Any experienced Dell LAPTOP users/buyers?

[Displaced Flames fan]

Need to pick up 1 and possibly 2 laptops.

1 for my 16 yr old daughter. Would like it to be upgradebale. Must have good wifi performance capabilities. She's going to be using it for school more than anything.

The second would be for me. Don't do any gaming (save poker). Might require the ability to watch DVD's and listen to music. Needs to keep up with calgarypuck on deadline days!

Basically what I need to know is what models are overkill for my modest requirements and what models won't get the jobs done. Any experience with the minis? Can they even hold current versions of Office?

And yes, I'm only interested in Dell.

[Rathji]

What do you mean by upgradable for your daughter?

As with any Dell you can customize computers. You can also pretty easily upgrade RAM on a laptop, anything else is a little more tricky, but some can be done with not much hassle.

The Mini 9 does have real barriers in the maximum 1 Gig RAM and 16 Gig Solid State Drive. There is also a Mini 12 that has prettu much the same specs but a 80 gig HDD. They are light, small and otherwise very suitable for online applications. They will run Open Office or MS Office off the main disk, but since you have the limited disk space ( on the 9) there is also the option to run portable app version of Open Office from a USB flash drive.

Otherwise the entry level Inspiron models will all meet your needs. I have never really looked at the studio models, but as far as I can tell they seem to be slightly over priced 'trendy' versions of the comparable Inspirons. I could be wrong on that though.

They have a new 15.6" Inspiron that has 4 Gigs RAM and 250 HDD for $599, and a 2Gig RAM /160 HDD from $479. If I was in the market for a new school laptop, I would almost certianly be getting one of these 2 models.
http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/prod...ref=lthp&s=dhs

Minimum you need 2 gigs of RAM to run Vista + apps without feeling like tearing your eyes out, however since the video card shares the system RAM, I could see an argument for 4 Gigs, especially if the price is right.

As for good wireless, there really isn't much you can do in terms of upgrades that do not also depend on the network you are using them on. For example, you could get a dual band wireless card which has been shown to increase your network speeds on crowded access points. You could also get a card that supported 802.11a or 802.11 draft n wireless. Since most stock laptops only come with 802.11g, the g bands on public wireless bands on campus are extremely crwoded compared to the other bands (if available). Thats the real kicker here, if her school doesn't offer 'a' band wireless having a card that supports it will do nothing. Chances are no school will commit to hardware that supports 'N' untill it is standardized, so any use you would get out of a typical N card would be either on your home network, or by utilizing dual band features that the higher end cards tend to have.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Thanks Rathji.

That bad boy is $1000 on the US website. Might be out of my price range. How much of a downgrade is this compared to the one you suggested?

http://www.dell.com/content/products...=19&l=en&s=dhs

It's the 1420 on the far left.

[Rathji]

There is a downgrade to go with the 14" over the 15" in terms of processor power, RAM and video card. Realistically though, for your uses there might be a performance hit, but it probably won't be a huge one on most normal tasks.

The upside is it is smaller, lighter and more portable.

[3 Justin 3]

I have owned a dell for 3 years now. F2 key has fallen off, I am on my 3rd harddrive, my dvd drive plays dvd's half the time, other than that it is decent reliability wise. Harddrives have been a problem for me, first one was sort of my fault, 2nd one just randomly died 2 weeks ago.

By the way, you can't really "upgrade" laptops. Harddrive, sure, add more memory. Other than that you can't do much.

Check out futureshop, my mom just got my brother one a week ago for $700, and it is a decent laptop (Dell), I think it had the old Processors (not Core 2, just core), but it is was rated at 2.16Ghz. Which is good for a laptop.

[Yeah_Baby]

ugh Dell, don't expect to get more than 4 years out of it. My ole' Inspiron 600m just gave up on me last fall in the middle of term papers.

[wooohooo]

The new inspiron 15 have this 25% off coupon that I received in the email. Just PM me and I'll send it your way. Some other discounts too but I'm not entirely sure.

I've had some good and bad experiences with Dells.
My friend just got a dell inspiron laptop (older model) and within the year, it's broken.
My sister has had a dell for over 5 years...

But then again, every manufacturer has their lemons