[o2mcgovem]

Hi! I've recently come into some money, and I need a new laptop. So, I'm going to use the money to buy a new laptop.

I've decided to go for the Dell Inspiron 1501 (clicky here) because I had a Dell laptop (it was a Latitude) for years and years and it managed to survive. I don't have it now, a friend has it... and apparently it's still working (although, he thinks it's "powered by waterwheel" as it's so slow).

Anyway, can somebody help me out with understanding what I'm actually ordering? Especailly the processor, because I'm really not too sure what that actually is and I could do with a figure in GHz so I can see if any of the games I play on our desktop PC can be used on this. The 64 in the title is making me a little nervous. I have a friend who says they've got 64-bit Windows and that some programs don't work and stuff.

Base:
AMD® Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL50

Microsoft Operating System:
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium

Hardware Support:
Collect & Return, 90 Day Service only

LCD:
15.4" Wide Screen XGA TFT Display: 1280x800

Keyboard:
Internal Keyboard - (QWERTY) - UK/Ireland

Memory:
1024MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x512)

Hard Drive:
80GB (5,400rpm) Hard Drive

CD/DVD Drives:
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Software

Video Card:
ATI Radeon® Xpress 1150 256MB HyperMemory

Primary Battery:
4Cell 29WHr Primary battery

Power Supply:
65W AC Adapter

Modem:
56.6k V.92 Capable Internal Modem & Adapter

Promotion included with your Order:
This configuration includes Double Memory Promotion from 512MB to 1GB Memory

Wireless Local Area Networking:
Dell Wireless 1490 Dual Band 802.11a/b/g 54Mbps Mini-PCI Wireless Card33

Accessories:
Creative MuVo V100 1GB MP3 Player

Is everything there good? Or is there anything you'd say that I should probably upgrade. Dell says I should upgrade on all of them, but it'd be, like, £999 if I did that.

Thanks, seriously. It must be kinda easy to you, but for me it's not. I do sorta get some of it, but some bits are just confusing me, like 1024MB of RAM (1GB?), but what's the 533 bit all about. And, 5400rpm? Huh?

Bye.

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64 bit is as I hear still in testing mode. It is supposed to make programs run faster and more stable.. but you should stick with the 32 bit.

Of course this is my opinion

I am not also crazy about the GFX card either... what games do you plan on playing?

Edited by ultimateslacker2, 08 February 2007 - 07:16 PM.

[ultimateslacker2]

64 bit is as I hear still in testing mode. It is supposed to make programs run faster and more stable.. but you should stick with the 32 bit.

Of course this is my opinion

I am not also crazy about the GFX card either... what games do you plan on playing?

Edited by ultimateslacker2, 08 February 2007 - 07:16 PM.

[Facedown98]

Hi. I'm personally not crazy about Dell Inspiron systems... I suggest Toshiba, Sony, Lenovo or Gateway.

If you really want Dell, I won't stop you

I'd say that the graphics are fine, but it depends what you're using the laptop for...

I'm not going to make any suggestions on what you should put inside the machine until I know what you want to use it for.

[ultimateslacker2]

I heard that GFX card freezes and it is not really up to most games like Half Life 2.

Everything else looks quite alright. The processor should clock around 2.0ghz.

Edited by ultimateslacker2, 08 February 2007 - 07:24 PM.

[ultimateslacker2]

Crap... I got the 2 cards mixed up.

Reading a review from here

http://www.notebookc...ook.2594.0.html

It says the processor runs at 1.6ghz which is pretty good for a laptop

Your GFX should run good games, this was a mistake on my turn. I apoligize for it. We all make mistakes, right?

The card I got it mixed up was with a Radeon xpress x600

[o2mcgovem]

Games? I don't really know yet. The only game I have so far is "The Sims 2", which I haven't played much yet since it doesn't actually work on my laptop (and it's hard to get on the desktop in my house, family always on it). I really want to avoid MMOpgsrrs (or whatever they are), those big online games, because they're so addictive (apparently).

I probably won't be playing games like Half Life 2 on this laptop anyway. I think games are way better when played on a deskop really, don't know why really. I'll probably only play TS2 on it, if it turns out I like it. Although, I may just go any buy it to see what it's like. (I'm sorta an impulsive buyer. I don't seem to have a lot of money though.)

I'll probably use it for basic stuff (email, IM, word processing etc) and watching a lot of movies/listening to music, possibly watching tv on it too. I have a video editing program too, which I can't use either since it won't run on my current laptop.

[ultimateslacker2]

Oh, than for your laptop...your good to go..your GFX is like a god for The Sims 2.

But I really should think twice about vista.. it still loaded with bugs and microsoft is still working on getting the kinks out of it. You should go with XP Mce for your video/software editing and T.V. Needs intill vista is bug-free.

[o2mcgovem]

Oh, so it is a good graphics thing then? Will it run that shiny aero thing without any problems, do you think? That looks so cool.

Btw, my current laptop has 777MB of RAM (I put a 512 module in myself, I was so proud ), a 1.5GHz Via processor and graphics chip with 64MB of memory. Oh, and it has Windows XP.

(I think I made a mistake when buying it really. I was suckered in by the numbers. I was upgrading from a laptop with 64MB of RAM, a graphics thing with 4MB of memory and a processor speed of... 233MHz, Running Windows 2000, so when I saw that this ran at 1500MHz I was just like, buy.)

[o2mcgovem]

There was no choice. Just Windows Vista Home Premium. :S

[ultimateslacker2]

Grr.. I cannot believe the companies are already putting Vista on computers. Well I mean it should run fine, I am not a sims fan. I am so bad at it I just lit the house on fire. If you have any problems when you get it, go to the Vista forum when you get the laptop. The specs are awesome for what you want.

Hope I helped you out!

[o2mcgovem]

Okay, thanks so much. I was expecting to have to wait ages for a reply but this problem's been solved in under an hour!

Are you sure Vista's that bad? If so, naughty Microsoft for releasing it when it's got so many problems.

House on fire? You can do that? Do the people die in the Sims? I never really thought about it. I'm intregued now, I thought it was just like making people. :S I'll go find a review.

[ultimateslacker2]

Well it was a few years ago when I played the first one. I think i deleted my sisters wonderful creation and I went nuts on it so i uninstalled it ..haha

[JimB007]

Oh, than for your laptop...your good to go..your GFX is like a god for The Sims 2.

But I really should think twice about vista.. it still loaded with bugs and microsoft is still working on getting the kinks out of it. You should go with XP Mce for your video/software editing and T.V. Needs intill vista is bug-free.

Vista is very resource hungry. And your gonna need all those more resources for some flashy things. I read somewhere that the Ultimate version should need some 2Gb RAM and some 40Gb of free HD space. Think about the environment with a laptop that needs more resources and the industry that needs to make more and more and heavier stuff to accomodate.

[o2mcgovem]

It says it does support 2GB of RAM. Although, I'm not going to get Dell to do it for an extra £100(!), I can just shove that in myself if it's going too slow.

I'm not going to get Ultimate anyway, wayyy to expensive. It's around £350 ($700-ish) on Amazon for Windows Vista Ultimate. £350 could buy a deskop!!

I have a copy of Vista Home Basic here that I could put on if it was really bad. I found it online for cheap (impulse buying moment, again). Or, can you just disable the flashy things?

Btw, JimB007, I love your avatar!

Edited by o2mcgovem, 08 February 2007 - 09:16 PM.

[JimB007]

Btw, JimB007, I love your avatar!

Ye about that. In the days I had an Me I once downloaded a proggy (can't recall which, but the program or the website had something in it called submit.com) and suddenly all my icons (well 80% anyway) changed to that icon (without the text). Some of them I could reinstall so they were back associated with the right program; but the ones that were not associated directly with any program remained with that weird icon. I even went to my sytem32 folder where all the standard Window icons are located to check it out. It was not in there. For nearly half a year I was stuck with that icon; very nasty peace of spyware in those Me days I must confess.

Edited by JimB007, 09 February 2007 - 05:07 AM.