aps at that res It will go back to 1680x1050 when your running your desktop/ windowed apps.

or 2) you can play at a resolution that forces each pixel ingame to be 4 on the screen. this will be slightly better. meaning that if your playing on 1680x1050 you may want to scale it down to 1280x800 or the one below it.

EDIT#2: Also you may want to think about buying an external monetor thats REALY cheap ($25-$75) with lower resolution for gaming.

 

Thanks Rev - appreciate all your advice. I actually stopped by at Best Buy and Circuit City to see if I could see the real estate gain / etc that WSXGA offered over WXGA and all they had were 1280 X 1040 laptops.

2nd Monitor is out of the question - cause I have a desktop with a Dell 19" Square LCD monitor (1280 X 1024) connected to an X1900GT c2d box. But, I will be travelling in a few months and won't be living at home - thats why I bought the laptop - its going to run independent of any monitors / projectors for most of the time.

The other thing that is bothering me is that the WXGA seems like a brighter screen with higher contrast. But the 1680 X 1920 has more space on the screen.



My old laptop had 1024 X 768 so anything would be a step up but I would like to have the nicest screen possible with no compromise.

I also tried looking at these 2 pics. The D630 to the left has 1440 X 990 res and the Asus G1 has 1650 X 1200. I like the font size on the Asus more. I just sits better with my eye. Not sure how websites and other stuff would look. But the Latitude seems to have a more balanced screen.

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I feel like I am back to square one! Also if I get the WXGA+, thats $45 less and I can get the 7200RPM HD which is $45 more that negates any price difference which is nice.

I guess if I could see video performance of how games / HD content would look on the laptop it would be easier to pick one but as of now I am so confused. Also how thick do you think the black borders will be if I go with Option 1!

 

well brightness is an issue i hadn't looked into but to me it doesn't really matter that is X amount brighter because i don't want something thats blindingly bright (my DS lite burns my eyes when i play on the highest brightness setting or "death bright", i play it on the 2nd lowest setting)

Im not gonna try to sell you anything here and im going to give u the strait dope. The 1440x900 screen is the best when it comes to brightness. It doesnt look half bad when playing a movie and it wont be bad with games. my dad has a 17" with the same pixels (about) and anything there looks pretty dang good. when condensed it looks even better. Contrast ratio is also important. I actually wish i had looked into that when buying because being a GFX artist i really need to know if my green is actually green and not "grass". but the difference isnt that bad green still looks green for my purposes.

HD only comes on the 1680x1050
Games come best at 1280x800

When it comes to games: I just realized something. your not gonna be playing games that are so high end that the difference between native and scaled is going to be so huge that its unbearable. anything that the 8600GT can handle is probably going to run stuff at a considerable setting and the difference between scaled and native is gonna be negligible. Gamers say that Native is the best resolution but that really only kicks in when your monitor is 20" and has an Sli configuration behind it with 2500 pixels in width minimum. thats when downscaled games look terrible. but on a 1680x1050 screen the games arent all that much worse when scaled down to play on the 8600GT. And really the only reason why people are conserened about that is because they want high frame rates.

otherwise if your going to play with black bars and hardware scaleing then you can expect a good 1-1.5 inches scaled of the screen.

My sugestion: go with the the 1440x900 if you want the brightness (which is worth it alone) But if you realy want HD you need 1680x1050. But then also take into conderation that standard DVD has very little HD movies. if your gonna want HD then you have to shell out for a Blueray or HDDVD player. Unless you have alot of HD content already on your harddrive.

EDIT: Damn my posts are long. i gotta start working on that.

 

Thanks! Good info again. I need to give you a +ve rep - how do I do that?

Okay - I have no HD content on my Hard Drive. No Blu-Ray / HD DVD so no Hi Def Media. Only HD content will be 720p / 1080i through Sling Box Pro - For when I am out of the house. I love watching Discovery HD (Ya Planet Earth!) / NGHD / HBO HD and Golf HD (Most Important) so I really want bright realistic colors with the highest resolution possible.

Also I use a NEC Accusync 19" Monitor at work. The specs say 250 NITS and the resolution is 1280 X 1024. The Brightness on this is just right along with screen real estate.

http://www.backuptapes.net/detail.php?id=377

So based on this info - stick with the WSXGA+ or downgrade to the WXGA?

And if I had to break down laptop use time:

DVDs / Non HD videos on hard drive - 5%
TV - 30%
Games - 30%
Internet / Email - 15%
Word / Excel - 20%