My Dad Ordered A Latitude E6500!

It looks like we'll (or maybe just he'll ?) be the first on the forum to get of the new Latitudes. I showed him the XPS M1530, the Latitude E6500, the MacBook Pro (what can I say? Apple makes some great products ) all of HP's business-class notebooks, Lenovo Thinkpads, and we (mostly me, since he doesn't know too much about laptops, but he knows a lot more than the average guy his age ) decided on the Latitude E6500. This is what me and him decided on:

My System Details
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600 (2.40GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate SP1, With media
3 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 3 Year NBD On-Site Service (included with the EPP)
15.4” UltraSharp™ Wide WXGA+ (1440x900) LED Display-Brushed Metal Black
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M
2.0GB, DDR2-800 SDRAM, 2 DIMMS
Internal English Backlit Keyboard
Digital Microphone
80GB Hard Drive, 7200RPM with Free Fall Sensor (he said he only wanted 80GB...)
8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio and Cyberlink Power DVD™
Dell Wireless™ 1397 802.11b/g Mini Card
No Fingerprint Reader
Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers

The system would usually cost $1,855 before tax and shipping. We used Dell's Employee Purchase program and got a little over 20% off, plus free next day shipping by calling in to order, so it came out to a bit more than $1400 before tax, which was a great deal. We (he) should have the laptop sometime in the next few weeks. I'll post a review and a lot of pictures when he gets it. Is there anything that you guys want to know or see about the laptop?

 

congrats to your dad/you........you seem as excited as your dad should be

hopefully it won't take too long to build/ship

 

I'll be looking forward to seeing the pictures

 

I demand you to tell me more on this "Employee Purchase Program".

I demand it. Lucky s-o-b !

 

http://www.dell.com/content/segmenter.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=eep&cs=_eep

Use the drop-down menu instead of the id. They didn't ask for any extra info for him to be eligible for the discount (which he is), I don't get the point of the discount if they aren't going to check if he's eligible, but I won't argue . He used the government discount since the construction company that he owns does government contracts. Hotels, car rental places, etc. give him the government discount, so I don't think that he'll have any problems with Dell. There's an extra 5% discount that can be combined with the rest for EPP customers (use any random number for the member idea):

http://instantwin.dellsavings.com/

It didn't work with the Latitude system, probably because it wasn't released when the coupon first came out, but the Dell rep we ordered from over the phone (which we did since they give free next day shipping if you order over the phone) just added an extra 5% discount instead since the coupon was supposed to work on all Dell systems.

 

Wait so I choose Local & State gov't? That seems to take off 100 dollars off the M4400, not really 20%...and did you guys order online? Or should I try to lower the price even more through the phone (even though I dont want them getting suspicious)?

5% more would be nice and maybe I could stack it with a student discount (doubt it though).

Aaaah so many combos I'm not sure what's possible and what's the best choice. Please give me some advice.

 

I think if you configure it over $1600 (it might be lower, but the 12% discount is definitely there) you get an additional 12% off. The 5% discount can be stacked with any EPP discounts, but that's it. The 5% coupon will only work over the phone since the Latitudes aren't eligible for the coupon since they were released a few weeks after the coupon was, but the coupon says "5% off all of Dell's systems" so they'll still give you a 5% discount over the phone. We configured it online, then we ordered it over the phone so we could get free next day shipping (I didn't know that the 5% discount would be applied over the phone, that was a nice surprise). I wouldn't recommend lying to them if you're not eligible for any of the EPP discounts, they might run some kind of background check.

 

Yeah, I'd rather not get caught for some laptop.

So far all I have going for me is the 5% coupon (thanks to you). Im a student, and I work at a small business. Maybe I can bump it up to 10-15% over the phone. My goal for this would be 25% (around $1300) - I'd purchase it immediately if I could pull that off.

 

The 5% coupon only works if you're eligible for any of the EPP discounts. You might be able to ask for a 5% discount or something over the phone, though I would doubt it. The most you'll be able to do is free next day shipping, which isn't bad since it usually costs $70.

 

My first attempt at purchasing a M4400 for cheaper failed - they said I cant get any type of discounts on that business model since its so new

Id go with the E6500 but its specs compared to the M1530 I order lacks =/