hi guys need your help. I am thinking of getting a laptop with these specs (see below) what you think?

Question

specs:
Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile Technology
Intel® Core™2 processor Duo T5600 (2Mb Cache / 1.83GHz / 667MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
14.1 inch Wide Screen XGA Display
1.0Gb DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 Dimms
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
120Gb SATA Hard Drive
Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Integrated Audio
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Mini Card (54Mbps)
53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
1Yr. Ltd Warranty, 1Yr. Mail-In Service, and 1Yr. HW Warranty Support (Dell USA)
Windows Vista™ Capable
PC Restore recovery system by Symantec
Starter Entertainment Pack - Basic digital Music, Photo and Game experience
I/O Ports:
* IEEE 1394 integrated port (1394 cable and software sold separately)
* 4 USB 2.0 (Universal Serial Bus) compliant 4-pin connectors
* RJ45 Ethernet port
* RJ11 Modem port
* Video: 15-pin monitor connector

Answer 1

home entertainment, office, internet > great

gaming > poor

overall > pretty good for win xp

portability > pretty decent



so best is you specify usage / application, i mean what do you plan the notebook for

> can then comment exact



EDIT:

"Windows Vista™ Capable" is only a sticker and asker did not want to know any bit about Vista

Plenty many loose comments, both ways > uncalled for and mostly untrue !

Answer 2

I was surprised at many of the "pro-Vista" comments here. Vista is still a little buggy, and requires a *lot* of RAM. XP is a good choice, although I would take seriously the comments about XP Pro vs. Media Center made by another answer.



1 GB RAM is *plenty* for XP. Memory generally drops in price *significantly* over time. If you want to upgrade to Vista (say, a year from now), hopefully the 4 GB RAM will be half the price it is today.



Unless your doing lots of pics or video or high-end games, 120 GB is plenty. My desktop has 40 GB and I'm feeling closed in, but 80 GB would be plenty. Assuming that this laptop is special purpose (otherwise, get a desktop), 120 GB should be fine.



Newer laptops have 1000 Mbps ethernet. Just an observation - it may be important to you.



Unasked-for advice: laptops usually should be for a specific purpose. In other words, you should *need* portability to accomplish certain tasks, or for convenience in accomplishing those tasks. If you buy a laptop thinking "I need to do this, so I might as well use it for everything", you will likely be disappointed in the way it does the "everything", especially if your budget is limited and you cannot afford the top-end laptop. If you can manage it, and your budget is limited, buy an older, used laptop from a well-respected vendor loaded with just the software you need to accomplish your tasks. Then spend that extra $$$ on a desktop that will do the "everything" at speed.



Jim, http://www.life-after-harry-potter.com

Answer 3

What you have specified is good, you may consider getting 2 Gb of RAM and bigger harddrive. It is cheaper to do it now than later. The 14.1 wide screen is okay, may be a 15.4". A 17" gets heavy. Dell is okay, the price is a little higher than HP or Toshiba. You should also get a media card reader built-in, it is opretty standard nowaday. If you are planning to play a lot games, I would get a desktop as a secondary, it is cheap. Laptop get hot after awhile, you may want to invest a notebook cooler for under $25. You will be much happier. All operating system should be come with Vista Home Premium. Vista Business will loss some media/game features. Good luck!

Answer 4

I would up the hard drive and go with a least 2 gb ram. They recommend 1 gb to run vista so go with 2 to be safe. Is it a used laptop? If it's new, it should have vista on it. If you upped those 2 things you should have a decent computer for quite some time.

Answer 5

this is a pretty good one, but there is a lot of computers that are a lot better than this one. i think 120GB is not that big, maybe aroud 200, and also the memory of the cunputer is very important. specially the vitural memory. it should be around 2 or 3 GB. (it depend on what are you going to use the cumputer for)

Answer 6

i think of you may upload greater ram and bypass forward installation homestead windows 7.it is not obtainable for ur computing device to get overheated.If the compatibility software says it is okay then bypass forward.because of the fact some people put in win7 and mac os x on their netbooks which in basic terms has an atom proccessor.

Answer 7

"Windows Vista™ Capable" as in doesnt already have it? All new computers shud b sold with it now. And a 14.1 screen is tiny.



*Whos giving me thumbs down? I have vista and there is no problems with it, I never see a computer sold with xp now, its out of date and whoever is trying to fob u off with it is just being cheap. I cant recommend Toshiba enough.*

Answer 8

I would not get the media center edition of Windows. Lots of media restrictions and hidden gotchas.



Dell still sells systems with XP through their business website. Buy it through there, not the consumer site. If you are willing to consider alternatives, I cannot recommend Macs enough. Easier to use and way more secure and excellent quality. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?node=home/specialdeals/mac&cid=OAS-US-KWG-CPUDiscount/Refurb-US&aosid=p202&esvt=GOUSB101127292&esvadt=999999-0-1024275-1&esvid=1989



The rest of it seems okay, but it depends on what you want to do with it.

Answer 9

This is pretty good especially with XP loaded. Don't change to Vista until the Vista improved. The RAM may getup to 2G if you are a gamer.