Tricked out Inspiron vs. Waiting for Pricier S7000

So I can get a tricked out Inspiron 600m for about $500-600 less than an equivalent S7000 right now. Only the Dell has 2GHz and dedicated video.

It's actually for sale and the only downsides I see are:

* Shabby Dell quality... My D400 Latitude has been junk. It's also junk that has run for 2+ years with parts I've replaced.

* It weighs a bit over 5 lbs., the Fujitsu weighs nearly 1 lb. less.

But there's that whole, "It's available now" thing and the performance should be better than whatever Fujitsu offers given the video.

Thoughts?

 

as you said, on paper the dell is better, in real life the fujitsu is better. Especially when it comes to the screen. I would say if you don't mind paying the premium for a fujitsu wait the extra month.

To me the build quality, screen and keyboard are more important than performance, and that's why I would pick any fujitsu over the best that dell has to offer (whatever that might be) so if you are after performance and don't care about the above the dell is your best bet.

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N6010: P4M 3.2G, 1GB Dual 400MHz, 60GB 7200RPM, ATI 9700M, 17" WXGA+
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Being so disappointed with my toshiba's battery life I vowed that would be on the top of my list of things to fix. Performance bottlenecks in my opinion are best overcome by making sure windows has at least 512meg unshared ram, and a speedy harddisk. So in that light I would be looking at the latest 7k100 hitachi harddrive and if some ram is shared with video have at least 768meg total ram.

-David

 

drw is right. the S7020 will most probably be equiped with the new 1.86G centrino, so not much difference in the performance department. Actually I bet you wont even notice such a difference. As it is always mentioned on these forums, more RAM and faster HDD will do you more good than a few extra MHz of processing speed.

On the graphics performace side, don't expect much from the ati 9000, both laptops will perform poorly in any demanding game, and the difference wont be that great.

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N6010: P4M 3.2G, 1GB Dual 400MHz, 60GB 7200RPM, ATI 9700M, 17" WXGA+
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I have 1GB of RAM on my Dell now. It's not enough RAM. I use a lot of simultaneous windows and the context switching can be a "bee-atch".

I will be getting 2GB of RAM on whatever I get next.

 

The 600 only has a 32MB dedicated card. That will barely outperform the integrated of the Fujitsu, if at all.

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

Actually, there is a 64MB card at this point. I think as much as I want the Fujitsu, it's impossible to justify the wait and the cost given how little you all think the new Fujitsu will outperform the old.

 

I missed that, my bad...

Brian

www.BargainPDA.com | www.DigitalCameraReview.com | www.NotebookReview.com | www.SpotStop.com | www.TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by markrogo

 

The problem is that the Dell -- right now -- is $500-600 cheaper than the current S7000 and is equally featured outside of the fingerprint scanner.

I agree with you that Sonoma isn't much, but that's all the more reason that I might upgrade again in a year.

If the price were equal, I'd go with the Fujitsu and wait it out for a Yonah machine. But that $500-600 is a lot of depreciation to make up. I can't see a year from now, me getting more than $100-150 of it back on the sale. And I can't see waiting another 6 weeks to get the new Fujitsu.

It's a dilemma because despite the low quality of Dell, they sent me a new keyboard once on request, a new touchpad once on request, a new power supply once on request. I never had any downtime, could do the work myself, etc.

 

Sounds like you've already made up your mind. I could have gotten a 12" w/dvd burner from sams for about $599, but I chose the almost $2000 with bay battery, dvd super multi, 7k60 harddrive because I already have a cheapo laptop that I got 3 years ago so I know what waiting for a hardisk is like, and I bought extra power adapters so whereever I was in the house I could plug in. Every time I took it outside of the house a balked at it's weight, and once in a hospital waiting room I was called and looked like a dummy trying to collect all my cables. That's when I made up my mind: no more cheap laptops for me with perceived value, get something that will actually suit my needs. But that's just me.

(edit) forgot to meantion I got a range extender to broadcast wifi to the back yard only to find (with the old cheapo laptop) that I couldn't read the screen in sunlight. That's another thing I fixed by getting a fujitsu.

-David

 

I'm not trying to convince any of anything -- except maybe myself.

I have to say that perhaps I was too hard on Dell's build quality. It's not so bad that I haven't gotten 2+ years of daily use out of it.

And I'm pretty sure this machine cost me around $1500 two years ago. It's probably worth 1/2 that right now on eBay.

The Dell will weigh more than the Fujitsu by nearly a pound. That stinks. But it will be faster and significantly enough cheaper that being one of the first on the block with Yonah won't seem so insane a year from now.

That's where I'm at, but it's not like I've hit the buy button on dell.com yet.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by markrogo

 

Wildly inferior Dell laptops are selling for >$600 with P3s, 512MB, 20-30GB... I have 1GB, 60GB, Centrino 1.3GHz.

I'm confident the machine is worth $700.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Wildly inferior Dell laptops are selling for >$600<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>I'm thinking about setting up an ebay account, but I'm timid. How would you handle a situation whereby you sell your laptop for $700, and the buyer says something is broke on it which you perceived to be fine when you sent it. They want their money back. Is it pre agreed that it is sold "as is" or do you accept the machine back and refund their money? And if it was sold "as is", the buyer can blemish your status by giving a bad review like "the seller misrepresented the condition and/or functionality". Have you had good experiences with eBay?

-David

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by drw

 

So it's done.

I'll have the Dell Thursday, it appears, and 2GB of Crucial RAM Weds.

The total -- all in -- is $1700, with shipping and a 2-year, at-home warranty.

It would've been $600-$700 more for the Fujitsu and integrated graphics and maybe not the 2GHz processor (but maybe).

That extra $$$ will come in handy for a Yonah-based Fujitsu perhaps in 18 months. This laptop I've had for 29 months, which is way too long by my traditional standards.