Dude, I got a Dell

Awhile back I mentioned I needed to replace my HP laptop because of the power connector. I was never really fond of it anyway because it got too hot (regular desktop Celeron), fans were too loud, it was heavy, had two or three annoying bright/dark pixels, crappy video hardware, horrible battery life. It did have pretty blue LED's though.

I had never really considered buying a Dell, for whatever reason. Still, I posted about the problems I was having and someone linked to a coupon for Dell where you could get $750 off a certain model configured to $1500 or more. So I got mine to $1506.

Specs: Inspiron 6000, Pentium M 1.6 GHz, 256 MB Centrino chipset, 802.11g, 1680x1050 15" widescreen, 60 gig drive, CD-R/DVD. Not fully loaded at all, but certainly more than adequate for most anything other than gaming. It really addresses all of the problems I had with the HP. Most importantly it runs cool and quiet.

I've barely used my desktop since I got it. I can park on the couch, the bed, the deck, whatever, and it's a solid performer. For $756, it was an absolute steal. The only minor complaint I had was that I had to blow away the entire hard drive and nuke all of the crap that Dell loaded on it. Seriously, it took several minutes to boot, so I figured it was easier just to start over and download the drivers.

9 Comments

  • How right you are. Fomatting a new Dell PC is a must.



    Not only have I noticed a substantial reduction in boot time, but I bet I get a 20% increase in performance in general.

  • I just got a similar Inspiron 6000 - I got a 1.8~something GHz cpu, 2 GB RAM and 1920 x 1200 res screen. Sadly the screen did not work properly "out of the box" but once they fixed that it has worked very nicely. I re-installed XP pro from scratch too. It rocks for VPC.

  • Heh I too got an inspiron 6000 very recently (1.8ghz) (though not with the discount you got), and maaan was it slow the first time I booted it, indeed Dell loads a lot of crap on it, I had 15 or so icons in the system tray!



    After repavement, it's very very nice.



    To get it actually from Dell was another story though. I had to call in 3 times to get my order re-re-re-resubmitted and it worked. I ordered a laptop bag 2 days ago and I haven't received a confirmation again... they start to fall apart apparently.



    Did you know they re-enter every order made online in their system by hand (in india) ? Neither did I until I suddenly had a 17" monitor on another order I didn't include online. After phoning them, they explained that to me. Amazing, how a company who advertises 24/7 business is critical-kinda blabla isn't very up to speed with modern technologies...

  • I recently ordered a Dell, then the next day decided to cancel the order. I called Dell to cancel the order and they informed me that it had already shipped. The rep on the phone then said "What if we give you another $75 off the price, would you keep it then? I told him I would think about it and he then said "If you decide to keep it at full price, we'll give you $100 worth of Dell accessories."



    Barter with them after it's been shipped...you may just get additional $$ off :)

  • "The only minor complaint I had was that I had to blow away the entire hard drive and nuke all of the crap that Dell loaded on it. Seriously, it took several minutes to boot, so I figured it was easier just to start over and download the drivers. "







    Hey, sorry if this is a very dumb question, but.... how do you reformat the hardrive on a new dell, and how do you then download new drivers after (re)installing xp? i guess you had to buy xp (not the upgrade) as well....



    anyone with some patience care to walk this newbie thru the process step by step? (think of it as your "good deed" for the week?)



    shortly after i bought my desktop (dimension 8400 with all the bells and whistles) and hooked up the dsl, i got a virus. (mcafee caught it, but in the process of eliminating it, theeir website help sight directions said to turn of "restore", do the "fix", then turn restore back on. obviously, that eliminates the possibility of "restoring" my pc back to "just out of the box" condition if i encounter any problems down the line...which, at this point, i have....

    anyways, thanks in advance!

    l

  • Well, BEFORE you repave a dell hdd, first backup 'drivers' and 'dell' folders to a usb stick. Then repave, then copy these back and run the driver reset utility in one of these dell folders. Reboot, bingo :)

  • dude, my finance got a dell 6000 and its freakin slowwwww. like almost as slow as her old 700mhz p3 ibm. can all that shitty software slow it down that much? i'd rather just uninstall stuff that wipe it.

  • Mine performs really well unless I run Photoshop, but as the disk churning indicates, that's because I only got 256 MB of RAM. Will likely upgrade sooner or later.

  • I got a similar deal back in october. Love those $750 off 1500.



    I'm sure you will find you like it. I got an 8600 with similar specs as yours and haven't run into any issues and I'm able to run VS, illustrator, or photoshop with no problems.



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