9300 First Impressions

Greetings =] First, I must thank everyone on this forum as I did quite alot of reading here to help in choosing and subsequently worrying about my choice of laptop. Okay, now the specs:
Inspiron 9300, 1.86ghz p-m, 17" wuxga, 1gb ram, geforce 6800 go 256mb, 60gb 5200rpm hd, intel 2915 abg wireless, bluetooth, dvd/cdrw, the lighter battery, and the backpack. Total price: $1750 with 35% SB coupon. I had originally specced an XPS2 for $2750, I think my ass can handle slightly longer load times with a well padded wallet beneath it ;] It shipped 6 days ahead of schedule and arrived at my house just a few hours later! I live in San Diego btw. I also picked up a Logitech MX900 bluetooth mouse. I've preferred the smaller logitech mice for many years but these buttons should be worth getting used to.

So when I got this laptop, the first thing I did was format, wiped out all the partitions and started one for Windows XP. Something important to note, this laptop is not 'designed for Windows 2000' and some drivers wouldn't install on Win2k. And if you wipe out all your partitions like I did, hope you have a WinXP cd around because the laptop sure doesn't include one. I got the drivers of dell.com and nvidia's forceware drivers from nvidia.com, although you'll need a new .inf file for those, i got mine from laptopvideo2go.com.

The laptop hardware is great! Just the right weight and very sturdy for the size. It's silent and cool. The speakers are the best I've heard from a laptop, they still strain at times of course, but they're more than adequate if you forget your headphones. The keyboard is taking some getting used to, the spacebar is a bit difficult to hit because of the keyboard bezel, but i'm sure i'll get used to it.

So the part you've all been waiting for, the screen, well, I have a different experience than most I've read before. I understand the sparkle effect, but to see it as sparkles, you have to move your head left to right. When you're just sitting still as usual, it's sortof like, instead of white there's a splotchy very light grey. And in grey there's a splotchy white in it. This isn't too bad, except in a few cases, I've got a webpage with items in alternating white and light grey and light blue rows, now it's difficult to tell the difference between those. Comparing with another LCD on my desk, the whites are still whiter on the laptop, if a bit inconsistent, but it's difficult to read. Other colors are getting washed out by the white. I like the brightness all the way up but I'm turning it down now.

That's really not much of a problem, what bothers me more is there's dark bands on the screen. They are right around the edge and not bad when I'm in my usual position, but if i lift up just a little, the band goes through the middle of the screen. It's another thing that's a little bit eh, i don't like this, but maybe i'll get used to it. We'll see soon enough I suppose.

I'll write up a gaming/dvd/programming review later on. Enjoy!