Pulled the trigger on a "new" notebook!!

[Gillbot]

Skip the following if you don't care about the story:

I started with a P4m Alienware laptop I picked up from FS/FT forums a bit ago and decided it wasn't snappy enough even after being loaded up on ram. I think the old PATA interface was just holding it back and getting a decent HDD upgrade was far too costly. Ended up selling that and picked up an HP AMD based laptop from FS/FT but sadly, it wasn't much of a step above the P4m even after upgrading the HDD and ram. I sold the AMD then upgraded (again from FS/FT) to a decent Lenovo C2D setup and I've been on that for a bit. Added 4gb ram, upgraded the CPU and added a good HDD so it does quite well overall, but it still doesn't match my wife's laptop. Lately I've been eyeballing the SB based core series laptops and after messing with my wife's 15R (i3 330M) I decided I wanted something that had decent power behind it for mild gaming. After clearing out some old PC parts I had sitting around, there was ~$300 sitting in paypal and after running across a dell outlet 20% coupon I said hell with it and jumped finally. May not be the best deal but $410 to my door delivered, I'll take it!!

tl;dr cliffs:
Grabbed an Inspiron 17R from the Dell outlet.

i3-2310M
4GB Ram (1 stick)
500GB HDD
Win 7
etc.

$410 shipped

 

[cardiac]

That's pretty sweet for an i3. Save a few rubles up and stick an SSD in there?

Bob

 

[Gillbot]

Forgot to mention, I have an SSD and another stick of ram sitting here waiting already.

 

[fffblackmage]

What screen resolution did you get? That's a 17" laptop isn't it? I can't imagine getting anything less than a 1080p screen for a laptop that big.

And how is the picture quality? I know it's probably just a cheapy TN panel, but the screen I had in my Inspiron 1520 was at a level of sad I never knew existed....

Still, sounds like a pretty good deal.

 

[Gillbot]

I think it's 1600x900 but I don't recall, I'd have to look at the specs. It's not here yet either so we'll see. 1080p just adds too much to the cost for me, I don't need that much res.

 

[Gillbot]

Threw in a 2gb stick I had laying here for a total of 6gb, already got my eyes in FS/FT lookin for a 4gb stick. Debating on the SSD though. The 500gb isn't bad, but dropping storage space to 64gb for the sake of the speed, not sure if I want to.

I can say, this thing runs circles around my old SL500 (P7350 C2D) readily.