A couple of questions on Dell e1705

Hi, I'm new, this is my first post

I'm going to college this fall, so I decided to purchase a laptop, after much soul searching, I have finally decided on a Dell e1705. Last night I have configured one as so:

Inspiron E1705 Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2500 (2GHz/667MHz FSB)
Operating System (Office software not included) Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
LCD Panel 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™
Memory 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
Video Card 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 7800
Hard Drive 100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
Combo/DVD+RW Drives 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Sound Card Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy® ADVANCED HD Audio
Wireless Networking Cards Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Mini Card (54Mbps)
Office Software (not included in Windows XP) No productivity suite- Corel WordPerfect word processor only
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) No Security Subscription
Primary Battery 80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support
Dial-Up Internet Access 6 Months of America Online Membership Included
Mobile Broadband No Broadband Expresscard technology is available in the market now
Operating System Re-Installation CD PC Restore recovery system by Symantec
Separate Photo & Music Software Musicmatch Plus by Yahoo! Music- Music Player. Included in Deluxe and Prem
Dell Digital Entertainment Starter Entertainment Pack - Basic digital Music, Photo and Game experience


After a coupon and some student discounts, the final price was $1997.03

Anyway, I was wondering if that's a good deal. This laptop have to last me at least through college, so I have a couple of questions.

Can I upgrade to Windows Vista when it comes out? Do I need to upgrade to the Merom CPU if I want that?

How easy is it to upgrade the RAM myself. I want the 667Mhz ones. And if I do open the laptop and upgrade the RAM, does it void my warranty?

Also I need some explaination on Dell's basic warranty. I heard it's one year, does it cover everything for one year? What about international warranty?

Thanks for the help. And any other comment appreciated.

 

Yes you can upgrade to Vista 32 bit operating system

yes you can upgrade the ram yourself without voiding the warrany, dell just wont cover the ram you put in.

The warranty itself im not sure on perhaps someone can help here. I bought my i9400 believing that i get 1 year return to base for any hardware defect.

hope this helps abit.

 

Even though Vista is going to be 64 bit?

How easy is it to install the RAM, does it just involve opening the laptop and putting the RAM into the slot? I have never done it before. I would love to save a couple of hundreds of dollars by putting in my own RAM, but if it's too technical then I rather buy the RAM from Dell.

 

I have the beta 2 vista and it runs ok on my i9400 and its 32 bit.

yes upgrading the ram is easy just unclip the old ones and clip the new ones in, just make sure they are pushed in properly.

 

So it's pretty easy? How long would it take? Like 15 minutes? The least RAM that comes with the e1705 is 1GB, does anyone know if it's one or two DIMMs? Also what brand of RAM does Dell use?

 

how did you get a student discount?

 

well, first off this is my first post here so welcome to myself =)

Most major universities have deals with major manufacturers like Dell, HP, Compaq, Apple etc. in regards to get computers for cheaper prices and extend them to their students. For example

One way to get discounts is contact your school's IT department to see which companies they have special offers with, like for example in my university (Purdue), you can go our school's IT website and it'll give you a link to the dell store with special deals for Purdue students. Another way to get the student discount is to go to the dell home page, click on the government, education, and healthcare section, select student, faculty & staff personal purchases and then on the link which says you do not know your member ID. This will bring you to the Dell University store which often has cheaper prices on notebooks and such. Out of the two options, the first is usually better due to the fact that the second option bring you to generic store, whereas if you manage to obtain a link which will lead to the dell store tailored specifically for your school you can often get additional deals on specific systems etc. But if not the discount on the second way is welcome as well =)

Hope that helps