Upgrade Notebook or buy a new one?

[Hork]

I recently recieved a hand-me-down Dell Inspiron 8500. In a nutshell, it has:

15.4" screen
512 MB RAM
P4 2.2 GHz processor
CDRW/DVD drive
Small <30GB hard drive
Windows XP
Office 2003

I'm considering giving it to my daughter, who is a senior in high school this year. I don't have a lot of spare cash, and am wondering if I should try to upgrade this laptop or try to get in on a BF deal for a cheap newer lappy.

I've been looking at ebay and think I could find upgrades for the following approximate prices:

1GB RAM (I have to see if it already has one stick in it or two): ~$70
Larger, possibly faster HD (60 GB 7200 or larger 5400): ~$70
DL DVD+-RW drive ~$60 (optional, since she mainly burns CDs and not DVDs)

So, we're looking at up to $200 in upgrades. My fear would be to go this route and still end up with a dog compared to a cheap BF lappy.

Any options would be most helpful. Thanks!

 

[TheStu]

For what she would be doing with it, just putting 1GB+ of RAM into it would get the job done. As a senior in High School she will be what? (this is based on my own high school experiences)

Writing Papers
IMing friends
Surfing the Web
Listening to Music
*Maybe* Playing some computer games
Watching Movies

Nothing she will be doing will overly stress that system. So do the RAM upgrade (check Newegg after you know what it needs) and anything else can wait. Then, once she hits college, then consider the new laptop (which by then the $600 model will be more powerful than the $600 model of today)

 

[corkyg]

I would add a bigger HDD. 30 GB really is not much these days.

 

[dbarton]

It's hard to know what she might do with that, but thats a pretty nice machine for most stuff and college school kids would do.

 

[Hork]

Thanks for your help! TheStu, your list of what she will be doing is spot-on.

I've decided to go with the RAM and HDD upgrade, and skip the DVD burner upgrade since she doesn't really burn videos, but does burn audio CDs. Backups can be made via network do our home FreeNAS server I'm planning to build.

Thanks again!

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Hork
Thanks for your help! TheStu, your list of what she will be doing is spot-on.

I've decided to go with the RAM and HDD upgrade, and skip the DVD burner upgrade since she doesn't really burn videos, but does burn audio CDs. Backups can be made via network do our home FreeNAS server I'm planning to build.

Thanks again!

Well, did you factor battery life?

If its for school, whats the point in a laptop thats only going to last you though 1 class, and then your going to need to recharge?

Hows the battery life on that laptop. Im guessing unless you changed the battery, its not going to be very great. Then your daughter has a book weight which can only be used near an outlet at school. And sometimes an outlet is a luxury in class.

 

[TheStu]

Well, since she is now a senior in high school, it would require her school actually allowing her to use the laptop in class, which most (I think) would not. Mine certainly didn't and they were quite technology friendly.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

I would scratch even the whole new internal HD upgrade and just go with a massive external one. But an extra gig of Ram would be a perfect edition. Maybe not even that as you don't need a 1 gig to browse the internet and IM.

 

[Hork]

I've been looking at upgrading to a 7200 RPM drive, but I'm thinking I will go with a larger 5400 RPM drive than a smaller faster one that costs more.

The 7200RPM drive would make it seem faster, but is a lot more expensive. Thoughts?

 

[TheStu]

This was how it was explained to me, and what I now use to hlpe others understand it

A Good 100GB 7200 RPM drive is actually slower than a good 200GB 5400RPM drive. So, as size increases, so does platter density, meaning the physical distance between the bits on the platter is decreased, therefore it takes less time to jump betwixt the bits.

 

[tylerdustin2008]

TheStu had a good point on the battery and school issue.... An answer there would help allot.

Oh and the school I want to provided the entire school with laptops. Pretty cool, but when they upgraded the laptops from G4's to 600m's it cost 60 million for the entire school district... All that money did not go to laptops... Someone got rich.

Back to topic.

Get a 5400, or even a 4200 to save on battery life. Ram will be the most expensive upgrade, just buy a 1gb stick, replace one of them in the laptop. And then sell the other stick here of the forums, or even both if it has 2 256's. That will make you about $20.

Tyler

 

[Hork]

I've decided to go with a 160GB 5400RPM drive, based on TheStu's recommendation for bigger over faster. Tyler, thanks for the reminder that the faster drives use more battery power. However, she's probably just going to be using this in her room, so I'm not overly concerned on battery life.

I came to the same conclusion about the RAM that you suggested just yesterday! Thanks for confirming what I thought I should do: buy a 1GB stick and replace one of the existing 2 256MB sticks with it. That should be plenty of RAM to make it feel peppier when using Windows XP.

I think I may spend an extra $20-$30 on a laptop "skin" that will give the computer a more updated look. I'll have one of her sisters pick out the design since I'm not cool enough, being all old and all. A blue design should go nicely with the blue trim around the keyboard of the Inspiron 8500.

Thanks for everyone's help! Looks like I'm going to be able to do a really nice upgrade for less than $200 and give my daughter what she wants for Christmas!

 

[Hork]

I have one more question... The recommended RAM upgrade for the Dell Inspiron is 1GB DDR-266 (PC2100). Can I use a faster stick and still have it work? For example, DDR-333 (PC2700)?

 

[TheStu]

You should be able to and the machine should downclock the RAM to work. PCs are usually pretty good about this, as contrasted by the old PPC Macs where if you had best match up the SPD and latency and everything or the RAM may not work.

 

[Hork]

I thought of one other question...

Once I get the new hard drive, what is the best way to copy the old drive's contents to the new drive? This is pretty easy in a desktop system where you can just add the new drive in, but what about with a laptop?

I do have a 2.5" enclosure I can use to connect the drive via USB if I need to, but would still appreciate advice on how to copy the data over. I guess there would be instructions with the drive I'm buying if new in box?

 

[TheStu]

You can get free drive cloning apps for Windows. That should do the trick. Clone the data over to the new drive, drop it into the laptop and try booting (make sure that you have bootable checked or whatever on the given program) and you should be set.

 

[aigomorla]

Tyler 7200 rpm drives dont impact battery life significantly to avoid them.

My Hp 8710p originally came with a 160gb 5400rpm. I replaced it to the hitatchi deathstar 7k200 200gb. And it only shaved my battery life of about 3-5min tops.

Oh and i cloned my drives so the contant is identical.

 

[Hork]

Okay, what's the best way to clone the disk? The original disk is in the laptop, and I can connect the new drive via USB. I also have an external usb hard drive if I need temporary storage. I don't have the floppy for the laptop, so any solution that involves a floppy is out. I do have a CD drive on the laptop, however.

Recommendations for free software to do this?