laptop...

Nov 09, 2004 01:51


so i have the chance to buy a laptop within the next week and i want everyone's opinion on it.
my friend bought one from dell with a bunch of rebates. i've played with it a few times, but haven't written down the model - anyway, it's cute and silver, he doesn't like it because the keyboard is too small. for some odd reason, dell made the keyboard ( Read more... )

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Comments 17

ravyn440 November 8 2004, 23:18:12 UTC
wireless ready? does that mean it has a built in wifi card? my dell laptop came with one of those and it SUCKED. i couldn't even go into the bedroom and connect with any decent signal strength to the base station on the other side of the house - whereas with my mac laptop, i had no problems. i guess the real question is what are you going to use it for?

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aventurine November 8 2004, 23:21:49 UTC
yeah, it had a built-in card. my friend who currently owns it (who is very honestly and reliable) says it's a pretty decent card and if you wanted you could upgrade to some fabulous cisco card for $100. apparently all of this is kinda irrelevant since i need to buy some sort of particular network card to get online at school anyway...

and, per a previous entry a while ago, here are the things that i really wanted out of a notebook:
(1) wireless capable at school
(2) at least a four hour battery life
(3) word processing ability (silly, i know)
(4) quiet keyboard
(5) quiet fan

and while the last two may seem dumb, it makes a BIG DIFFERENCE in class...

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ravyn440 November 9 2004, 01:25:26 UTC
that's pretty much what i use my powerbook for - i haul it to my morning classes so i can take notes and keep myself awake. so if it has all of those things, then i'd say it's probably a pretty good deal.

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kingtycoon November 9 2004, 05:21:31 UTC
Don't buy the dell second hand unless you find out that he's got a decent warranty and that it's transferable. Mine just -ended- just utterlly failed permanently just outside the warranty period and there was nothing to do at all.

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aventurine November 9 2004, 18:29:31 UTC
i found out the warranty transfers - apparently he just goes to the website and gives it all my info if he sells it. so are you against dell in general as being unreliable?

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ciani November 9 2004, 06:01:23 UTC
I agree with Andrew to get the ibook instead, but if you are dead set on getting a pc laptop tell me what model this dell is. We buy dell in house so I will be able to give you more of an opinion on the actual model.

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aventurine November 9 2004, 07:56:33 UTC
it's a dell 700m, i found out. the guy actually ordered an ibook instead, he's waiting for it to arrive to see if he likes it and will sell me the other one. but he's pretty sure he'll like it - the only thing he didn't like so far was apparently apple only gives you 3 days to return it, and charges a restocking fee.

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ciani November 9 2004, 08:07:57 UTC
you can go visit andrew at the apple store and he'll show you everything you want to know about the ibook. :) I love my apple.

I'll look into the 700m

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dilatedeyes November 9 2004, 07:40:43 UTC
I also got in on that deal, and I got a 600M. It sounds like his is a 700M, which is smaller. This one is pretty small, also, but these two laptops are Dell's "compact" series. I got used to the smallness within a day; the keyboard was hard at first to type on, but now I'm back up to speed. I am _horrible_ at using the touchpad, though, so I suggest carrying a mouse around to plug in.

As long as he's willing to help you out in case you need service and the service plan doesn't transfer(which, I'm not sure of, but a lot of people bought up laptops to sell on eBay and used the service as a selling point..), it's a good deal. I'm totally in love with my laptop, after hating them.

I didn't get an extended life battery, but I asked for one for Christmas.

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aventurine November 9 2004, 07:57:03 UTC
yeah, you're right - i asked him, it's a 700m. :) so you love yours??

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dilatedeyes November 9 2004, 09:00:50 UTC
absolutely! I haven't even turned my old computer on since I got the laptop. they do encourage a level of laziness that I'm slightly uncomfortable with, though.. I don't have to leave my bed. I can be online while lying down and watching tv in total comfort.

The only thing I would recommend you to do is to reformat the harddrive right away, and don't use Dell's XP cd. They put a 5 gig partition on every laptop, it's a backup of the operating system. 5 gigs gone out of 30 is *ridiculous*. I got an 80 gig harddrive and the partition still pissed me off, so I reformatted and used Kelly's XP Pro cd.

Circuit City at Great Northern had a few laptop bags for $30, if you were looking for something to carry it around in. I got a really nice one for $30 that I saw on Dell's website for $80.

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jjjiii November 9 2004, 13:41:32 UTC
That's a very good price.

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