Your opinon wanted: good deal?

OK, I can get this Studio 15 for $999 from Dell:
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SYSTEM COLOR Graphite Grey with Black Trim edit
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8100 (2.1GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1 edit
HD DISPLAY Hi Resolution/Bright, glossy widescreen 15.4 WLED display (1440x900) edit
VIDEO CARD 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 edit
MEMORY 3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 edit
HARD DRIVE Size: 320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) edit
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE 8X Slot Load CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive) edit
WIRELESS NETWORK CARDS Dell 1397 Wireless-G Card edit
BLUETOOTH Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Internal (2.0) edit
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam edit
BATTERY OPTIONS 56 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell) edit
SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.0 edit
FINGERPRINT SCANNER Integrated Finger Print Reader edit
KEYBOARD Back-lit Keyboard

Seems like a sweet computer for a low price. I'm agonizing over buying now, or waiting for the supposed Montevina updates. Thing is, I set a $1000 budget for myself, so price matters.

I mostly will use it for some video/audio apps (work related) and standard uses like web/email/writing etc. I'm not a "hardcore" PC gamer, so I don't care too much about the latest most advanced games, but I do like to use some emulators (DosBox, MAME etc.) and play some PC games too.

Good deal? Worth getting now even if Montevina comes out soon?

 

I am looking at something very similiar and would also like to see peoples thoughts on your setup along with mine:

A couple of questions:

Is the Windows version that Dell is offering a 32 or 64 bit? If you upgrade to 4GB of ram, does Dell automatically give you the 64bit version of Vista? If it is 32bit, why even have a 4GB option?



And what is everyone thoughts on the AVerTV option? is that a waste?



And is there a big difference between the 1440x900 and 1920x1200 displays. The 1440x900 display list it as a LED. Is the 1920x1200 LED as well?

 

All dells come with a 32 bit system but if you have ultimate or business they will send you a 64 bit dvd for free

 

The more I research about the Studio 15, the more impressed I am with it. It's a perfect setup for me - the LED screen and backlit keyboard are an unbeatable combo for my uses, and the specs overall are superb.

But the whole Montevina thing keeps stopping me. I don't NEED this computer right now, I can wait a month or two in fact.

I just read this review: http://www.electronista.com/reviews/dell-studio-15-4.html

That conclusion really got me. Since I can afford to wait, I guess I will. If it means getting a significantly faster system with truly better battery life for around the same pricing, by just waiting a month or two, then I guess I should.

But it will be a very, VERY hard wait. I'm stuck with this crappy overheating P4 desktop I built some years back right now, and I HATE being tied down to one corner of on my home to use the computer.

To anyone who needs a new notebook now, I think the current Studio 15 is damn good. If I needed one immediately, I would buy it for sure. Beautifil computer, great specs and features from what I've seen.

 

Alright well you have one problem.......the pricing will most def. be raised a couple hundred dollars......Id say purchase now, its not like youd be getting a slow lapop or anything

 

That is a pretty good deal. Not the best I've ever seen, but those don't come around often enough to wait for - about twice a year. Normally I'd say this is about the time for one of those deals - with Montevina coming soon - but I'm not convinced one is coming for Studio seeing as how Studio just came out. And this is actually a better deal than the equivalent Inspiron 1720, so I'd say go for it.

1. Unless specified otherwise, you'll get 32-bit, even with 4 GB RAM. 32-bit has a 4 GB option because it can help a bit, and because it can help Dell's bottom line.

2. Never heard of it, sorry.

3. Well, there's a fairly large difference. You have to squish four pixels into the same amount of space that used to have only three for 1290x1200, which makes things considerably smaller (56.25% of their former size to be precise). It also is more taxing on the video card. As to LED, I believe only the 1440x900 is. This is another area where it's safe to assume that unless specified otherwise, it's not LED.

The battery life isn't that bad with Santa Rosa. I'm not yet convinced that there will be that much of an improvement with Montevina when the computer isn't using much power - it will surely be a bit more efficient at low-power states, but I've yet to hear that it's all that much less power-drawing situations. The new Turion Ulta processors from AMD have been harping more significant improvements in power savings at low power, which may well be true (though the older Turions weren't as good at that as Santa Rosa). We won't really know until the reviews start coming in in good numbers, though.

What it will save power in is when you're using the processor to most of its potential on battery - then the 35W to 25W drop will be substatial. Of course it still won't come out to all that much if you're stressing your GPU and using Wifi and full brightness at the same time on a standard battery, but if it's only the CPU that you're stressing, the power savings should be fairly noticeable. Enough to wait for a new Studio model when they just came out in June though? I'm not convinced of that.