Buying laptop, need help!

[Kaylia]

Getting a laptop on Dell. It's for my sister and she won't do any gaming on it.

What's the difference between:

15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife™


53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
6-cell Primary Battery and 9-cell additional Lithium Ion Battery or
9-cell Primary Battery and 9-cell additional Lithium Ion Battery

Also, 512ram or 1024? Is 512 enough for Vista?


Last question, what warrenty should I get her. 1 year or 3 years.

[Calina]

1gig min with vista and i would suggest at least 2 gigs to run it well

vista uses alot of ram just to idle

as for the rest of the questions idk dont realy use laptops much

[Epical]

Getting a laptop on Dell. It's for my sister and she won't do any gaming on it.

What's the difference between:

15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife™


53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
6-cell Primary Battery and 9-cell additional Lithium Ion Battery or
9-cell Primary Battery and 9-cell additional Lithium Ion Battery

Also, 512ram or 1024? Is 512 enough for Vista?


Last question, what warrenty should I get her. 1 year or 3 years.

The TrueLife thing is just an anti-reflective screen, so if you're often in glary spots, then go with the second one.

For the batteries, the more cells you have the longer the battery lasts (and I believe also more energy-efficient).

RAM: definitely 1GB. Vista is shit on 512MB (and in certain circumstances, has troubles with 1GB as well, but thats a different story).

[Kaylia]

Thanks

[Allundaria]

Actually for most places, the added-cost screen thing is a glossy coat that is actually more reflective. Dell calls it True Life, HP/Compaq says Bright View, etc. The purpose of it is that if you intend to watch DVDs on your laptop, the normal matte screens on notebook LCDs dull down the colors. Replacing it with a glossy coat gets you more vivid visuals and colors in exchange for more glare.

I just bought a Dell Inspiron 1405, and the basic 53 WHr battery lasts me a good 2.5-3 hours with the usual settings and wi-fi. Can squeeze it up to 4-5 if I turn down the brightness and so forth. If your sister intends to use the computer for longer periods away from an outlet then you can consider getting the bigger batteries. Bigger = heavier and in some cases they are physically much larger and poke out the bottom, like in the HP dv2000 series of notebooks.

No less than 1GB of RAM if you're considering Vista.

[Fallso]

Dell are irritating though, if you order 1GB of ram they'll put 2X512 sticks in, if you order 512 they put 2X256 etc in, so if you want to upgrade to 2GB it's expensive, seeing as you have to replace both sticks(atleast I was always under that impression).

[Jpeg]

you definitely want the maximum coverage warrenty on any laptop.

[Bunnykillah]

you definitely want the maximum coverage warrenty on any laptop.

Even then it's like pulling teeth to get them to service it. When the power cord on my presario r4000 went out, the idiot on the phone said the warranty only covered the laptop itself. So then I asked to speak with someone who didn't pray to allah and BAM, problem solved. Had a new cord in 3 days.

[Elesirdur]

I'm not sure if you're dead set on getting her a Dell, but have you considered an Acer instead? They use the same components as Dell does (because Dell doesn't actually make any of their own laptop components, just buys them off the shelf like nearly everyone else) and they're way, way cheaper.

If you want something that will last a Lenovo ThinkPad T60 is an amazing laptop for school/business and they're super-rugged. That, and they have the best keyboards out of any laptop. Tohsiba makes really nice desktop replacement models in their Satellite line.

Or...get a Mac Book. Honestly, for the money the Intel-based Mac Books are pretty much the best laptops for casual and even gaming use (if you get the higher end ones). Just get a copy of Windows XP for like $110, run Apple's BootCamp and then just use it like any other xp-based laptop, sans the Windows key. Not to mention you get Mac compatibility to boot which is good if she's in a work or scholastic environment where Mac's are favored - and there sure are a lot of them.

I'm chiming in because I recently got a contract with my business to find laptops for another small business and set them up. They decided to go with two Toshiba P100s (17" ws display model) with 2.2GHz DualCore processors and 2 GB RAM and then a ThinkPad T60 for mobile and field use. The Toshiba's are pretty hot machines actually and could even be used for some gaming coming with a GeForce 7800 mobile.


Oh, and the other thing I forgot to add regarding Warranties:
Try and find a computer store local to you that is an authorized dealer and in-house service centre for the laptop brand you want to buy. Luckily, the CompuSmart in my town is an authorized warranty service centre for both Toshiba and Lenovo so all these people have to do is bring their units into the shop and warranty work can be done without having to pack it up and send it away, as you would with that Dell.

[Sigi]

Not true with Dell. Dell offers onsite service for the laptops. So, you have to setup an appointment for the technician to come out... but you don't have to do a return to depot. Gateway, so far, gets the FU award from me for service.