Upgrading Dell Inspiron 1545

I ordered two basic Inspiron 1545's on March 16th. $479 each on the one day special.

Dell says it will arive on April 6th. Does Dell usually take this long to deliver?

Both have Dual Core Pentiums. Can they be upgraded to Core 2 Duo later? Are the CPU's soldered on the main board?

Ram is limited to four gigabytes, even though the laptop uses a 64-bit CPU. Is this something that might be fixed in a future BIOS upgrade?

Is there any way to upgrade the onboard graphics? I found an ExpressCard chasis that has PCI express slots, but it costs over $700. I could build a PC for less than that. Do I have any other options?

The battery life is a bit limited. Can I carry a few spares and swap them on the road?

 

1) Dell is usually quicker to deliver.
2) No, they are not soldered. Yes, they are easy to upgrade
3) Many Dell's have the ability to use 8GB (albiet the 4GB sticks are EXPENSIVE), it is something that could potentially be unlocked in the, don't know anything further on the 1545
4) Upgrade onboard graphics>>>simply = no. Most graphics cards are built-into the motherboards, and the 1545 doesn't even come with options for more advanced graphics, so probably not.
5) Carry as many batteries as you want and swap away. Just remember to plug-in or shut off the laptop before switching...but i'm sure you already knew that.

 

If you want to upgrade the CPU, check on ebay. There's always CPUs on sale on ebay.

 

2: My unit has a Dual Core Pentium. Is the Core 2 Duo compatible, or would I need a new motherboard? Any chance of upgrading to something better than a Core 2 Duo, perhaps the new i7?

 

No i7 (it will need to use a new chipset and Socket due to the on-board memory controller), but you should be able to use any Socket P Core 2 Duo right up through the T9800. Probably won't take any Quads or Extremes, though.

 

Have a look at the following document, page 59.

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1545/en/SG/F123HA01MR.pdf

Your machine should be able to upgrade to 8Gb; though I can't imagine you'd probably need it. Speak with someone at Dell, give them your service tag and they should be able to tell you. The reason I say this is that I believe the inspiron 1545 can ship with one of 3 different motherboards and therefore 8Gb might not be an option for yours.

This may have been true in the past, but there is the option of having a discrete GPU now - the ATI HD 4330. It's likely though that if you've got the integrated as standard that you'll not be able to upgrade - again check with Dell themselves.