Home | Community | Message Board
You are not signed in.
Sign In New Account
Forum Index Search Posts Trusted Vendors Highlights Galleries FAQ User List Chat Store Random Growery

MagicBag Grow Bags
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.

General Interest > Science and Technology
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
Laptop Choices...
    #8366869 -

Alright, so at work we have an employee purchase plan through several companies. I'm planning to buy a laptop and I can get either a Dell or a Lenovo at a decent discount. At first I was almost certainly going to go for the Lenovo but after researching I'm hearing that although once run by IBM Japan, the Lenovo brand is starting to go down the tubes. So now I'm kinda leaning toward the Dell.

Anyway, I went ahead and put the specs together on both the Dell and the Lenovo that I will go for once I decide andI wanted to show you all the breakdown and get anyone's opinion on this who feels like offering. This will be my first laptop.

The Dell:

Inspiron 1520
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)
3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
ExpressCard Sound Blaster X-Fi® Xtreme Audio Sound Card
Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card
Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
Windows® XP Home
(and some other software/1year of service/1year of lojack)



The Lenovo:

Thinkpad R61
Processor: Intel? Core? 2 Duo processor T7250 (2.0GHz 800MHz 2MBL2)
3 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
Display type: 14.1 WXGA TFT
System graphics: Intel GMA X3100 GM965 w/ 1394
250GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo 24X/24X/24X/8X Max, Ultrabay Enhanced
Wireless cards: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
Battery: 6 cell Li-Ion Battery
Operating system language: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop version 10
And a year of service.


The Dell is roughly $1000 before tax(that's with the soundcard and a few other upgrades.) The Lenovo is $815 before tax.

They are about the same machine, except the Dell has a bigger hard drive, best sound card available for it and some other stuff the Lenovo doesn't have. I'm going to be using this mainly for music recording and sequencing.

The Lenovo comes with Linux, which I think is cool but I've never used Linux and I'm not really interested in having to learn it or battle with software incompatibility. Plus, I run XP on my desktop and I want the interface between laptop and desktop to be as seamless as possible. Alos, the Lenovo comes with XP, which is cool since most stuff is shipping with Vista now and I want no part of that. Also, in reading reviews, apparently if you uninstall the OS on the Lenovos and try to install XP, the system won't recognize your hard drive during installation so I don't want to deal with that either.

What do you all think? Should I go for the Dell, which I'm leaning towards right now, or do you think theres a better value out there? I don't really want to wait around for months for a better deal.

Edited by Viveka (05/05/08 10:28 PM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Laptop Choices... [Re: Viveka]
    #8366907 -

Make sure heating isn't an issue, and I presume the power plug is soldered to the board on this one. Check a post by Seuss where he lists companies that have non-soldered to board plugs.

I have a 5150 Inspiron Dell, horrible heat problems, got a P4- um yeah, and the power plug will fail every couple of months for a 80$ fix from a local store or a 500 fix from dell.

Also, I've had a discount too, but found with dell anyways, that you can get better deals without it. The discount usually neccesitates you don't use any other coupon codes or anything, and is around 10-15% at my workplace if I recall. Trouble is, you can get coupon codes for the same discount online. I did the math and saved more not using the employee "discount". Dell seems to mark up all their products and then run specials and deals to get you the real price and trap the suckers.

Just something to think about. And seriously, the power plug will destroy you're ability to use the thing every couple of months if its similar to mine.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Laptop Choices... [Re: johnm214]
    #8366950 -

Alright, good to know. Another major concern of mine is that the laptop operate quietly, since I'm mainly going to be using it for recording. I suppose if heat is an issue it will also run more loudly.

Thanks and I'll look for that post by Seuss.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Laptop Choices... [Re: Viveka]
    #8367068 -

For what its worth I love my Lenovo. I have the T61.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Laptop Choices... [Re: DieCommie]
    #8367114 -

Is it quiet?

Also, what are the options for expansion slots, ie: could you put an upgraded sound card like the Audigy that comes with the Dell in it?

It has USB 2.0 jacks right?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Laptop Choices... [Re: Viveka]
    #8367140 -

Its quiet. I never hear shit from it. It does get warm, but I use it heavily (ie, I run distributed computing programs).

Expansion slots? It has two. The old school kind and the new x54. Yea, it has USB 2.0 jacks.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Laptop Choices... [Re: DieCommie]
    #8367490 -

Cool, thanks. How old is it?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Laptop Choices... [Re: Viveka]
    #8367588 -

I got it at the beginning of this spring semester, a few months. I got it from ebay, I like to used shit with slight defects. Mine has one dead pixel, I got it for 700 which was pretty sweet cause its kinda loaded.

It has performed great in that time, and looks great too.

Two of my friends just got brand new dells, and they seem ok.

Lenovo has higher quality hardware, but is more expensive than equal specs of other brands. Plus they tend to lag behind new technologies. See your Lenovo listed doesnt have a DVD burner, and doenst have wireless N (but then neither does the dell). Those arnt that big of a deal really though.

Most people would get the dell.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Laptop Choices... [Re: Viveka]
    #8370274 -

you could go for a macbook pro, aside from the mac/pc war, it is one of the highest quality feeling laptop. Feels very solid when you hold it, i've felt no other like it, and i've owned a dell and an hp...but have sold toshiba, acer, averatec, hp/compaq...

I use pc mostly, but i do really like the macbook pro, other than I'm not as efficient with it yet, since i don't really have as much skill operating it.

But in my experience, macbook pro build quality is greater than any other laptop i've ever touched. Other just feel cheap compared to it. Is it worth the extra money, well thats up to you.

peace

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1

General Interest > Science and Technology
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Best Laptop for 1k. School oreinted/
( 1 2 all )		 Mojo 2,368 30 03/08/08 11:17 PM
by Mojo
* Laptop advice
( 1 2 3 all )		 JT 4,362 43 07/18/08 02:31 PM
by Shroomism
* Laptop Advice supra 811 10 02/17/08 10:38 PM
by DieCommie
* Laptops Idiot 1,358 14 11/07/07 11:27 PM
by goINtohappy
* Laptop Advice?
( 1 2 all )		 Yarry 2,799 25 04/27/08 01:59 PM
by timmeh_87
* Lenovo Warranty = Not Bad
( 1 2 all )		 CosmicJokeM 2,267 32 10/25/10 04:50 PM
by CosmicJoke
* Lenovo IdeaPad Z570 - Any good? gENERIX 2,237 7 08/18/11 08:04 AM
by gENERIX
* laptop recommendation? deryl 1,824 9 05/08/06 09:02 AM
by barfightlard

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: trendal, automan, Northerner
1,013 topic views. 0 members, 36 guests and 5 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2026 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.018 seconds spending 0.003 seconds on 14 queries.