Dell Laptop Advice

rinkrat

Hi,

Not being a Techie I am looking for some advice.

My daughter needs a laptop for uni. Just for course work ( Teacher Training ) and leisure ( music, web access, e mails, and photos ( not editing ) Think we have decided on a Dell as this seems to be the majority of recommendations on this forum.

Spend between £400 and £500 max the lower the better. I have been looking at a Inspiron 15 on Dells website N0054505.

Questions are:
a) is this the best base model to start from within my price range
b) Screen upgrade what is the differance between WXGACCFL LCD and WXGAWLED at £10 more?
c) I have decided tha battery upgrade is worth it.
d) is the extra 1GB ram going to improve performance.
e) Processor advice would be welcome too ! Is the standard with this model adequate

The advice of any experts on Dell customisation out there would be much appreciated to get the best deal for least money.

Thanks and regards

Rinkkrat ( Tony )

michaelro

DMXDimension.com is good to see what the best deals you can get are.

Think you'll have to add the battery upgrade yourself though.

I'm looking to get one this evening - Either the 54509 or 54510.

The 54505 looks a decent machine, no seperate graphics card, but a better processor than some of the more expensive ones.

The warranty is on offer too :T

macman

Vista 32 bit will only recognise 3.5GB of RAM anyway, so another 1GB isn't really worth it. You can always upgrade the RAM later (and cheaper) via Crucial.
What I would certainly do is bump the hard drive from 250GB to 320GB, which is only £20 extra.
Battery upgrade worth it if she is going to use it off the mains a lot.

mr_fishbulb

macman wrote: »

What I would certainly do is bump the hard drive from 250GB to 320GB, which is only £20 extra.

I would put that £20 towards buying an external hard drive instead.

If she is going to have music, photos, and especially coursework on it then backup is essential.

michaelro

macman wrote: »

Vista 32 bit will only recognise 3.5GB of RAM anyway, so another 1GB isn't really worth it. You can always upgrade the RAM later (and cheaper) via Crucial.
What I would certainly do is bump the hard drive from 250GB to 320GB, which is only £20 extra.
Battery upgrade worth it if she is going to use it off the mains a lot.

The quoted Laptop comes with Vista 64 which should use all 4Gb.
Comes with a W7 Upgrade so not sure what that will use?

For £30 extra you could get the 54506 which although comes with a slightly slower processor has 4Gb and a 500Gb HDD.
Or £80 more and get the same processor, 4Gb Ram, 500Gb HDD and a better graphics card. (54509)

fiddiwebb

Tony

My son bought a Dell studio 15 1555 (pentium dual core T4200), 4gb memory, 320gb hard drive, 512mb ati radeon graphics card with vista 64bit (free upgrade to windows 7 when it comes out) for £452 from Dell a couple of weeks ago for starting at uni.

Check out what deals you can get at the moment on Dell ie. 5% off, free upgrades also if you order through SCI for Universities & Collages you can get a extra 3% off.

https://www.dell-sci.co.uk/sci/unisci.html

cyberbob

I personally would never own another dell laptop. I have had a dell inspiron and a dell xps 1210 both machines the build quality was terrible and after 6 months of general use they looked terrible and bits including keys off the keyboard fell off. If you wish a Windows based machine look at other brands with better build quality. There offers sound attractive but overall its not worth it

bob_a_builder

I have had a dell inspiron and a dell xps 1210 both machines the build quality was terrible and after 6 months of general use they looked terrible

consider the Vostro ones then, comes under business section, but anyone can buy, pretty similar specs available as Insipids
But have a metal casing etc

Donnie

macman wrote: »

Vista 32 bit will only recognise 3.5GB of RAM anyway, so another 1GB isn't really worth it. You can always upgrade the RAM later (and cheaper) via Crucial.
What I would certainly do is bump the hard drive from 250GB to 320GB, which is only £20 extra.
Battery upgrade worth it if she is going to use it off the mains a lot.

Screen comparison.