Would you choose a 5150 or a 600M?

These two configurations are offered for just about the same price at the moment; which one would you go for?
(I sure can’t decide…, though as only an off-and-on gamer I’m drawn to the light 600M.)

Inspiron 600m
Intel® Pentium®M Processor 725 (1.6GHz) 14.1-in SXGA+ w/64MB Video
512MB DDR 266MHz (2 DIMMs)
60GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive
64MB DDR ATI Mobility RADEON 9000
24X CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive with Sonic RecordNow
Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200 Internal Wireless (802.11 b/g, 11Mbps)
53Whr Primary Battery
5.4lbs


Inspiron 5150
Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with HT, 2.80GHz,15-inch SXGA+
512MB,333MHz,2 DIMMs
80GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive
64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 AGP 4x Graphics
24X CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive
Dell® Wireless 1350 Internal Wireless (802.11b/g, 54Mbps)
65 WHr 8-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
8lbs


Oh, and I almost forgot the most important difference: while the 600M comes with a nylon carrying case, the 5150 comes with a DELUX nylon carrying case.

Bonus question: What do you think of Dell’s SVGA+ screens? How do they compare next to a Sony or a Trubrite?

 

Personally speaking, get the 600m. It runs a ton cooler and will feel faster than the P4. It is light, and just feels nice and solid.

I also have the SVGA monitor and love every little pixel I cannot see

Dell Inspiron 600m + PalmOne Zire71 + Sony-Ericsson T616 = Mobile Computer Consultant and Website Designer

 

Thanks for the input. Cool running is as important to me as is was to John Candy's box office revenue, i.e. very important. Of course in the meantime I've fallen in love with the new Acer Aspire 1860. Man, that's a nice notebook.

 

The 600M is a substantially better machine than the 5150. I said it in another thread, I think the 5150 is the worst notebook Dell sells.

As for the display, Dell's standard displays are very nice, but can't hold a candle to XBRITE, CrystalView or other enhanced displays.

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com

 

I recently purchased the 5150, and a friend of mine got the 600m, so I've had a chance to compare them.

My system is more powerful, period. It's supposed to be, that's why it costs more. His system is lighter by a huge margin.

My system gets maybe 3 hours on a full charge using the wireless, and there are no modular bays so you only get one battery at a time (you can suspend and swap though). His system can swap out the DVD drive for another battery, and with that configuration, gets about 10 hours to a charge, meaning he doesn't have to haul his AC adapter to class and plug in. I usually get enough time to surf the net at the cafe downtown before I head home, but he can go the whole day without having to plug in.

The 600m was going to be my choice if I wasn't up for playing games, or if I were a student going from class to class. The 5150 is HEAVY, make no mistake. You get used to it, but it's still got a lot of heft to it, and if you're picking up and moving around a lot, you'll wish you hadn't bought it. The 600m is light and portable, so if you're moving around a lot, get that instead and you'll be happy.

The 5150 has USB2 and Firewire, but no bluetooth, serial, or parallel ports, making it almost completely non-legacy (still supports PCMCIA cards). The 600m has USB, parallel, and serial, and might have an option for bluetooth, making it somewhat-legacy. Whether this matters or not is up to you.

The 5150 has an auto-sensing 10/100 network port, meaning you'll never need crossover cable to connect it to anything, but the 600m probably has this as well. The wireless I have is a Broadcom TrueMobile 1400 a/b/g card, while the 600m comes with an Intel Centrino b/g solution. The TrueMobile gets good reception, not as great as a friend's PCMCIA Orinoco, but not much worse. The Centrino has fared well as far as I can tell, and the inability to access 802.11a networks will *maybe* matter once in your life, if that. I've yet to even see one, let alone need to use one.

I got a DVD-burner in my machine, but I do enough multimedia work and archiving that I need it very badly - the ability to clean 4 gigs off my hard drive in one swell foop is a necessity, and with DVD+R media only costing about $0.50, it's significantly cheaper than CDs. I will probably make the extra cost back by the end of the year just in media savings.

Unless you're doing current-generation gaming, video editing/encoding, or a lot of multimedia, there's no reason to get the 5150 over the 600m, and you'll save money. If I'd wanted to, I could have gotten the 600m AND a crappy but upgradable desktop machine for the price I paid for my 5150, but I'm almost never at home so it wouldn't have been the best deal for me, and probably would have cost more in upgrades to the desktop.

The 600m is a portable, lightweight note-taker. The 5150 is a heavyweight desktop replacement. Decide what you want it for, and make the choice based on that, or you'll be kicking yourself later.

Also, the SXGA+ screen is completely amazing, bright and crisp with a viewing angle of 'pretty much anywhere'. There's a dead pixel in the middle of my screen, but that happens with LCDs from time to time, and I'm thinking I might get that replaced before any more go. I have a year to go though so I might wait and see if it gets worse. I rarely notice one out of 1470000 pixels being off though, so it never comes to mind.