dell inspiron 6000, need your opinion

Hey, im thinking about buying an inspriron 6000. Next year ill be going to college and this laptop is the one that seems to catch my eye the most. However I need a second opinion and these are the specs that I came across with. The total came out to be about $1,340 with a 750$ coupon. :750: Am I getting a good deal for these specs? Looking for some opinions and some suggestions.. Thanx...

Specs:
-Inspiron 6000 Intel® Pentium® M Processor 770 (2.13GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
-Operating System (Office software not included) Genuine
-Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
-Display 15.4 inch UltraSharp WSXGA+ LCD Panel
-Memory 1GB Shared DDR2 SDRAM 2 Dimms
-Video Card 128MB DDR ATI's MOBILITY™ RADEON X300 PCI Express x16 Graphics
-Hard Drive 60GB 7200rpm Hard Drive
-Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
-Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
-Combo/DVD+RW Drives FREE! 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW)
-Wireless Networking Card Intel® PRO 2915 and Dell 350 -Bluetooth Internal Wireless Cards
-Office Software (not included in Windows XP) No productivity suite- Corel WordPerfect word processor only
-Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) McAfee Security -Center with VirusScan, Firewall, Spyware Removal, 24-months
-Battery 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (80 WHr)
-Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support
-Dial-Up Internet Access 6 Months America Online Internet Access Included
-Miscellaneous Award Winning Service & Support
-Financial Software No QuickBooks package selected - includes limited use trial
-Operating System Backup & Recovery PC Restore recovery system by Symantec
-Media Center Enhancements Remote Control for Windows XP --Media Center Edition
-Dell Digital Entertainment Starter Entertainment Pack - Basic digital Music, Photo and Game experience

 

Great laptop.. this is exactly like mine, but i have a centrino 760... its a great machine, if you`re not a gamer, you're dead on.. (if you're a gamer, look to the 9300 w/ gf6800)

 

Personally I would of kept the ram at the 512 and bought 2 1 gig sticks at newegg for the same price your paying for the 1 gig.
Drop the processor to the 1.7ghz to save some $.

 

I'd say that's an excellent setup! I might want to scale down the CPU to 2.0GHz to save some cash to buy some RAM. Also - if you're aftermarketing your RAM, go for the lowest amount you can get - Its 256MBs with Dells.

 

On the 6000 512 is the lowest you can go for ram.

 

yes, 512 is the lowest.

fresh popcorn is right, if you're in the US and can buy from newegg, get 512 and for the same price you get 1gb at dell, you can get 2gb in newegg.. (and still have 512 spare)

 

Well, then, stick to the 512MB and get the other sticks of RAM to put in! Or, another way you could go about this is to upgrade to 1 GB of RAM and then buy another 1 GB stick off newegg.

 

Good setup, scale down the processor to 1.86 for most bang for your buck, and scale down the RAM to one 512 stick, 2x256 sticks are harder to sell. You might want to look at the i9300 for greater performance though, if you are willing to spend near $1200

 

First I would like to thank everyone who gave their thoughts on the 6000 setup that i'm about to purchase.. I managed to bring the price down to $1,164.00 with the following specs:

-Inspiron 6000 Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
-Operating System (Office software not included) Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
-Display 15.4 inch UltraSharp WSXGA+ LCD Panel
-Memory 512MB Shared DDR2 SDRAM 1 Dimm
-Video Card 128MB DDR ATI's MOBILITY™ RADEON X300 PCI Express x16 Graphics
-Hard Drive 60GB 7200rpm Hard Drive
-Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
-Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
-Combo/DVD+RW Drives FREE! 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW)
-Wireless Networking Card Intel® PRO 2915 and Dell 350 Bluetooth Internal Wireless Cards
-Office Software (not included in Windows XP) No productivity suite- Corel WordPerfect word processor only
-Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) No Security Subscription
-Battery 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (80 WHr)
-Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support
-Dial-Up Internet Access 6 Months America Online Internet Access Included
-Miscellaneous Award Winning Service & Support
-Financial Software No QuickBooks package selected - includes limited use trial
-Operating System Backup & Recovery PC Restore recovery system by Symantec
-Media Center Enhancements Remote Control for Windows XP Media Center Edition
-Dell Digital Entertainment Starter Entertainment Pack - Basic digital Music, Photo and -Game experience

Any last thoughts or suggestions? (i'm a first time laptop buyer) thanx!

 

No, suggestions, nice setup for a good price. That is going to be a great mobility laptop. Good choice on the 1DIMM so you can upgrade yourself for cheaper.

 

Nice setup, I was planning to get the exact same thing before I decided on getting the I9300 as a matter of fact. What bad about this machine though is it's mediocre for gaming. Seeing that you're a college student and all, that shouldn't be a problem I assume? lol who am I kidding. It's hard to find any student who doesn't game at all these days. Getting back on topic, on what gaming capabilities you should expect with the Radeon Mobilty X300, you can play every current game out there with moderate (medium or medium w/ certain features disabled at 1024x768) settings. Having said that, expect to lower your settings when more DX 9.0c titles comes along. Just like any reasonably priced computer, don't expect to play any game out there (w/ reasonable framerates) anything higher than low settings (how "low" depends on the game). If you're just planning to play adventure games though, everything should run just fine regardless of setting. Hope this helps.

 

thanx again guys.. I put the order in on tuesday and it will be shipped to me this coming wednesday the 21st. I was thinking about getting the 9300 but i decided not to because it was a 17" and heavier than the 6000. About the gaming tho, I do enjoy a game once in a while but the ones i have are pretty old (starcraft broodwar, age of empires II) and some others. I havent been really up to date with computer games. Anyway, I have a quick question, I ordered my 6000 with the Windows xp Home edition, what is the difference between the Home and Professional editions?

 

Home and Pro are different in a few ways such as.

1. Professional has more security features.
2. Home is more aimed towards normal computer users, its somewhat media oriented.
3. Professional has Active Directory login, which some if not many businesses out there use for their employees to connect to the network.

Just know these are a few of the main features, there are other features too. I'm just listing a few.

Now it appears its more for home and traveling use for you, so Home is a good choice, some people just like professional for that extra security.

 

i have an inspiron 6000 (1.73 ghz, 512 mb ram stock, 100 gb hd, and x300 128). i just wrote this thing about overclocking the x300 in this other thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=34231

basically, the x300 is very stable for overclocking and you can get performance better than a standard x600 with similar specs. i'm running prince of persia two thrones right now with everything high, 2x aa (i haven't tried anything higher) and 1024x768 very smoothly. my only complaint is that resolutions for games are difficult to deal with (which is why i'm runnign pop:two thrones at only 1024x768). i'm also running madden 2006 on 1280x780 or whatever the compatible widescreen resolution is with everything on high and it's running very smooth with no chops either.

here are some 3dmark scores if you're interested:

3dmark 03
no overclocking: 2756
full overclock: 3569

3dmark 05
no overclocking: 1365
full overclock: 1711

overall, 6000 is a great deal. you'll love it.

 

By overclocking the video, does the machine's overall heat increase at all? Can it be felt by human touch?

 

I'm not sure if i understand what overclocking is.. anyway i have another question, i've noticed by reading the reviews on the 6000 that one of the main complaints was that it came with unwanted bloatware. what would be the best way to remove all of the bloatware?

 

it's supposed to get hotter but it doesn't get that much hotter. right now, i just started so to be safe, i keep it unclocked until i actually play a game and i stick to 30 minute intervals. so far, i can feel it being a little warmer but nothing significant. also, i did bust out the antec cooler thing that i put under the laptop. the one thing that i like about the 6000 over my old toshiba satellite 5205-s505 is it has much better air ventilation.

best way to get rid of bloatware would be to just do a format and a clean install of windows.

 

You need to be extremely careful when overclocking. Here is a thread with a lot of information:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=31609&page=1&pp=10

I really don't recommend overclocking unless you absolutely need the extra performance...

It is a good idea to get a cooler - keeps the heat down quite nicely.