Dell 710m...

[Inspector Jihad]

Dell is having this 1/3 off sale, so you can get one for about 900 bucks...good buy?

 

[Ionizer86]

Specs for $900?

700m's have been under $700 when couponed appropriately, and the 710m is essentially the same.

As for the laptop itself, I think that the 700/710m is a poor design because of a few reasons:

I recall that battery life doesn't exceed 3 hours on the normal battery, which is rather short.

In addition, 4lb isn't that light for a 12" wide laptop, and you could get a 14" laptop that barely weighs more (T42, Z60t, v2000/z etc). On top of that the keyboard is really small.

It's already a small laptop, but Dell doesn't even fill the width of the 700m/710m with the keyboard, making the keyboard even smaller than it needs to be based on the chassis size.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

hmm...the stats are basically for the base model with an upgrade to 60 gig hd. this isnt a good deal then?

What about the vaios, they look really nice.

 

[GnomeCop]

my co worker just got one and he's been really satisfied with it for around the office work.

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: Ionizer86
As for the laptop itself, I think that the 700/710m is a poor design because of a few reasons:

I recall that battery life doesn't exceed 3 hours on the normal battery, which is rather short.

Get the bigger battery then.

In addition, 4lb isn't that light for a 12" wide laptop, and you could get a 14" laptop that barely weighs more (T42, Z60t, v2000/z etc).

Following that line of reasoning a 15" barely weighs more than a 14", then again a 17" doesn't weigh that much more than a 15". The new 19" laptops aren't going to weigh that much more than a 17". It all adds up, I think 4lbs is a good spot to draw the line.

 

[deathwalker]

The fact of the matter is that the Dell 710 is a very nice ultra portable laptop...despite the opinion of Dell flamers. And you will find many ultra's to good but perhaps not exceptional battery life. The battery pack is one of the first and easiest areas to attack when trying to cut weight out of a laptop and the 710 is no exception. Sony makes very average computers at above average prices.

 

[phantom309]

I have a 700m. It's good enough for the money, but as others have said, the keyboard is too damn small, and it's infuriating that they could've made it an inch wider but chose not to for aesthetic reasons. I will say that it does look cool and I get lots of compliments on it.

Screen is very good but it has that idiotic shiny finish they all seem to have now, and it glares like crazy. When I ordered it I thought it had some sort of hard protective cover on the screen like the Neovo LCD monitors used to have, but it's just soft plastic that smudges and scratches very easily. I don't get it.

On the plus side, very solidly built, just the right size, very fast for what it is. I paid $720 for it last year, that's about what it's worth.

 

[Ionizer86]

Bigger battery adds more weight. By <3 hours of battery life I think I'm being generous. I think the reviews give the 700/710m about 2-2.5 hours. Yes, we could argue that adding another two inches of screen size only adds trivial weight, so everyone should get a 19" monster. But in this case, I have two good points:

Why get a 4lb 12" 700m when you can get a 4.5lb 14.1" T42 that will have 4-5 hours of battery life without needing an extended battery? Heck, 700m + extended battery probably weighs as much as a T42. I'm saying, an extra half pound will not only get you the bigger screen but also the longer battery life, full sized keyboard, and yadda.

The 700m is a 12" widescreen laptop. That means that it has even less viewing area than a 12" fullscreen laptop. For me, at least, the screen is miniscule! There are much ligher 12" laptops available, such as the X41 and the Dell X1.

I'm not ratting on Dell. I just think that the 700m is badly designed. I'd praise the 9300 anyday, but that fits in a different notebook category. If you want a quality 12" notebook, the Dell Latitude X1 looks really well done and should fit the bill, provided that you don't need an optical drive on the go. 2.5lb is feather light, and the keyboard seems comparable to the ones on the Thinkpad X series.

It's currently $1250 on Dell SB, including an external CDRom, making it indeed more expensive than a 700m, but ~$200 of that is going towards a 3 year warranty. So by this measure, the X1 is $1050, not that much more than a $900 700m.

Originally posted by: BladeVenom

Originally posted by: Ionizer86
As for the laptop itself, I think that the 700/710m is a poor design because of a few reasons:

I recall that battery life doesn't exceed 3 hours on the normal battery, which is rather short.

Get the bigger battery then.

In addition, 4lb isn't that light for a 12" wide laptop, and you could get a 14" laptop that barely weighs more (T42, Z60t, v2000/z etc).

Following that line of reasoning a 15" barely weighs more than a 14", then again a 17" doesn't weigh that much more than a 15". The new 19" laptops aren't going to weigh that much more than a 17". It all adds up, I think 4lbs is a good spot to draw the line.

 

[BladeVenom]

The X-1 also uses a widescreen. It also comes standard with the smaller battery. And like you said it doesn't have an optical drive. Kind of sucks if you like watching DVDs on your laptop. The X-1 also costs more. Admittedly they made some design compromises in the 700m, but overall I like the laptop, and many others do also. It's more of an entertainment laptop than a business laptop, but maybe that's what the OP is looking for.

The T-42 doesn't have widescreen, that's something I wanted, and since the OP is looking at the 710m, he might also want widescreen. It doesn't have the clear screen, which is nice for movies. It also costs twice as much as what I paid for my 700m.

 

[Dadofamunky]

I'm pretty happy with mine (see sig) but extra RAM is an absolute necessity. So add another $100 for that. I take good care of the screen and have no dead pixels or scratches. A bit small but the portability is tops. And less than three hours on the battery? Not in my experience. I have relatively small hands so the keyboard doesn't bother me. Now if they could just make a version of Windows that wasn't such a POS....

 

[pkme2]

The 700m/710m is a nice unit, but its a little too small for my personal tastes, but for some, its ideal.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Ionizer86
Bigger battery adds more weight. By <3 hours of battery life I think I'm being generous. I think the reviews give the 700/710m about 2-2.5 hours. Yes, we could argue that adding another two inches of screen size only adds trivial weight, so everyone should get a 19" monster. But in this case, I have two good points:

Why get a 4lb 12" 700m when you can get a 4.5lb 14.1" T42 that will have 4-5 hours of battery life without needing an extended battery? Heck, 700m + extended battery probably weighs as much as a T42. I'm saying, an extra half pound will not only get you the bigger screen but also the longer battery life, full sized keyboard, and yadda.

The 700m is a 12" widescreen laptop. That means that it has even less viewing area than a 12" fullscreen laptop. For me, at least, the screen is miniscule! There are much ligher 12" laptops available, such as the X41 and the Dell X1.

I'm not ratting on Dell. I just think that the 700m is badly designed. I'd praise the 9300 anyday, but that fits in a different notebook category. If you want a quality 12" notebook, the Dell Latitude X1 looks really well done and should fit the bill, provided that you don't need an optical drive on the go. 2.5lb is feather light, and the keyboard seems comparable to the ones on the Thinkpad X series.

It's currently $1250 on Dell SB, including an external CDRom, making it indeed more expensive than a 700m, but ~$200 of that is going towards a 3 year warranty. So by this measure, the X1 is $1050, not that much more than a $900 700m.

Originally posted by: BladeVenom

Originally posted by: Ionizer86
As for the laptop itself, I think that the 700/710m is a poor design because of a few reasons:

I recall that battery life doesn't exceed 3 hours on the normal battery, which is rather short.

Get the bigger battery then.

In addition, 4lb isn't that light for a 12" wide laptop, and you could get a 14" laptop that barely weighs more (T42, Z60t, v2000/z etc).

Following that line of reasoning a 15" barely weighs more than a 14", then again a 17" doesn't weigh that much more than a 15". The new 19" laptops aren't going to weigh that much more than a 17". It all adds up, I think 4lbs is a good spot to draw the line.

OKEY, people that are flaming the 700m, DO YOU GUYS EVEN OWN ONE? i dont think you guys do. The guy is asking for advice from a 700/710m owner not from people that heard stuff.

As for asking advice on someone that does have a 700m, my brother has one. I was kind of skeptical about it, but there nice laptops. All be it, there not thinkpad's, me being a T41p owner, but there fairly decient. The weight on the 700m can also account for how solid the thing feels. I shook it a few times to check if there are any lose parts and nothing rattled, and if you buy the total coverage warrenty, who cares if you break it, just call dell and they mail u a new one. END OF STORY.

As for my brother, he takes VERY VERY poor care of his equiptment. He's broken 2 of my older laptops and probably 3 mp3 players, but the 700m is still in perfect working condition after having it for almost half a year.

Its true if you can get these things on a special discount or sell, there better value's then my thinkpad. I bought my brothers with the total accidental warrenty for around 800 plus shipping. For a thinkpad, unless refurbished you would have to pay at least twice as much, for something on the same class and level. But since your obviously asking for advice from a 700m owner, there great laptops, there small enough to be tucked in almost any bag, the screen is bright and resolution will rape a standard 14inch thinkpad display unless u have the upgraded screen.

ALSO, being a former sony owner, DO NOT BUY SONY's. They dont take abuse and shock very lightly. The build on them is utter and complete crap, and you could get a laptop 5x better for 2/3rd the price.

 

[Ika]

good buy for a light traveler. Dell generally makes fair quality equipment for good prices. however, since Lenovo is phasing out the ThinkPad name, they're laptops are becoming more focused on price competitiveness. I'm sure that Lenovo laptops still have IBM build quality though; if you can find a good deal on one you can get a great quality machine.

 

[simms]

It's fine, I used one before. I didn't like the small keyboard...

I would go with a T-series thinkpad.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
OKEY, people that are flaming the 700m, DO YOU GUYS EVEN OWN ONE? i dont think you guys do. The guy is asking for advice from a 700/710m owner not from people that heard stuff.

As for asking advice on someone that does have a 700m, my brother has one. I was kind of skeptical about it, but there nice laptops. All be it, there not thinkpad's, me being a T41p owner, but there fairly decient. The weight on the 700m can also account for how solid the thing feels. I shook it a few times to check if there are any lose parts and nothing rattled, and if you buy the total coverage warrenty, who cares if you break it, just call dell and they mail u a new one. END OF STORY.

As for my brother, he takes VERY VERY poor care of his equiptment. He's broken 2 of my older laptops and probably 3 mp3 players, but the 700m is still in perfect working condition after having it for almost half a year.

Its true if you can get these things on a special discount or sell, there better value's then my thinkpad. I bought my brothers with the total accidental warrenty for around 800 plus shipping. For a thinkpad, unless refurbished you would have to pay at least twice as much, for something on the same class and level. But since your obviously asking for advice from a 700m owner, there great laptops, there small enough to be tucked in almost any bag, the screen is bright and resolution will rape a standard 14inch thinkpad display unless u have the upgraded screen.

ALSO, being a former sony owner, DO NOT BUY SONY's. They dont take abuse and shock very lightly. The build on them is utter and complete crap, and you could get a laptop 5x better for 2/3rd the price.

Yep, right on. I personally think Thinkpads are crap. We have scads of them at work and they blow up all the time - and their screens until lately have been terrible. Sorry, but 1024x768 doesn't cut if in this day & age. I love my Dell. It's the best lappie I've ever owned. Best value I've ever had in a laptop. The slightly bigger ones are good values too.

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: Dadofamunky
Yep, right on. I personally think Thinkpads are crap. We have scads of them at work and they blow up all the time - and their screens until lately have been terrible. Sorry, but 1024x768 doesn't cut if in this day & age. I love my Dell. It's the best lappie I've ever owned. Best value I've ever had in a laptop. The slightly bigger ones are good values too.

Dells are crap; I've personally had five of them, and bought several for others over the years. No more.

The 710m has a too-small keyboard, and abysmal battery life. If you buy the extended battery, it sticks out the back of the laptop and makes it even heavier. You get what you pay for with Dell.

Hilarious that you call Thinkpads "crap". Here's a tip: don't buy an XGA screen if you don't like the XGA resolution, mkay? If they blow up at your work all the time, it HAS to be because of a flaky image that your work puts on them and for no other reason. They're dependable.

 

[BenWilliams]

Generally I build my own computers, but for others and in the office I recommend Dells. In the case of laptops, I've always bought Dell.

Do not buy the 710m; I agree that it is not a well-designed computer.

I ordered two recently and both surprised me in the follow areas:

* The keyboard is small to the point of not functioning - the period key is the smallest key I've ever seen on a laptop. It is not a case or re-orienting your fingers to find keys in new spots - it is a case of trying to press buttons smaller than your finger in some cases.
* Shiny screen unlike my old Latitude - picks up and reflects a lot of light
* Battery life without the extended battery stinks; extended battery sticks out

I rationalized all the above problems and had accepted them, but then I went to install office.

GOOD GOD. The DVD-RW 8x drive included makes more sound than a jet engine. My desktop PC is 5 years old and has 6 hard drives, two optical drives, four case fans and two more fans on the power supply and makes less noise than that beast. Coworkers from nearby cubes came over to ask "what IS that". I couldn't imagine watching a movie on a plane... I'd be too embarassed and worried the person next to me would break one of the airplane booze bottles and stab me.

I returned them both the very same day.

Oh, and if you were going to ask if the other laptop did the same thing - the graphics artist had the other laptop and it was sitting on a stack of papers when SHE tried to install software with the drive. The laptop moved on its own - no joke - so strong were the vibrations.

 

[Looney]

I have the 700m, and it's a very sweet laptop.

The keyboard is small, but what do you expect from a laptop that small? I agree the extended battery sucks though the way it sticks out, but it hasn't been too much of a problem... what really bothers me is how flimsy it feels attached.

The screen though is absolutely gorgeous. The glossy screen is purposefully like that.