After 5 months of searching, I finally bought a laptop.

It cost 1511.20 before shipping and taxes and $1,607.74 after taxes and shipping.
It is a Dell Latitude D630 with:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, 2.00GHz
WXGA+ LCD
2.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMM
128MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 135M
120GB Hard Drive 9.5MM 7200RPM
Touchpad with UPEK fingerprint reader (I know I said I would never buy one, but it was so cheap with this deal. It was only $20.)
Windows XP Professional, SP2 (I could not get Vista Ultimate with the deal )
90W AC Adapter for Latitude D-Family
8X DVD+/-RW w/ Roxio Creator and Cyberlink
Dell Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n
9-Cell/85 WHr Primary Battery for Latitude D630

Warranty
CompleteCare Accidental DamageSvc, Lat, 3Yr
Dell Hardware Warranty, Extended Year(s)
Type 3 Contract - Next Business Day Parts and Labor On-Site Response, 2YR Extended
Dell Hardware Warranty, Initial Year
Type 3 Contract - Next Business Day Parts and Labor On-Site Response, Initial Year

 

Congrats! I bought practically the same one - but with 2.2 ghz and vista.

Maybe we can compare benchmarks/FPSs at some point since we both will have the 135M? Might be interesting to see the effect of .2ghz more and vista vs. xp?

 

yeah congratulation on your purchase. Hope it serves you well :smile:

And yes please do some benchmarks/in game performance.

 

What in-game performance? It's a latitude

Congrats on your new laptop! It was pretty clear which laptop you'd settled on for a while now, and I was wondering when you'd pull the trigger.

(still think you should've gotten the T61P though! )

 

I was going to buy a T61 until Lenovo canceled the plans for WSXGA+ resolution on the 14.1" model.

 

Pft, should've turned to the dark side with me and gotten a MBP

 

I thought about that, but I do not like 15.4" laptops. However, 15.4" laptops with WUXGA resolution are acceptable. In other words, I would have bought a D830 before a MacBook Pro.

 

Congrats, I know you've been researching your purchase for a while. Enjoy!

 

I have been VERY close to building the same exact system as you, but am still toying around with the idea of an m1330. What do you use your system for, and what helped you make this decision?

If you could get a similarly spec'd m1330 for near the same price, would you do it? The educational discount doesn't apply to latitudes, and is pretty sweet for XPS.

 

My laptop will be used primarily used for school work. Word, Excel, Power Point and a few games.

I thought about the M1330, but it is out of my price range and it lacks WXGA+ resolution.

 

Congrats. I've also been searching for a few months now, and ultimately purchased a d630 with similar configurations.

 

I've got to give kudos to Dell's business marketing section.

I've checked out several small business firms and universities and whatnot, and the Dell Latitude series is the recommended laptop of every IT department . Some offer other options (such as Apple, Lenovo), but the Latitudes are by far the most prevalent. If for some reason I need to borrow a laptop from work, the IT dept would hand me a Latitude.

I'm seeing a lot more HP laptops recently, which is a good thing, but on the other hand, quite a bit fewer Thinkpads. Ah well.

 

My school offered discounts on Thinkpads and Latitudes. I chose the Latitude over the Thinkpad.

 

Did you not have internet for 5 months? Dell and HP have been selling laptops for a while, now./

 

Yea, but for two brands world-famous for having horrible consumer-line budget laptops, it's still amazing how much difference their business marketing divisions can make. It's quite impressive.

 

It's a shame my school offers discounts on the entire dell line EXCEPT latitudes...... hmm

 

Are you sure? Dell might be willing to give the 12% academic discount anyway if you ask.