Last minute Questions before Buying XPS today!

Hurray! RGBLED is back on the dell website. Just about to order so have 2 questions before i take the plung

1) Notebook Cover -> which is best? black or White?. Will the white get dull and stained over time?, Does the black look like cheapy plastic?. Does the black look like the ones on the black Inspirons because I think those do look nasty?

2) Built-In Broadband card (Wireless 5540 Mobile Broadband HSDPA Mini-Card ) -> how is the reception of these units compared to the USB dongle ones?. Is Access to where they are installed at the bottom of the notebook hence not voiding waranty if i decide to install at a later date? or Am I just better off getting one off ebay at a cheaper price?

Thanks

 

I went for black on the basis that if I went for white it would always be grubby. Black shows up the fingerprints a lot though.

The back of the laptop comes off easily and gives access to the card slots so I guess you could add one later if you wanted to.

 

Is the black similar to the palm rest of the Inspirons?

 

black is high gloss, I went with Red- best of both- does not show finger prints and does not look grubby

 

such a difficult decision between white n black!
Raether916, workmate was looking at the videos of the three colours on youtube and he thought the red one looked like a woman's handbag

 

more like an Audi S5 interior....

 

Apart from fingerprints, black is classy and attractive. It's a nice glossy color, that will never lose that classy look. Go for black or the red.

 

White does not look grubby, can get heaps of fingerprints and you don't even notice, whereas the black looks good out of the box but instantly looks cheap when covered in fingerprints. Only time will tell if the leather looks good after a few years tho lol

 

I think its the leather part that will get grubby on the white- Dell should have used black leather on all 3 colors. - and the palm rest as well

Or no leather at all

 

Another hiccup.
Should i go for the i5 540M or i7 820QM?.
Assuming price increase is not such an issue, I would like to get the best speed wise and i guess i am not so botheres about battery life


My main use will be:-
1) web browsing
2) I am a developer so will be running some applications/OS like oracle, unix ... in multiple vmware (or other virtual PC products). I will rather these apps reside in virtual pc for portability rather than an install on the laptop which clogs the system up. I should still be able to do other stuff on the laptop easily without feeling the sluggishnes with multiple virtual pc's running


Thanks

css_jay99

 

If you get a colored version though ... it is still black on the inside ... hence for the palm rest ... it will get prints all over it ...

 

Any help with this please?. I tried reading about these two cpu's with my limited knowlege of processors and here are my findings, please correct me as i am probably going to be wrong anyway

My pc Usage is unlikely to to hit 4 cores. I am assuming that virtual PC's would probably only use 1 or 2 cores.

If the above statment is true then i5 will be best perfomance?. I might be talking rubbish of course ?

css_jay99

 

I don't see why the i5 540 would perform better than the i7 820QM, even when you aren't running a program that makes full use of all of the cores. If money isn't an issue and battery life isn't an issue, go for the 820QM. More cache, more cores (Windows knows how to use them for multitasking, etc), and the 820 will overclock itself when it isn't using all of the cores. The final consideration might be heat/throttling, but unless you are a hardcore gamer, this won't be an issue for you, because it mostly only affects the videocard now-a-days.

 

If you plan to run multiple virtual machines then the additional cores in the i7 820QM might be more beneficial than the higher standard clock rate of the i5 540M.

 

cheers guys,

i just wish dell will give me some more reductions.
Maybe i can order by and then treathen to cancel order if they dont allow a little bit money off

 

Good luck with that.

 

Dell changes the offers on their site fairly often. The CSRs that you call generally have access to the same offers that you do if you visit the public site. I was able to actually follow my CSR through the entire order process with discounts and all. I suggest checking back regularly and then when you find a deal you can accept jump on it!

 

I remembered 3 yrs ago when i bought an inspiron with 1yr support.

When I got the laptop, I called them up that I had changed my mind as I can get better n cheaper from other manufacturers.

They then offered me 3yrs next day support free to force me to keep the laptop. which was cool with me

css_jay99