Dell 1300 Inspiron £390 - Any Good?

Ripperoo

DELL INSPIRON 1300

Saw it advertised in the SUN today.

Seems like a good deal to me as I've been waiting for a sub £400 Dell with these kind of specs (Pentium M / 512MB RAM / 60GB HDD / 15" TFT / WiFi) for quite a while.


Dell Inspiron 1300
CPU - Intel 1.70 GHz Pentium M Processor 735a (2MB L2 cache, 400MHz FSB)
OS - XP Home Edition (SP2)
RAM - 512MB 533MHz DDR2 (1x512)
HDD - 60GB (5,400rpm)
Modem - 56.6k V.92 Internal
CD/DVD - 8X DVD+/-RW
WiFi - Intel(r) Pro Wireless 2200
PSU - 60W AC Adapter
Battery - 6 Cell, 56Whr Lithium Ion
LCD - 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280x800)

TOTAL (inc VAT + Del) £390.22

There's also the Quidco discount (4.5% IIRC), which is about £17.55 or so (maths aint my strongest btw).

Which brings it down to approx £372.50 ???

Does that seem reasonable?

To get the above price:
Dowgrade Support (90 Day C&R): -£70.50
Upgrade Battery (6 Cell): +£11.75

biglugs

Seems a pretty good deal to me. I agree that it's worth the extra £11.75 to upgrade to much better battery.

Blagalot

Isn't the 6 cell the upgraded battery?
Ordered the same from Dell for £311 Thursday night but with an 80 Gb HD but yet to hear if they are going to honour the deal.
See thread on It's Gone, but was it any good?:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=255096

Nesima

It's a very good value for money deal, the build quality of the Inspiron 1300 is very good, nice and solid.

I bought a lower spec Inspiron 1300 in March for £350 (Celeron cpu, 256mb, 40gb HD, 14" screen), it has been excellent.

Paying the extra £11.75 for the better battery is well worth it, lasts about 3.5 hours. If you travel a lot or want to use it mainly off the battery think about buying an additional battery with it as it is considerably cheaper than ordering it separately afterwards, about £60 - £70 if I remember.

Ripperoo

Blagalot wrote:

Isn't the 6 cell the upgraded battery?

You're spot on Blagalot!


I originall just tacked that bit to the end of the post as an after thought really.

I've edited the original post to make it less confusing (hopefully).

Original price = £449.00.

Drop support to 90 day C&R = £378.47.

Add 6 cell battery = £11.75.

Total £390.22 (£372.66 via Quidco if my calculations are correct).

Blagalot wrote:

Ordered the same from Dell for £311 Thursday night but with an 80 Gb HD but yet to hear if they are going to honour the deal.

Yeah, I saw that post actually. By the time I got round to check it out tho', it'd gone.

Good luck btw!

I was looking at the £399 'Medion' notebooks with similar specs at Woolies (less RAM & smaller HDD). Theyactually had one on display yesterday as a matter of fact and the build quality seemed very good. It also seemed to have all features I'm looking for.

Damn, just realised, I never checked to see if the Dell had 1394 Firewire.
Oh, well, it's ordered now!

Too late now anyway, I ordered one last night.

rogerramjet

Ripperoo wrote:

Damn, just realised, I never checked to see if the Dell had 1394 Firewire.

Doesn't have firewire, but a PCMCIA firewire card is not that expensive ebuyer sell them for £11.28 including P&P

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/58971

oldman_3

Express card slot
This system uses an ExpressCard Slot which does not support any cards available for PC Card.

jeglet

It's an excellent machine, I also have had one for a while now

Rupester

Why do firms equip PCs with Express Card sockets when there are no cards available for them? What was wrong with PC card? I'm no luddite but it's a real pain.

J400uk

I have also had one of these machines since late april and it has been simply awsome. Stuck 768mb ram in there and it is very fast. It has a huge 15.4" widescreen and the keyboard has a really nice touch to it. The 6 cell battery lasts for ages and I always get at least 3-4 hrs out of it. I would strongly reccomend you purchase it. The reason it has an express card socket is to future proof it as over next year or so there will be many expansion cards availble for these slots, although now it is pretty useless. Similar thing to the phasing out of AGP/PCI in desktop pcs with pci express becomming more cocmmon. It is very rare to have an express card slot in a laptop costing so little. All in all its a great laptop.

Ripperoo

J400uk wrote:

I would strongly reccomend you purchase it.

Thanks J400uk

I placed an order last night and the ETA is 12/09/2006.

It is actually for my 11 year old son, who has saved up the bulk of the price (£350).

But I'm kinda fancying it myself.

Maybe he'll swap for my trusty 'Amilo Pro v2040' with similar spec (but which cost a bit more 8 months ago)

--
Thanks
Guys