d630 or d830

Since the dedicated graphics card were released to the new latitudes, im considering this over the hp consumer line (price is better too).

I'm still not sure if i should get the 630 or the 830.
I will be taking this to school and back occasionally, so im wondering if it is to heavy to carry?

EDIT: another questions: Does the 6-cell/9-cell battery stick out on either of them?

 

well is the extra 1.3 inches important to you? If it isn't then go with the D630 for a lighter more battery efficient package. It also depends how good of a graphics card you need. If you're not planning to do any gaming (besides games like diablo II which works fine) then the X3100 integrated will suit you fine.

Personally, I believe 15.4" notebooks are too big to carry around comfortably. The D630 sits on the threshold for a notebook that I want to carry around daily.

 

Thanks for the reply, your comments on the d630 have helped me a lot (not just in this thread).

i am planning on playing games like cs:s. Not graphic intensive, but probably need a dedicated card.

I am starting to consider getting the d630 now, because the 135m seems like it will suit my needs.

 

How "occasionally"?
If you haven't already, go to any store that sells laptops and compare the 15.4" size to the 14.1" size. Unfortunately they don't let you pick them up at most places, but you can compare the screen sizes at least.
For me, personally, if I'm carrying it almost every day I'd get a 14"... but for once a week travel or something I'd get 15.4" and enjoy the larger screen. Of course other people feel differently. You're talking about 5.5 vs. 6.5 pounds or so... although there's the size difference too.
By the way, the 9-cell sticks out in front on the D630... not sure whether it sticks out on the D830 or not.

 

If you carry it everyday, you will not like the 15.4" unless you like to exercise.

14.1 is perfect for travel everday.

13.3 is actually the best at 1280x800.

 

if he is going to play games on it, i wasn't go smaller than a 14.1". i dont even enjoy playing pacman on it... lol...

 

thanks, im going with the d630
looking at some pictures, it seems like the 9-cell battery does stick out on the d630. does the 6-cell battery stick out? (like on lenovo)

 

no 6-cell does not stick out

 

k, im ready to order.

However, i dont know which wi-fi card i should choose:

Dell Wireless™ 1390 802.11g Mini Card [Included in Price]
Dell Wireless™ 1490 802.11a/g Dual-band Mini Card [add $19]
Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Dual-Band Mini Card [add $29]
Dell Wireless™ 1505 Draft 802.11n Mini Card [add $39]
Intel® 4965 802.11a/g/n Dual-Band Mini Card [add $49]

Do i go with intel or dell?

 

Personally I will go with Intel; it is more reliable, got greater range. And I have never had any issues.

Intel® 4965 802.11a/g/n Dual-Band Mini Card is good choice, I have tried /n wireless adaptor it is somewhat faster than /g. but it is probably too early to tell any significant difference between the two.

 

thanks for the help
this is the dell that i will order soon, most likely:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.00GHz) 4M L2 Cache, 800MHz Dual Core
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic, with media
14.1 inch Wide Screen WXGA+ LCD Panel
512MB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 1 DIMM
120GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 7200RPM
8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio and Cyberlink Power DVD™
128MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 135M™
Intel® 4965 802.11a/g/n Dual-Band Mini Card
Dell Wireless® 360 Bluetooth Module for Vista
Touchpad with UPEK® Fingerprint Reader

ill upgrade vista and the ram after i get it

 

How does the Dual band mini card differ from the regular wireless cards offered? And something more specific than, "well it's dual band, duh" would be nice, haha.

I'm thinking of the the D830 and will post some questions in a new thread about it, but while I'm here, how much better is the NVS 140M over the 135M? I believe I read somewhere that the NVS 140M is comparable to the 8400M (maybe GS?) of the consumer line. And that yes, it IS a DX10 part.

And word on whether the 9 cell sticks out on the D830?

 

Ok…how to start this.

Example, 802.11b/802.11a adapters can work both in the 2.4 GHZ band and 5GHZ band. So you can connect to either ban without changing cards, so if you move around from places to places you can connect to either one of them. Best of all, you don’t have to buy individual cards. And dual band card supports automatically mode that switch from one band to the other. Are we clear as mud yet…or I am out of way to explain it.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=70254&highlight=Meaker+Graphics+chart

explains the differences between the graphic cards. I still dont get how this business graphic card will do with new games, but im fine with it because im gonna play older games more often

 

So the regular 802.11/b/g/n cards on the consumer line (Inspiron) can only connect to 2.4GHz?

 

Just get the cheapest wireless card they offer... it doesn't really matter.
But if you want the long answer...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11

 

LMAO Swarmer....

Rowen, you can connect to all bands on Inspiron as long as the router supports it. i was just giving an example on /a and /b, that didn't mean you can't connect to /g or /n.

 

What's so funny... I'm still using my ancient Dell 802.11b card (b only) and I have no complaints nor envy. The 11 Mbps speed is much faster than any broadband connection I might have access to, and 802.11g routers will step down to b to support it just fine (and I assume n routers will too)... their connections to the internet are always slower than the b wireless speed anyway.

 

you are saying /b routers is faster than /g or /n? i have no doubt it the /n routers will support /b.

802.11b got a maximun data transfer rate of 11Mbps, and it is 2.4GHz radio frequency. on the other hand, 802.11g is a short distances at a max transfer rate of 54 Mbps. People dont like /g because of its poor range and unreliable signal at some area. But then again, most /g adapters are enhanced to double the standard speed and max out at 108Mbps. if you look into super G it is widely used in many business and home office. let's talk about /n, it was release this year and people might also call it Per-N. /n uses a technique called spatial multiplexing, what it means? it can break data into two seperate streams, and send each on seperate router and adapters. and it claims it is 4x faster than /G, but i really say that's true because my /n max out around 200.

so please don't tell me connections to the internet are always slower than B.

 

No, I'm not.

Good. One less reason for me to move to n.

Sure, but none of that matters at all because internet connections are slower than n, g, a, or b.

They almost always are. I have the fastest DSL package available from dslextreme, 6 Mbps at its best, and in reality it's usually slower. 6 Mbps is less than the 11 Mbps that /b supports. Any internet cafe I go to is way slower than an 11 Mbps connection to the internet. I'm lucky if it's 1 Mbps. The connection between my laptop and the router may be 11 Mbps, or it may be 54 Mbps with your card, but if the connection between the router and the internet is less than 11 Mbps, then it doesn't matter. If you're at a university, you MAY actually have a connection to the internet that's faster than 11 Mbps, but I would check before just assuming that. Even then, few websites will actually send you data at those speeds.

So the effective speed is the slower of the connection between your laptop and the router, and the connection between the router and the internet. Nearly always, the latter is the bottleneck, so increasing the speed of the wireless makes no difference at all. The only benefit of faster wireless is that you can send data between different machines on the local network faster. And if you do that really often and want it to be faster, then maybe the /g or /n cards and routers are worth it. Or you can just buy a few ethernet cables.

 

i got your point now, so pretty much all the places you go got slow internet connections? like internet cafe by where you live and all? you should really try to find a place that got "very good" connections, then test it out. i am sure you will find some interesting results. but for me, i have never went slower than 30 Mbps on my wirelss

 

You're connection to the router may well be 30 Mbps, but I really don't think you're getting a 30Mbps connection to the internet. Practically no one has that.

Here are some sites you can use to test the real speed of your internet connection. I get results that vary wildly depending on which site I use, but they're all under 7 Mbps... not yet pushing the limit of my wireless card.

 

Some people have gigabit networks with gigabit NAS in them. There is a huge difference between 11b, 11g and 11n when accessing data on the NAS.

The 11mbps, 54mbps are raw speeds and a lot of that will be lost in overhead for packet encoding, error correction, encryption. You'll be lucky if you reach 6mbps with 11b or 30mbps with 11g. Still faster than most internet connections though.

 

i am getting 17Mbps on /g router, check the link below.

And the reply i wrote was for data transfer rate, not internet connection speed.