Video Card in Dell 640M

Why does Dell not having any choice of video card for their 14inch models?
I see for 15inch models they have nice choice but not for 14inch...
I wish they just offer some low end dedicated video card...

 

Smaller notebooks are generally made for mobility not gaming.

 

Generally yes, but Asus managed to put in a powerful Go 7700 in to their 14”. And DELL has a 12" XPS with a Go 7400, so why not 14 inspiron?.

 

That would basically bring the 640m/e1405's price up to that of the XPS series. As built, it's designed to be a mainstream, sub-$1250 14" notebook.

You'd need a whole new motherboard design to accommodate something like a go7700 or go7400. And that would cost more than Dell feels it could make back.

 

I only took the example of Go 7700 to show that that it is not a technical difficulty to put a good gfx card in a 14" chassis and that 14"s are not always designed for non gamers who value portability and battery life.

I don't think putting a mediocre/low end dedicated card like Go 7400 or X1400/X1300 would increase the price that much. They can always provide GMA950 for anyone who doesn't need it, and still compete for the budget market. Besides, E1505 is not far off in price either; moreover, competitors like HP are putting out cheap 14"s with dedicated low-end gfx, I think DELL has nothing to loose but everything to gain by adding better graphics to their 14" inspiron series.

 

PhoenixFx raises a common point. People, since the beginning of time (or so it would seem ) have asked why no dedicated card in the 14.1". I tend to agree with otaku that Dell does not want a competition with the xps series as well as is in the market to offer a BUDGET model with decent battery life. The market demand must simply not be there for them to undertake the costs of designed a new computer and building it. You can look to HP for a 14.1 with a low-end gpu; the dv2000t has an optional go 7200.

 

One of the major limiting factors is battery lifetime.

 

Yes, I understand what you are saying. I’m sure most of the notebook users don’t even bother looking at what graphics chip it has when buying a notebook. And I can understand why DELL doesn’t want to be bothered to release yet another dedicated gfx notebook when they don’t see a market for it.

But still I think they can attract more buyers if they do. And it will certainly help some of us who want something better than a GMA950 in our 14" notebooks.

I have seen countless advertisements of notebooks with low end dedicated cards advertising them big. Geforce 7 series with superior graphics bla,bla, bla….most would go WOW at the first glance, and perhaps even buy it. Only to find out in small print that it is just a Go 7200 or an X1300 etc.. I think most notebook users don’t know the difference between a Go 7200 and Go 7600. For them they are all nVidia dedicated cards. I bet lot of people fall for that (hence the ads).

I'm sure if DELL had a 7200 in their E1405 then they'd able to steal few hundreds of dv2000t customers.

 

I've said before that Dell may just be waiting to release a model that supersedes the e1x05 series rather than retool motherboards and chassis designs. I'm sure that Santa Rosa, combined with new video options from ATi and nVidia will froce Dell's hand and get them geared up to release something new.

I agree that it wouldn't be so hard for Dell to have an option of SOME discrete GPU on the e1405, but from what I understand they really did not intend the e1405 to be anything but a 14.1" system with long battery life. At the design stage, they may have just sh*tcanned other board designs in favor of a unified solution supporting only the GMA chipset. With a line that only has the GMA as an option, you can advertise extreme battery longevity across the board.

I also wonder if Dell just didn't think the 14.1" line didn't need a discrete GPU option. We're lucky they even released a consumer-level 14.1" model at all, rather than just a Latitude business-class unit at twice the price, or an XPS model at quadruple the price.

 

More so than price of the card is the overall design of the chassis, they used an existing design for the 640 that will not accomodate a dedicated card. Redesigning the chassis costs a lot of time and money which would impact the price more so than the actual card they put in it. Dedicated cards are becoming increasingly popular, so in the future we may see greater variety of choices, hopfeully a middle of the road solution such as the x1600/1700 and 7600/7700 .

 

why does it matter? The e1405 is supposed to be light, cheap and long on battery life. If you want GPU power, buy a slightly bigger e1505. the weight difference between these laptops is negligible.