Which Dell Laptop Would you Recommend?

[Curious]

Just Wondering which Dell Laptop you would recommend for Multimedia & Games:

InspironTM 9300 or InspironTM 9100



Here's the Link:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pr...are.aspx?c=ie& ;cs=iedhs1&id=inspn&l=en&s=dhs

I'm thinking the 9300 is the better for its power saving features but the 9100 does have a 3.2 Ghz processor.

Thanks for all postive advice.

C.

[Knuckles]

I would go for the 9300 here,

Plus:
17" screen (compared to 15.4" for the 9100)
Radeon X300 64/128Mb or G6800Go 256MB(instead of Radeon 9700 for the 9100)
It uses a Centrino processor, great for laptops , even if clocked lower and no HT
Great Power management as you said
Integretated 802.11b/g wireless

[Eagle]

I wouldn't reccomend a Dell personally. The main reason being, they don't let you choose your processor. They refuse to deal with AMD at all which makes their computers pricey. Add to that, they boost their prices and your just paying for the name. Your best bet is to go to (insert favorite retail store here) and see what they have on the shelf and compare.

[smegforbrain]

I'm not sure I'd recommend a Dell either, to be honest.

My wife has a Dell laptop, and for the money, it's not bad, but when it won't run half the cd's I burn off for her (general files, mp3s, etc), it gets old in a hurry.

As for the AMD thing, yeah, I was disappointed in reading that - I'm wondering how much Intel offered Dell to remain Intel-only.

[Curious]

Thank you all for taking the time to get back I really appreciate all your advice.
The main problem I have is I wish to change my existing Desktop for a multimedia laptop, capable of playing games like Half Life 2 with ease. But also a laptop which has good power management as I will be also using it for work. What spec would you recommend for these needs. I am also uncertain whether to go for the latest Radeon or Geforce 6800 graphics card.

I am also a little wary about going for a laptop, but work demands have me pointed in that direction.

The only reason I was thinking about Dell was because of the 9300, I don't see a similar laptop which is geared to multimedia and gaming.

I am a little bit out of the loop, I am assuming that the 64 Bit AMD processor is the best one at the moment?

Thanks once more for all positive feedback.

C.

[Eagle]

AMD 64 is great, it breaks the 32 bit processor trend that we have been in forever. In simple terms, they have 64 spaces on the processor to hold information by which to process with instead of 32 making them faster right where it counts the most.

Upside: SPEED!, better capabilities, etc. etc.

Downside: Linux is currently the only OS that support the full capability of the 64 bit processor. Windows can use it because the architecture (like all CPU architectures in the past) is backward compatible, but it will mostly still be running in 32 bit mode.

If you really want to take advantage of the new 64bit technology, you would be best advised to hold off as long as you can to buy a computer at all. Windows XP 64 Edition is slated to be released later this year (no date yet so I can't guaruntee that). If you can hold off till then, you will surely be able to get it bundled with all 64 bit proccessor notebooks. Otherwise you would have to buy a new OS after buying the notebook to take full advantage of it.

[Curious]

Thanks for the advice Eagle,

I wasn't planning to get a new system until Oct of this year. So I'll keep my eye out for developments with 64bit technology.

C.

[sheik124]

I wouldn't get a Dell at all

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...115-114&depa=0
Great AMD Athlon 64 Laptop

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...115-180&depa=0
Great Pentium M Laptop

[Clements]

You could wait for the AMD Turion 64 processor, AMDs answer to the Pentium M in terms of power requirements, but has SSE3 and x86-64 unlike Dothan and will probably be all around faster. Sounds like a winner to me.

[Eagle]

You could wait for the AMD Turion 64 processor, AMDs answer to the Pentium M in terms of power requirements, but has SSE3 and x86-64 unlike Dothan and will probably be all around faster. Sounds like a winner to me.

Yeah, I'm holding out for the Turion and XP64 before I buy my laptop. As much as I would love to use JUST Gentoo, its not possible at the moment so I figure I'll wait for Windows. Here is a good question for everyone. Does anyone know of a company that makes laptops with a restore disk that won't wipe out my linux partition if Windows craps out and needs a reinstall.