Dell 700M, worth the price?

S

sin01

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 30, 2005
Messages
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I have seen the 700m, and i have to admit. its cute. I am in college and wouldnt mind a tiny laptop to carry around with me to my programming classes and other places.
What do you guys think of the 700m, i think that you can get it to mid $700 if you use the coupons and lower all of its costomizations, is this worth it?
 
it's worth it only if you can buy it with the $750 off coupon. other than that, the battery life sucks.
 
do the math, at the rate the 700m's go for, 750 off is closer to 50% then 45%.
 
itr said:
it's worth it only if you can buy it with the $750 off coupon. other than that, the battery life sucks.
Click to expand...
8 hours on the 9cell is bad?
 
i thought to use the $750 off the price tag had to a minimum price that was actually high enough that to use it on the 700m would mean more money that if you used the 45 % off on its minimum price
 
my 600m has 4.5 hour battery life on the regular battery, i wanted to spring for the 700m, but i got a great deal on this one
 
but the 700 m is so tiny. Please, do you guys know pros and cons of it? and perhaps the cheepest that it could ever be?
 
dell has discontiued all coupons that give decent deals. for a half decent 700m expect to pay 1200+shipping. The $750 off coupons wont be back, if at all, for some while.

My 700m will be here Tuesday. I sold my 6000D to a [H] member - it was too big to fit on the desks at school, and I didnt need the X300 that it had any more, that was my biggest reason getting the 6000d, was the video card.

Depending on what you are doing, the 700m is a great choice. Battery life with the 8cell is 5+ hours, but some of the keys are a bit smaller than normal - only an issue if u have bigger fingers.

If you dont need to awesome mobility, or hate the idea of a small keyboard, the 600m may be a good choice for you.
 
i can wait a while for the laptop, but when you say discontinued, do you mean like eve during holday seasons and stuff? Becuase i was thinking about maybe asking as a combined preseant from my family and relatives would be the computer. When will they be back:???
 
as tiny as it is, is the computing power worth it. Is it ok for making a website on, maybe some programming, and paperwrinting, as well as, PERhaps SOME gaming ( world of warcraft?)
 
Gaming i dunno about WoW but CS and WC3 isnt too bad. I own a 700m and got the 750 dollar off deal which is worth it. Cons i think are monitor is a lil bit shiny in daylight and its hard to watch movie when that happens. but everything else about it is perfect. My battery last for 5 hrs i dunno what the other guy is talking about.
 
The coupons will probably come back, especially later in their quarter when they want to boost sales. Without discounts why would anyone buy from Dell?

It's good for everything except playing the newest games. The disadvantages are a smaller keyboard with some half sized punctuations keys, and a shiny screen that has glare if used near bright light. So unless you have big hands and plan on doing lots of typing outdoors it is a good compromise. It's small, light, and with good discounts can be had cheaper than its competitors.
 
i saw a kid with the 700m in my lecture hall and i ask him if i could type on his, he said it was cool. I like fell in love with it, however then my professor took out her new T series sony vio, i know im not getting that machine but that thing is tiny as hell haha. Oh well. So you guys are saying htat you think the 700m can run wow? I am not totally a gamer or anything, my DTR runs all the newest games and all, so this thing again is for like neet movies on the road maybe, and someprogramming along with whatever i need for extreme!!! protability. I hear cons about the comma and period keys, this is fine, i dotn have large hands, and i got used to the kids keyboard very quickly. With the 750 dollars off how much do you think i will be looking to spend, for a decent configuration on the thing. i am sure that without a decent config it can be like $760?? anyone know of a decent fig, i am still looking for below $800 !!! =)
 
How much was it>?? what costomizations does it have?? I need info!!! lol
 
Since I was not every concerned with processing power for it, I got the 1.6GHz, but they used to have a bunch of 1.7s and some 1.8s for decent prices.

Options:
512MB DDR
DVD burner
8 cell battery

It was about $1000 after tax and shipping.

They are almost completely cleaned out of the good deals now in the Dell Outlet site right now. There were actually some better options before they offered the small discount on them. I suspect, however, that after the current deal lapses, they will start to build up an inventory of them again and some good deals will appear again. The key is to get it with the 8 cell battery because the 4 cell is supposed to have a real short life. The 8 cell is $200 to buy new so it is a good idea to get it included.
 
Got mine today brand new off ebay.

Centrino 1.6ghz
512mb DDR
40GB hd
DVDRW
4cell

$950 shipped and insured. This is new, not even refurb and you can get an 8 cell on ebay for 70$
 
shoot!, it sounds like any way i go i am going to end up spending a thousand on this thing.~!!! booooo. Now i have no real sorce of income except for what my parents give me, and thats not 1000 to spend on whatever!!! lol, i need help! someone tell me of an amazing deal!
 
sin01 said:
someone tell me of an amazing deal!
Click to expand...

Your school probably has a gym you can use for FREE! Go work out for awhile and bulk up, so carrying your XPS around will feel like carrying the 700m!

It looks like Dell has backed off on the ~50% off deals for now. Keep Googling "dell coupon" every couple days and look at one of the top few sites Google gives you. When you see that $750 off $1500 coupon again, pounce.
 
i agree with the other guys comments about how as soon as they realize people are no longer buying their computers in the amoutn they used too, and that they have s surplus of 700m 6000's etc all sitting in the back, they wil throw the deals out again.
 
comapred with price range, if all price were equal, would you get a better computing power deal out of the 12 inch dell or the 12 inch apple?? Now that we are just shooting the sh*t and all i was very curious about this
 
a 700m will blow an ibook out of the water but a high end powerbook would give it a run for its money. it depends on what you want to do though. If you dont care that you have an apple and are sure you want to deal with buying new software, tracking down mac versions of stuff, etc then you will be fine, but if you want convienience, compatibility, and something familiar, go with the 700m.

Personally, I love the speed of my Mac at work, but Mac OS Tiger gets on my nerves. The GUI is pretty but it seems simplified at the cost of efficiency. Keep in mind my Apple at work really cant be compared to a 12" powerbook...Dual 2.3GHz, 2GB RAM, 400GB SATA, 23" Cinema Display.

I would rather have an AMD X2 3800+ with 2GB RAM and the Apple display but they said this is what I get so....lol

Sorry to thread hijack --

I say go with the 700m - ive had mine for 2 days and i love it. i can take it anywhere. just make sure you get the 8-cell extended battery, the 4cell gets 2.5hrs.
 
these are the things i see wrong with dell (some specific to the 700m)

- you cannot order a laptop without an OS
- you cannot order a laptop without ram
- you cannot order a laptop without a HDD
- you cannot order a laptop without CPU
- you cannot ask dell to put in high quality ram since they only have one brand
- you HAVE to pay dells outragous prices for ram
- you HAVE to get a stupid intel based system, dell will NOT sell AMD
- the 700m is a 400FSB based laptop, 400FSB is way out of date now
- the 700m only has 2 USB ports (i know some ppl can live with 2 but i cant, i have 2 devices pluged in at any given time and i really need USB ports free for USB drives, USB HDDs and other USB devices)
- dell screens look like shit, the 9300 has HORRIBLE backlight leakage, my friends i9300 has a stupid white light comming from all along the bottom of the LCD and it makes all the colors screwy
- dell does not let you choose the HDD brand, fujitsu HDDs are crap
- dell uses cheap ass plastic for construction
- dell upgrades are not user friendly, its a pain in the ass to take apart a 700m to upgrade or replace components (CPU, RAM, HDD, etc)
- dells bluetooth devices suck (toshiba BS with a crappy stack missing half the bluetooth functions that are found in a standard bluetooth phone or headset)
- dell touchpads are crap (apls touchpads are total junk, same goes for the software)
- the video card blows in the 700m, the PB's 9200 is way better even though its 32MB, the core is still faster
- the dell video cards suck ass in general cept for the 9300/xps2 but when your paying $2500+ canadian i expect top of the line
-dell coupons are far better for the US and rarely have good coupons for canada (i live in canada)
- dell usually loads their computers (all of them) with bloated crap software makeing them perform underpar out of the box
- dell will not give you a copy of the OS unless you pay for it, so basically you have to pay for it twice (i find this to be bull shit)



on a good note dell will give any hobo off the street a $5000 credit and will probably finance you even if you have the worst credit rating known to man
 
sounds like you don't like dell :) My 8600 has nasty backlight leakage. Will be buying an ibm next i think.
 
thevelourfog said:
sounds like you don't like dell :) My 8600 has nasty backlight leakage. Will be buying an ibm next i think.
Click to expand...

well its not my first choice but the i9300 is a good laptop for the price, nothing will beat it in performance for cheaper
 
klowngoblin said:
these are the things i see wrong with dell (some specific to the 700m)

- you cannot order a laptop without an OS
- you cannot order a laptop without ram
- you cannot order a laptop without a HDD
- you cannot order a laptop without CPU
Click to expand...
I don't know many system builders that offer any sort of decent warranty that will ship without these things so I don't really think you can say that is something wrong with Dell.
klowngoblin said:
- you cannot ask dell to put in high quality ram since they only have one brand
- you HAVE to pay dells outragous prices for ram
Click to expand...
The ram prices suck if you buy them as separate upgrates later on but dont seem to cost much more if you buy it with the system, its still a little higher than market though. You dont HAVE to buy your upgrades from Dell, either. You can get memory for those laptops anywhere.
klowngoblin said:
- you HAVE to get a stupid intel based system, dell will NOT sell AMD
Click to expand...
yea it would be nice to have the option
klowngoblin said:
- the 700m is a 400FSB based laptop, 400FSB is way out of date now
- the 700m only has 2 USB ports (i know some ppl can live with 2 but i cant, i have 2 devices pluged in at any given time and i really need USB ports free for USB drives, USB HDDs and other USB devices)
- dell screens look like shit, the 9300 has HORRIBLE backlight leakage, my friends i9300 has a stupid white light comming from all along the bottom of the LCD and it makes all the colors screwy
- dell does not let you choose the HDD brand, fujitsu HDDs are crap
- dell uses cheap ass plastic for construction
- dell upgrades are not user friendly, its a pain in the ass to take apart a 700m to upgrade or replace components (CPU, RAM, HDD, etc)
- dells bluetooth devices suck (toshiba BS with a crappy stack missing half the bluetooth functions that are found in a standard bluetooth phone or headset)
- dell touchpads are crap (apls touchpads are total junk, same goes for the software)
Click to expand...
I have read reviews that have liked the screen on the 700m alot and the one that I tried that was on display was pretty nice. Hard drive choices would be nice. I am always a fan of more options, but that is often not the case with system builders.
klowngoblin said:
- the video card blows in the 700m, the PB's 9200 is way better even though its 32MB, the core is still faster
- the dell video cards suck ass in general cept for the 9300/xps2 but when your paying $2500+ canadian i expect top of the line
Click to expand...
The 700m is just on the edges of the "ultra-portable" classification, it isnt meant to be a portable gaming rig, nor are such laptops generally easy to upgrade. 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag. Many laptops this small do not come with an internal CD/DVD drive. This is one of the features that attracted me to the 700m. For the price, I couldn't beat it either.
klowngoblin said:
- dell usually loads their computers (all of them) with bloated crap software makeing them perform underpar out of the box
Click to expand...
I agree, I will be formatting mine as soon as I get it. This, of course, is not a "Dell only" phenomenon though. Most of the major builders do this.
klowngoblin said:
- dell will not give you a copy of the OS unless you pay for it, so basically you have to pay for it twice (i find this to be bull shit)
Click to expand...
You have to pay them $10 if you want the disk, this is not paying for it twice, but it is pretty stupid that they charge you for it.. I dont bother since I have an XP Home CD already so they can keep it.

Now I just wish UPS would get their fucking act together so I could give you more first hand impressions. Hopefully a truck didn't drive over it or something. I hate UPS.
 
Pa-LEASE tell me about your first experiences with it!!! i am so excited to hear about it! how heavy is it all configured out, like with what you think it should be configured with, what is the average weight?
 
I personally own and use the 600m. I've played with the 700m some and it's frickin tiny. It's a small widescreen...and I mean SMALL. I wouldn't use this as a main computer for any lengthy time without hooking up a larger monitor to work off of.
It is pretty darn light. The keys are a tad smaller, as been said. The extended life battery is sort of bulky. The normal battery fits the lines of the laptop, but the extended battery is much thicker, and sort of 'props' the laptop up from the back(since this is where the battery hooks in).

I got the 600m mainly as a work laptop, but I use it as my main rig right now. It's still fairly light (lighter than the 6000), gets 5+ hours of battery usage (with wifi on, and active use) with the modular battery installed.

I will be dishing out the money when getting a new laptop next time though. I'll probably opt for the IBM series. That new Z series looks sexy. I need something thin, light, yet powerful.

The construction on the 700m is still plastic, but it seems more durable because of its smaller footprint. The 600m is still perfectly fine, but it does flex in areas I'd rather it not. I take extra precautions with all of my expensive electronics regardless, so this isn't really an issue for me. I still would opt for an IBM thinkpad now though.

Budget constraints, and a good coupon is what made me get the 600m. Don't expect anything fancy for less than $1500. However, you'll probably fine plenty of options that fit your needs perfectly. Just don't start complaining when you get this 'awesome' laptop for $800 and wonder why it doesn't have all the cool features and designs a $2000 laptop does. You get what you pay for.
 
I defeated UPS and rescued my precious new toy from their evil clutches.

I messed with the 700m last night and here are my first impressions.

First off, yes, it is very small. Even though the 8 cell battery sticks out about an inch, it doesnt make it bulky. The keyboard is small, but it didn't take me long to adjust to it, and I have big hands. My only issue with the keyboard so far are the punctuation keys "." and ",". The keys for those are smaller than the others and while I didnt seem to have too much trouble hitting them correctly when I was directly facing the laptop, if I moved my hands at all I had to concentrate on hitting the right one. They will take a little getting used to.

I like the screen, the color quality is nice and it doesnt have any problems with motion when playing DVDs. There are no problems with light bleeding or anything like that. It is small, but it is also a widescreen. It really didnt take me very long at all to get used to the size.

I didn't format it last night but I think I will be doing that soon. Like many other system builders, they did put tons of crap on it and I am not satisfied with just uninstalling them. I want all traces of them to go away. The only thing I will lose in the process is PowerDVD 5.5. Everything else is useless crap to me and I can download any of Dell's utilities from their site should I decide I need them. So, this is my only real complaint so far, but I knew It was going to be this way so I was not surprised.

The touchpad is standard. Nothing exceptional or disappointing. It works. I dont like touchpads in the first place, but I am going to have to force myself to get used to one.

The wireless worked very well. I was streaming divx files off of my file server with no problems.

Overall, I am very happy with my purchase. It looks like it will serve my purposes just nicely.
 
People complaining about the 700m either never used it, or just hate Dell for having tech support in india.

Get the 700m, it's one of the best and inexpensive small laptops out on the market. rivals ibm.
 
i love my 700m so far. im using it at work with a KB and Mouse hooked up. the screen doesnt hurt my eyes or anything. i use it to take notes with in class. you will easily get used to the smaller layout of the keys.

i say get the 700m, its no worse than any other laptop manufacturer. all of them are going to suck at something and there is always a few people who hate them with a passion.

get a warranty though, i cant imagine the cost to replace the motherboard or screen on this thing.

- Jay
 
I'll just say this. I used to have an Alienware laptop and I never got laid.

Now I have a 700m and I get tons of quality poon tang. I'm not saying the 700m will get you laid, but...yea, you know what? I'm saying it. The 700m will get you laid.

It's science. You can't argue with science!
 
First of all: LOL
Second of all, this is not the first time that i have heard someone bring up the thinkpads. I played with a few in the store, and my gf has one, and when i look at it, it looks stirdy, if you can say that, and to hold it, it feels... solid, if i can say THAT. Is this the apeal some other people find in it, or are there lots of other internal benifits that i am not seeing. I know my gf's battery life sucks, but maybe thats just her' model or something she does. Any comparisions between Dell and IBM? ( i think that although the mac's 12 inch is kinda hot, it is out of the race right now )
 
is it worth getting a dell 12 inch of the new thinkpads 12 inch? is it worth the money?
 
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