Dell notebooks competitively priced / spec'd

D

DarkSideA8

Gawd
Joined
Apr 13, 2005
Messages
990
Seeing as Dell has become so large, is the price/performance ratio for their notebooks still pretty good?

Or are there other manufacturers who sell similar notebooks for a better price / value?
 
I'm already thinking the same thing. Dell has business notebooks called the vostro series that come around $559 with XP and decent specs.
 
Dell is hard to beat price v. performance, but there is much more to the equation than just that. You have to look at support, parts used in replacement (you getting new or refurb), etc., so Dell does a decent job overall, but sometimes it might be better to spend a little extra for those extra features. You just have to weight the fact that you may or may not ever need those services.
 
Tired of the games they play with their pricing schemes. I am supposed to qualify for a deal through my work and yet most of their standard coupons that are available beat any so called deal I could get. Then you have where they routinely take off "instant rebates" only to have them disappear when you try to apply a coupon for say $200 or $300 off because it is non combinable. That means you might find a computer that has $250 in instant rebates or can be normally bought that day without any addition of a coupon for $250 off. You add in your $300 coupon and you save only $50 more than what that days price really is. I consider that a bait and switch tactic. A $300 coupon is not $300 when that day it only amounts to a $50 savings. Dell also deals to certain colleges and such where they will just give away their 4 year warranty (including accidental damage) while combining with other discounts. When was the last time you saw that offer for enthusiasts or deal seekers. It also pisses me off when the cost of a refurbished item in their Dell Outlet section costs considerably more than what can be had through regular channels. You can see where some of those systems are no longer available and can only assume Dell sold it and someone got a bad deal. The add on expenses are ridiculous and inconsistent whether its software or hardware upgrades and the technical support costs are unfortunately leading the industry down a bad path. This concludes my rant!

TheDigs
 
I guess what I am asking is this:

Are there other laptop mfrs that people like that can regularly beat Dell on price / perf.

I don't need a big warranty, service plan, or a purple backpack to carry the thing.

I just want a good laptop at a good price - and worry that Dell is so big that they're not the best price.
 
They had a pretty good deal and I bought the laptop a few weeks ago.

Dell Vostro 1500
15" widescreen (I got the lower resolution one, I've heard it has a higher quality panel and any higher resolution would be too hard to look on the screen for me). I bought the truelife version (this doesn't effect panel type but this is a glossy screen if you didn't know)
Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2
2x1 GB DDR2 667
120GB 7200 RPM
GeForce 8600M GT
DVD/CD Burner
Wireless G
6 cell battery
XP Home SP2

$950 and free shipping!

I would've got the C2D 2.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 4MB L2 if they didn't make gouge your eyeballs out for it.

It's pretty sweet, can get work done (Word, excel), browse internet, listen to musc, check email, watch videos, play WoW on max settings (I got 2 wow accounts and this laptop is also able to run two clients at the same time perfectly), TF2 on max settings, and also got some other stuff (Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat).
 
TheDigs said:
Tired of the games they play with their pricing schemes. I am supposed to qualify for a deal through my work and yet most of their standard coupons that are available beat any so called deal I could get. Then you have where they routinely take off "instant rebates" only to have them disappear when you try to apply a coupon for say $200 or $300 off because it is non combinable. That means you might find a computer that has $250 in instant rebates or can be normally bought that day without any addition of a coupon for $250 off. You add in your $300 coupon and you save only $50 more than what that days price really is. I consider that a bait and switch tactic. A $300 coupon is not $300 when that day it only amounts to a $50 savings. Dell also deals to certain colleges and such where they will just give away their 4 year warranty (including accidental damage) while combining with other discounts. When was the last time you saw that offer for enthusiasts or deal seekers. It also pisses me off when the cost of a refurbished item in their Dell Outlet section costs considerably more than what can be had through regular channels. You can see where some of those systems are no longer available and can only assume Dell sold it and someone got a bad deal. The add on expenses are ridiculous and inconsistent whether its software or hardware upgrades and the technical support costs are unfortunately leading the industry down a bad path. This concludes my rant!

TheDigs
Click to expand...

Read the fine print, most any dell coupon i look at either says:

1. UPTO $x amount off for x configuration
2, $300 off on specific X model configurations
3. $x amount of limited number of redeem's
4. $x amount off mail in rebates
4 save $x amount on free upgrades (usually included in price already)
 
My whole point was that in the past Dell often had some unbelievable deals and I just don't believe that is the case anymore. All of the examples you see given by people or what you find in the deals sections of various sites are the price of some stripped down notebook where you might have 1.4 Mhz CPU with maybe a gig of ram and an 80 gig hard drive running xp home. Now when you start adding in the options any enthusiast would like to see then what do you get but a notebook that barely competes with a lower priced Asus, Lenova etc.. If you do want to keep it bare minimum and retain some options as far as upgrading, avadirect, rjtech and a lot of others can help you put a notebook together that will be comparable to Dell (Compal EL81 comes to mind). Heck, buy the Dell (probably a Compal made computer anyways, for about the same price. Just don't keep telling me that they are on top when it comes to the price performance wars when there are a lot of other options out there. Just my humble opinion.
 
TheDigs said:
My whole point was that in the past Dell often had some unbelievable deals and I just don't believe that is the case anymore.
Click to expand...

The laptop I bought above, on the side it said the original price, how much I'm saving, and current. They had some great deal that saved me $350. That event is now over. During around august/sept they had $100 off on the Dell 24" LCD (So it was $569). After that is was the regular $669. And just recently they put it up to $699... Christmas?

Dell will have awesome deals once in awhile. They never tell you how long they will last. I bought the two above things from the small business section, I remember finding that same monitor at the regular price when I was in the home section.
 
I trash Dell and then I get a deal through my email from them that was too good to pass up. I ended up buying an Inspiron 1520 Notebook

Inspiron 1520, Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, 2.2GHz, 800Mhz, 4M L2 Cache
Ruby Red Color with MicrosatinFinish
1GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch display (1680x1050)
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
80G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, English
8X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive
Intel 3945 WLAN (802.11a/g) Mini Card
Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery, for Inspiron 1520
Dell Wirless 355 Bluetooth Mod
2 Yr Warranty

Total with tax was just under $900

Since the hard drive and memory sux I ordered two things from newegg....

HITACHI Travelstar 7K200 HTS722020K9SA00 (0A50940) 200GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Notebook Hard Drive - OEM

GeIL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Notebook Memory Model GX2S5300-4GDCA - Retail


Not bad I think for about $1,200 total.....
 
When I buy, I want to get a laptop with a good GPU, proc and RAM. Yet some of what is written above leaves me scratching my head.

Couple of questions:

If I were to go with a 15 inch widescreen - what are the pros and cons of the 15.4” Widescreen WXGA Display with TrueLife vs 15.4” UltraSharpTM Widescreen WSXGA+ Display with TrueLifeTM versions? Is the "+" version worth the $100?

How easy is it to swap RAM and / or the HD?

If I swap the HD, don't I lose the OEM operating system?

Last (for now): the 256mb 8600m is available - is it worth waiting for the 8700 or 8800m?
 
HP is pretty competitive to them as well. I also like to pay a bit more for the build quality of Lenovo (which is still much better than HP or Dell or any of the other main stream companies).

As said, the key is to buy Memory and Hard Drive upgrades after.

I bought 512mb of memory with my Thinkpad and upgrade to 2gb for $60. Lenovo wanted $150 for the same upgrade.
 
I don't think you can get a better laptop deal then Dells refurbs...
Standard priced stuff is decent as well.
 
I have kind of the same problem here.

We use IBM, and I personally don't like IBM laptops. (driver problems, ect..)

So, I have to buy about 15 next week, and I don't want to buy IBM's, but I'm not really sure where to start looking next. I'm thinking Dell, but does anyone have a suggestion, and why of a specific model?

tyia


edit: they will be company laptops, not personal.
edit2: Actually, I'm looking at the Vostro 1500 now.
 
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