Originally posted by: Cheesehead
I'm getting a Dell 9100 "media doohickey" model laptop. Any upgrade reccomendations? I'm throwing in 1GB of PC2700 after I get it, so RAM's no issue.
I was thinking of getting the 128mb 9700 pro (as opposed to 64mb, 100$ extra) and the B/G wi-fi mini-PCI card. Also, I was looking at the 7200rpm hard drive (+100$) and Windows XP pro. (70$ extra).
Do you think these are worth it? Or do you reccomend something else?
Well, considering the 9100 uses PC3200, you would be degrading performance by a good margin if you dropped in PC2700, unless you could overclock it to PC3200.
For the video card, if you plan on gaming with this laptop I would say go for the 128meg 9700 Pro, or if you can afford it, get the 256 Radeon 9800. Its not just the increased video memory, the mobile 9800 is based off the X800. It has 8 pipelines, compared to the mobile 9700's 4. It is a huge jump in gaming performance - if you can afford it. If your not planning on serious gaming I would stick with the 64meg version of the mobile 9700.
Hard drive - the 7200rpm 60 gig drive will be noticably faster than the other drives which are 4200rpm. Trust me, dont neuter your 9100 with a slow hard drive.
Wi-Fi - a must IMO. No notebook should be without it.
OS - IMO it depends on what your going to use the notebook for. General personal usage (gaming, watching DVDs, browsing, etc) you should be fine with XP Home. If your going to be using this lappy for work (joining a Windows based network, connecting to an Exchange server, etc) then I would spring for XP Pro.
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