Re: E1505/I6400 Comments Please

Clark Martin <hpcm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
: Hi all,

: I'm planning to buy the Inspiron 6400 shortly and would appreciate feedback
: on some of my decisions and questions.

I've had my E1505 just over a month. That's not a very long time to
evaluate a new product, but so far I've been very happy with the
laptop. I haven't found anything significant I dislike about the
laptop - a couple of nits that I haven't tried to figure out (such as
getting it to come out of hibernation automatically when I open the
lid, like my old Toshiba did, instead of having to press the power
button each time).

I think you will want to add the TV Tuner NOW if you think you will
ever want it. Yes, I'm sure it's possible to add it later but it
doesn't seem too easy to do, like adding RAM or changing the hard
drive would be; you would have to open up the whole laptop to do it,
it seems.

I got the larger battery too. It lasts about five hours. I got it as
a second battery, because it was only $129 extra vs. $99 extra just to
upgrade (so effectively $30 for a spare battery). The standard
battery lasts about three hours, and I use it most of the time; I'm
trying to use the bigger battery only once a week or so, when I really
need it, to try to save it.

I just upgraded my RAM from the standard 512MB to 2GB (Newegg.com -
some PC4200 cl4 I got for about $150 total). The upgrade was easy,
although since adding it I've had some issues hibernating (tried
disabling and turning hibernation back on, not sure if that has helped
yet). But - yes, you should be able to add just another 512MB later
to the base 512MB.

I got the Intel wireless card, too, and it's great. Sure it's
adequate - what else could you need? I don't think Dell offers any
other options besides their own card or the Intel card plus adding an
internal bluetooth card, which I now wish I'd gotten. (New cell phone
has bluetooth). I imagine I can still add it, not sure. You can get
wireless cards that are faster than those offered by Dell, to go
faster than 54Mbps, but you would never need that for surfing the
internet, only if you will be using your laptop with a server and need
to edit large files over wireless - then a 108Mbps wireless card might
help but you might have to add one externally, anyway.

I thought about (am still thinking about) getting XP Pro, because I
have had need for it a few times in the past few years. I don't do
much media stuff on my laptop so I don't have much need for MCE, but
it was the same price as XP Home and I saw no drawback to getting it.
Maybe I'll care later.

I went with the standard sound and video cards. The integrated video
is more than adequate for basic use, including watching DVDs. It
might be slow for games but I don't care about that at all. I would
be surprised if the Soundblaster card would really sound better to
most ears than the integrated card; the speakers would probably make
more difference in this case. I wonder, again, if this wouldn't be
more important for games and not for audio quality.

So yes, I'm happy with my E1505 so far. I've talked to a number of
Inspiron 6000 users (very simliar machine) and they have all had
nothing but good things to say about that machine, so that bodes well
for this one.

Andrew
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