Buying a Dell 1520. Questions...

All:

I'm going back to school in the fall and had every intention of buying a lightly used laptop off of eBay. Maybe a Pentium M or Core Solo, but with Dell's $350 off of $1399 or higher notebooks plus free 2GB RAM upgrade and free 160Gig HD upgrade I can't pass up a new one.

I guess the only question I really have is regarding the processor. The base processor is the 1.66Ghz 667Mhz bus proc. For another $50 you can upgrade to the 1.8Ghz 800Mhz bus proc. How much difference does this Mhz and bus bump really make?

Thanks,

AV1611 out...

 

There enough of a difference there that you might regret saving the $50 in a couple of years. I once bought a Toshiba that offered either 266 MHz or 300 MHz processor. I saved money and went with the 266. But then I started to see software appearing that specified a minimum processor speed of 300 MHz!

I'm glad you are not going with eBay. It's hard to know whether the computer was "lightly used" or not. But there are features of notebooks that make buying used a real risk, a major one being the battery. Has it been properly cared for on charge/recharge cycles? Or is it going to fail quickly? That sort of issue. And since you are aiming for the Dean's List you certainly want a reliable machine.

 

get at least 2 ghz one for the 4mb cache

 

Dude, upgrade the CPU, you won't regret it...

 

I have no use for the extra 2MB cache. It's only good for encoding and related tasks. I assume the 2.0 and 2.2 chips on the Dell's use the same thermal dissipation unit as the 1.8 800fsb chip. If I need a little more power from the CPU I'm guessing I could bump the CPU from 1.8 to 2.0 with little additional heat output.

 

What is this $350 coupon everyoen talks about? I can only find a $225.

Edit: Ah, I see. Most places say that expired, but now it says Thursday.

 

The Dell deals change every week as you probably found out. One thing to remember is that there will *always* be more deals. $225 off isn't that great, I would wait until next week. The deals may get better as we edge towards the Back to School season.

@ original poster - I'd go for the 1.8GHz CPU. You would probably be fine with the base 1.66GHz one but it is a budget CPU. If you plan to keep this machine for some time then stepping up the power can't hurt.

 

Wait, the $350 isn't working anymore. Can only one person use it?
Edit: I see now. 4000 uses. DANGIT!

 

4 realzies? thats lame.

 

$50 isn't too much for the upgrade, so long as it is within your budget. The processor is one of those things that can't be upgraded very easily, so if the budget allows for it, it is better to go a little higher than you anticipate needing when you buy.

It's not impossible to play games that require faster processors than the ones you have, though - although they might run pretty slowly. I once installed and played The Sims (which requires a 233 MHz processor) on a machine with a 166 MHz processor and it played fine, although I later uninstalled it because it left me with a dangerously low amount of hard drive space.