Advice on Purchasing Dell Inspiron 8000

[patrickd]

To all you hardware gurus:

I have to buy a laptop for school, and have nearly made up my mind that the Inspiron is one of the best gaming laptops money can buy. I plan on maxing it out (1 Ghz PIII, 512 Megs RAM, 32 Meg GeForce Go, etc...) However, I have a few questions:

1. Are there any other comparable laptops on the market?
2. Will Pentium prices drop significantly in a month or so? (In otherwords, will I save money by waiting?)
3. Should I buy RAM through Crucial for cheaper prices?
4. Should I do the same for the hard drive?

Any serious advice is welcome.

Thanks in Advance,
Future Laptop Gamer

 

[ElFenix]

you have to buy a laptop for school? like they want you to carry it around and actually use it? here when they say a laptop is a good idea they mean that you'll never actually use it. if they want you to carry it around you'd be better off with something lighter such as the i4000, after you pack your books and laptop in your bag once or twice you'll see that a 7lb laptop isn't a good thing. plus you could get a lesser i4000, save some money, and buy a gaming desktop with the leftover and have 2 computers.

in fact, to save even more get a dell "refurb." i put it in quotes because many of the systems there aren't really even refurbed, they were shipped back by a huge company (fortune 50) that ordered too many comps to begin with.

but if you must get an i8000, wait until you actually need to order it to get it in time... the new p3 tualatin chips are coming out ASAP, so the lower end chips should drop in price, plus the tualatin eats a lot less power which means it will be on at 1GHz most of the time (the current 1 GHz clock throttles even on desktop power because it can melt the laptop's plastic). buy your RAM from crucial, i think its where dell makes most of there money. hard drive you should get from dell as its hard to find notebook drives and the price isn't much different.

EDIT: don't forget that dell has 30 day price protection so, 30 days after you buy it, go online, config the same thing, and ask for the difference. also, dell has a modem + 10/100 miniPCI card, get that, and you'll have a real ethernet jack on the notebook, no xjack to break, no dongle to lose.

hmmm... just configed one, i assume you'd want a burner and dvd, big screen, 3 year mail in serivce, and the gf2go: $2565... thats without the half gig of RAM, so $2800+ before tax and shipping... or the i4000 pretty much as bare as you can get it for $1303... you might want to add some ram from crucial, whatever. still, $1500 will get you quite a desktop machine, and then you'll have a very upgradable and badass desktop + a servicable notebook perfect for taking notes on. plus quake will go a lot faster.

 

[Pretender]

I've heard buying ram thru alternate sources instead of from the mfg is cheaper, but I never had a laptop so I couldn't say.

Nice choice, dell is a nice brand and they make sweeeeet laptops.

Prices will always be dropping. Always. No matter when you get it, you'll hit yourself for not waiting another month.

 

[Bozo Galora]

I dunno:
Toshiba Satellite 2805-402 for $1975 (With $100 rebate till 6/30)

128 MB
20 Gig
850 Pent
16MB GF2Go
15TFT
Nic card

More bang for buck?
(I just dunno)

Just tryin to hep

 

[HyTekJosh]

Dell rocks, BUT DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT get the inspiron 8000, it is HUGE and VERY heavy! If you are looking for a Dell Inspiron, you have to take a look at the 4000 series! If you are looking at latitudes, take a look at the C600! I prefer the latitude over the inspiron, but there is a HUGE price difference and it is not worth it. I would go for a Dell Inspiron 4000!

 

[grimreaper19]

get the i4000, much better deal. The 8000 is heavy. I can't wait until monday. My i4000 is coming. Buy your ram else where and also HD, and accessories. Dell charges $150 to upgrade a 5 gig hd to 20 gig. For $120 u can pick up a 20 gig ibm from compgeeks. Teamexcess.com has good deals on dell parts. U can pick up a dell leather carrying case for $29.99, dell sells it for $100. They also carry ac adapters and batteries. They have the high capacity batteries for $59. Dell sells it for $120. And also dell charges $49 to upgrade from standard battery to high capcity. It would be a better deal to just take the standard and save the money and not upgrade to the high capacity through dell and buy it from teamexcess. Then u'll have 2 batteries. If you are in need of docking stations. Check out egay, there's a bunch on it for about $60. Dell sells it for $200.

 

[IcemanJer]

1. Check out them Sony VAIOs.
2. I doubt it.
3. Yes.
4. More tricky, but sure if you can find a significant price difference.

 

[meister]

Just purchased a compaq presario laptop. Great price and perfomance.

p3 800
256 meg
20 gig
15 tft
dvd/cdrw
ethernet, modem
floppy

all for 1999. I was going for a dell but couldn't these specs for price.

Mark

 

[patrickd]

Thanks for all the help! Barring any other circumstances, I'm going to get the Inspiron 8000.

 

[Bomberboy]

<< Thanks for all the help! Barring any other circumstances, I'm going to get the Inspiron 8000. >>



Awesome choice. I am looking at getting the Inspiron 8000 for school as well. It is simply too pimptacular. I would say wait until they have the 2 for 1 memory and harddrive promotion. That is the bomb. They will upgrade the harddrive from 10gb to 20gb and 128mb ram to 256mb for free! Its worth the wait, trust me.

Luckily for me, I don't go to university for another year, so I have a lot of time. I'm thinking of waiting until Christmas to buy one. This way I can cash in HUGE on their Christmas promotions

GL DUDE.

BTW. Don't scrimp at all with the machine..... its not an inspiron 8000 unless its trixed out.

 

[Mday]

lol, i may actually HAVE to get a laptop =P

 

[nateholtrop]

geez guys i just got my inspiron 8000 yesterday true it is a lil heavy but omg this makes my desktop unusable!!!! the 1600x1200 res is kickass here's my specs and i will have to remember that thing about the 30 day pricing...

1ghz
32mn g2go
32gb hd
256mb ram
15 uxga
dvd and cdrw
mini pci

currently running redhat 6.2 and windows 2000 1st thing i did was nuke the hd when i got it.

nate

 

[Rogue]

My work laptop is a refurb Insprion 8000 and let me tell ya', best damn laptop money can buy. I still have yet to find another laptop mfg. that even has a screen that does anything above 1024x768 while the Dells go all the way up to 1600x1200. I tell you what, there's nothing like hooking my baby up to an LCD projector and playing Red Alert 2 on a 10 foot wide screen. Toting the 8000 around is much easier if you buy something like this to carry it in.

 

[MWink]

As a Dell Inspiron 8000 owner I will say it is a good laptop. But it does have some flaws. The biggest being that the LCD blinks when certain patterns or colors are displayed. Also, Dell's tech support is horrible. I Emailed them 2 weeks ago and still have not gotten a response. If you do get a Dell upgrade everything you can yourself. In other words get the least memory and HD and upgrade them yourself. That is what I did and it saved me a lot of money.

If you do get this laptop, you will have to be careful or your desktop may leave you! It is way too fast. My desktop is getting jealous.

 

[nateholtrop]

lol mwink i am selling my desktop because this thing does everything it does and i need the $$ to help pay this off

Nate

 

[RichieZ]

I really like the Dell Inspiron, I'm sitting here on an Inspiron 7000 and its great, i love the screen and like the keyboard more than the thinkpad my dad has. Only problem is this one is a p2 266. I'll porbably get an Inspirion 4000 or 8000 later this summer b4 i go off to college