dell 8600 or 600m

Having just bought my first laptop, I'm enjoying the pleasure of wondering if I made a mistake. First of all, I bought an inspiron 8600. After looking, I don't really see a difference between that and the 600m, except the 600m is smaller and lighter. I'm more concerned with a good computer than portability, but if they are both the same, why not get the more portable one? Anyone know if there is anything that makes the 8600 better? Also, I paid $1,150 for the 8600 with a
PM 725 1.60A GHz/400MHz
512MB DDR SDRAM 2 Dimm
32MB DDR NVIDIA®GeForce Go5200 AGP 4X
40GB Hard Drive
24X CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive
This was after tax/shipping. Should I assume I got ripped off or is that about right? Sorry to sit everyone through my sob story, but just want to put my mind at ease! Thanks alot for any help anyone can give!

 

that price is decent, you didn't get ripped off. The 600m is somewhat similar to the 8600 I suppose, but the screen is obviously smaller (14.1 for the 600m, 15.4 for the 8600) and you can't get as fast a graphics card on the 600m as you can the 8600.

It's not a case of the 8600 being better or worse than the 600m, it's just whichever you think fits your lifestyle better. If you carry a notebook around a lot and don't need a large screen, the 600m might have been the better choice. You can certainly meet the specs you got on the 8600 with what's available for the 600m.

 

I just ordered the 8600 for my brother over the 600m and we havent gotten it yet, so I cant make an informed decision.
The 600m has a better ethernet port and has an IrDA sensor for beaming info to a handheld or cell phone--nice feature. But the 600m has no firewire port, while the 8600 does. This might not seem important, but when I go to add an external DVD writer in teh future and both USB ports are already being used, it will be huge. And the 8600 has the 15.4'' display, which was the clincher for us.

Weight was not much of a concern. Rather have the larger monitor as it will be used more as a desktop replacement than to travel with.

Enjoy your purchase. You got what seems to be a good laptop at a great price.

 

Great, thanks alot! I'm using mine as a desktop replacement as well. I don't really have a lot of experience with laptops, so I guess I never really thought about the fact that a small screen might kind of be a problem (especially typing away at reports for hours!). I suppose there's reasons for both, and since I know I didn't get ripped off on the price now, I feel much better. Thanks for the input.