Dell Inspiron 8600

[RedBeard]

Man oh man..

I just ordered a 8600. (1.6, Fx 5650, ect)

The ship date is back to around the 22nd. I can't wait.

 

[JoeShmoe85]

yay..my 8600 is finally at the boxing stage!

 

[Stealth1024]

YIKES! Prices are skyrocketing!


I have been tracking the price of a specific configuration on the Dell Inspiron 8600 since it was released and my grand total went from $1800 or so to over $3000 now!

They ended the offer for the free DVD burner and do not include the $250 in the price but still! There must be an extreme shortage of some parts...

 

[Descartes]

So what's the concencus on the WUXGA for gaming? Is it a good idea? Can it run in non-wide-aspect res for games?

Also, does anyone actually OWN this laptop that uses it throughout the day for programming, writing, graphics, etc.? I need a development machine, and I'm concerned about the text size.

 

[Taproot313]

Mines Been in the Production Stage since september second and its supposed to arrive by approx. 29th. As soon as i get it i will post comments and reviews.

Inspiron 8600
1.6 Ghz Pentium-M
512 RAM
128 MB Geforce FX 5650
60 gig HDD (7200 RPM)
Win xp PRO
15.4" WXGA+
DVD-R-RW-
etc, etc...

 

[Black.Lotus]

If you order a WUXGA screen, you're going to have to up the DPI setting for your fonts... but that can sometimes make things look kinda screwy. WSXGA is smallish but readable, WXGA is easily readable but kinda chubby.

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: Black.Lotus
If you order a WUXGA screen, you're going to have to up the DPI setting for your fonts... but that can sometimes make things look kinda screwy. WSXGA is smallish but readable, WXGA is easily readable but kinda chubby.

Thanks. That's pretty much what I thought, so I've been thinking of going the WSXGA route. My current Thinkpad runs 1280x1024, and it's just about perfect for me. I'd think the wide-aspect ratio of the WSXGA would be fantastic for programming, because most of the tools these days require some serious horizontal real estate.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the WUXGA vs. the WSXGA?

 

[JoeShmoe85]

well i got WUXGA, but i'm young and my eyes have not left me yet. from what i heard, if you can read the newspaper without any problems, you wont have any problems reading with a WUXGA screen

 

[dexvx]

Well, I have to hand it to Dell. For a laptop that wasnt supposed to ship until 9-17, its all wrapped up and ready to go as of Saturday (9-6). With Airborne ground mail, its ETA is 9-10 to 9-12.

 

[chuckwagon]

I just ordered too! only a 1.4 can't afford anthing more. But i HAD to get the FX 5600. good stuff. I have a question though, I want a slip case for this laptop, but the since it's a weird size, can't find one. Does anyone know of a slip case taht would fit this lappie? Thanks. Can't wait for my laptop!

 

[troymurray]

You can now custom configure the new HP zd7001 laptop on the HP.com site. Maybe some competition to the Dell i8600? Very close config price but PM 1.6 vs P4 3.2HT

 

[RedBeard]

The HP zd7001 looks pretty cool, but it isn't very mobile. It uses desktop parts and has a huge 17" screen. Battery life would be enough to get it from the bedroom to the kitchen.

When getting a laptop in this price range, you have to decide if you need mobility or not. The dell w/ the Pentium M will get signifigantly better battery life and be 2-3 lbs lighter. I looked a sager or alienware notebooks, (for what I spent on my i8600 I could have got a Area 51m), But ~80 minutes of battery life??

I looked the HP up and it is a real looker though

 

[dexvx]

The battery life on the I8600 is over 6 hours with light word processing, and close to 4 hours on load. Very impressive.

But its bigger than I imagined. :disgust: I seem to have underestimated how big a 15.4" widescreen is.

 

[RedBeard]

With this whole ATI/Valve/Half-Life 2 thing going on, I wish the laptop came with a ATI 9600 128mb as opposed to a FX 5650. :frown: I imagine Dell might offer it later.


Thanks for the battery life report, dexvx. How is gaming in widescreen running at a non-native resolution? Does the response time seem good??

 

[dexvx]

I dont game, but widescreen is nice. I'll probably load up War3 or something. A Mobile Radeon9600 Pro would be awesome. In any event, I suspect its more has to do with Nvidia's non-DX9 compliant hardware than the actual performance of the card itself. IIRC, using DX9, the FX series defaults to 32bit precision, versus 24bit for the DX9 Radeon 9x00 series. You can garuntee Nvidia wont let this go. In the end, I expect the FX5650 Go to perform just slightly below the mobile Radeon9600 pro as it shoud be.

Although it does seem fuzzy when you dont do the native resolution (1680x1050 for me).

 

[Hellblast]

The first people should have received their 8600 by now, any reviews???

Hellblast