640m - first week, modifications, upgrades

So... my first laptop. After much research and being on a very tight budget I plumped for the 640m. The high-res screen option was reasonably priced and meant I didn't need a 17" laptop and no other manufacturer came remotely close on pricing for a T7200 powered machine.

Two things that I had read in various places (particularly here) on the web concerned me: 1) Screen light leakage issue and 2) wobbly lid catches.

I received my laptop within 5 days of placing the order (placed saturday evening, received thursday morning), despite taking a few options over base spec. My chosen specification:

T7200
Trulife screen
60GB HDD
512MB mem
DVD-RW
9-cell battery

No bluetooth, additional net card, etc. Fairly basic, but came in at £680 inc VAT and delivery, which was easily the best value laptop for my needs.

Screen

After my first three hours of using the machine, my question was "What's the problem?". Then I watched an episode of Scrubs off DVD. Ah. That's the problem.

The light leakage issue will only tend to affect you if watching DVDs or playing full-screen games. I've yet to determine if/how significant a problem it is for photo editing work. If all you do is use windows (or linux, etc) for office apps, intarweb surfing, etc then you are very unlikely to even notice, let along be bothered by, the issue.

Wobbly lid

My 640m has the wobbly lid. So does my aunt's. I assume that my brother's (which arrives today) will too.

But within a few hours of getting the machine, I've fixed it. It's oh so very simple to fix. I got some low-profile 3M Bumpons. The ones I got were clear. Three along the top edge of the screen (make sure that the outer ones will land against the white plastic of the base) and one on each side and the screen is perfectly solid when the lid is closed.

The wobbly lid problem is very simply due to the built-in rubber bumpers being nothing like tall enough. That was easy.

Upgrades

Well, so far only one upgrade, but... Dell's pricing for RAM upgrades was totally outrageous (£105 for one additional 512MB 533MHz module... that's £35 from any computer supplier). 512MB doesn't really cut it for all but the most basic of computer use these days (in windows at least), especially with integrated graphics fighting for a slice. However, I found mention in a few places of some possibilities...

The T7200 is a 667FSB processor. The intel 945 chipset supports 667MHz memory, as well as dual-channel operation (and dell's motherboard in the 640m does too). Thus I went for the triple-whammy upgrade; more memory, more speed, more channels. I removed the supplied 512MB module, and replaced it and filled the other slot using a pair of Corsair 1GB PC2-5300 modules. After a significant delay at next bootup, with the message "The amount of memory has changed...", the BIOS showed 2GB of memory available, running in dual-channel mode at the full 667MHz (whereas dell's supplied memory only runs at 533, even in the top-end options of the 640m).

I've no benchmark data for this upgrade, but what I have read about the core architecture suggests that synchronous RAM and FSB is A Good Thing (TM). Can't do any harm really...

Any Other Business

That's about it really. I'm pretty pleased with the machine. The battery life (with extended pack) is fantastic... I routinely get over 5 hours use from it, and that's with the screen at full brightness, wifi on and fairly heavy use (45mins playing DVD, full defrag, installing things, uninstalling things, virus scan, etc). I don't disbelieve the possibility of 8 hours of gentle use.

Hopefully any prospective purchasers might find this useful, or those wondering about whether you can indeed take advantage of 667MHz RAM.

 

Yeah, your post sums up my experiences with my E1405 (640m). My LCD screen doesn't wobble that much when closed, but it does a bit. This is a trait of all Dell Inspirons I've seen. I think they have the bumpers there so the screen doesn't constantly smack the base of the laptop and create marks.

My pros and cons of this notebook after a few months of ownership:

Pros:
-Performance per dollar (reason I own this machine, and most important pro of this machine)
-Runs extremely cool for a laptop
-Build quality is decent (for a Dell that is)
-Few hardware problems (other than screen quality)

Cons:
-No dedicated GPU
-Weight/thickness
-Screen is sub-par