Just bought a Dell Inspiron 1501 Notebook

[TheA'sFatLeadoffMan]

Here are the specs

PROCESSOR
AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-56
OPERATING SYSTEM
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic
LCD PANEL
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display
MEMORY
2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 DIMM
HARD DRIVE
80GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
OPTICAL DRIVE
24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
VIDEO CARD
ATI RADEON® Xpress1150 256MB HyperMemory™ (Integrated)
SOUND OPTIONS
Integrated Audio
BATTERY OPTIONS
29 WHr 4-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
WIRELESS CARDS
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card (54Mbps)


How's it look? Came out to $800 with taxes and shipping, basically I'll just use it for standard internet, play a few games here and there like World of Warcraft, maybe Starcraft II if it can handle it, music, maybe very amateur simple video editting.

I was debating between the Athlon dual core and Turion, Athlon was $60 cheaper, but considering I'm not to savy on processors, I figured I'd take the price hit and go with the better processor, though how necessary the extra power will be for me I do not know.

Just wondering how good of a computer I just purchase really, it's basically there cheapest verion, but I upgraded the RAM from 1 to 2 GB and Processor from a Sempron 3500+ to the Turion.

One last question when asking what was important processor and RAM were the to biggest things I got from people exp. processor because of how hard it is to replace. Anyways I was wondering how hard it is to upgrade the graphics card on a laptop? They only gave me one option and currently I'm not thinking I'll go to far into PC gaming, but I've never had a computer that could be thought of as respectably powerful relative to what's out there. So I was just wondering if down the line I decided I was interested in gaming on it, how hard would it be to buy a more gaming based graphics card?

[chadlincoln]

Good price. It looks Vista ready too. From what I hear though, you'll be counting down the days for the Vista service pack. Great deal though from the looks of it. Upgrading the RAM was crucial from 1 to 2 gig. Nice video card. Looks good.

[GiantsFan14]

good luck with it, i've had a hell of a time with dell laptops...the motherboard on mine burnt out twice before i just trashed it and bought a new HP...i know plenty of people with the same problem and have heard its due to overheating...i would suggest getting one of those laptop docks with a fan in it to keep it cool and save your motherboard which is quite expensive to replace...something like this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=45656&doy=search (just an example)

[Snakes Gould]

yep couldnt agree more giantsfan

[TheA'sFatLeadoffMan]

Dell got sued for those problems, I remember hearing about those problems, but as I said they had a class action lawsuit filed against them, which they lost or settled I don't remember. Anyways as far as I know the problem has been fixed, my relatives picked up two XPS's and have not had any overheating problems. I'm not too worried about that aspect.

[Phatferd]

I personally would never buy a Dell. Too many bad experiences. I also think they are a rip off. You computer is nice, except I would have got more than 80gb for your hard drive. I think 500gb is standard these days on stock machines. At least 250gb.

edit: Nevermind, it's a notebook. 80gb would suffice, lol. Nice computer.

[TheA'sFatLeadoffMan]

I personally would never buy a Dell. Too many bad experiences. I also think they are a rip off. You computer is nice, except I would have got more than 80gb for your hard drive. I think 500gb is standard these days on stock machines. At least 250gb.

edit: Nevermind, it's a notebook. 80gb would suffice, lol. Nice computer.

Honestly who in the world besides amateur film makers or some sort of producer of their own content would use 500 GB?

[Madison]

I had a Dell Lattitude and ran that poor sucker to death and never had a lick of problem with it.

[Phatferd]

I personally would never buy a Dell. Too many bad experiences. I also think they are a rip off. You computer is nice, except I would have got more than 80gb for your hard drive. I think 500gb is standard these days on stock machines. At least 250gb.

edit: Nevermind, it's a notebook. 80gb would suffice, lol. Nice computer.

Honestly who in the world besides amateur film makers or some sort of producer of their own content would use 500 GB?

I have a crapload of .mp3s on my computer along with a bunch of video files. I could condense, however, I'd rather be able to keep the stuff on there for easy access. For example, I download some movies off bitorrent when I am away for hours at a time (best time to download a large file) and leave them on my computer until I watch them which sometimes is a few weeks to months. I do this with movies I haven't seen and I don't want to waste the time burning them to a DVD if I don't like them.

I also have some video games that add up to 40-60gb....

[Snakes Gould]

I personally would never buy a Dell. Too many bad experiences. I also think they are a rip off. You computer is nice, except I would have got more than 80gb for your hard drive. I think 500gb is standard these days on stock machines. At least 250gb.

edit: Nevermind, it's a notebook. 80gb would suffice, lol. Nice computer.

Honestly who in the world besides amateur film makers or some sort of producer of their own content would use 500 GB?

I have a crapload of .mp3s on my computer along with a bunch of video files. I could condense, however, I'd rather be able to keep the stuff on there for easy access. For example, I download some movies off bitorrent when I am away for hours at a time (best time to download a large file) and leave them on my computer until I watch them which sometimes is a few weeks to months. I do this with movies I haven't seen and I don't want to waste the time burning them to a DVD if I don't like them.

I also have some video games that add up to 40-60gb....

exactly...i could easily use all my hard drive space on videos/movies/songs alone. 80 gb is alittle low, but you shouldnt have any problems as long as you clean up after yourself...mp3's, old games, etc...