Confused!

Guys.. i m confused as to which one to buy

A Dell Inspiron 6000 / Inspiron 9300


Intel® Pentium® M (2 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
1GB DDR2 SDRAM
DVD burner
100GB Hard Drive

Above are my min. requirements..
I dont mind using a 15.4" instead of a 17"..

Mainly using the notebook for Music,Lots of video editing ( A LOT ) No Gaming at all..

EDIT


Guys... i had another question and wanted to know from a owner of a 9300 , and not from reviews ,etc..

Q) what is the actual battery life after its fully charged. and on operation mode that is no sleep/hibernate /etc. (6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (53 WHr) )

*P.s i know it mite depend on the clock speed,etc. but i just wanted a rough estimate.... JUST can't wait for my 9300 to arrive !

 

I would go with the Inspiron 9300 because i would prefer to have a bigger screen, but if you would be taking this computer every where with you then the Inspiron 6000 becuase that at least is more portable.

 

Yeah thats the thing.. now heres wat i dont understand..
when i customize the 6000 .... the memory it tells me is 1 GB "shared " DDR2........
wat do they mean by shared... is it shared wid the video card or wat? also in 9300 it says 533MHz but it doesnt say anything in 6000 ... so i assume is 400 MHz..

also i am get almost the same config for equal price...

 

Well whatever you do, get the lowest memory option and then buy the rest through somebody else like newegg, you will save money

 

What if he doesnt want to install it himself

 

I understand 'shared' to mean that it's spread out over two connections instead of one; ie, two sticks of 512 MB RAM instead of one stick of 1 GB. The advantage is that it's cheaper, but the disadvantage is that it makes upgrading harder, as you cannot just put a new stick into the open slot.

But I'm pretty dumb, so that could be completely wrong.

 

No, "shared" means you are configuring the standard 6000 and not the 6000d, and thusly are getting the integrated Intel GMA900 graphics chipset. Which, I warn you, will be miserable for heavy video editing. Artifacting, slow rendering, slow application of effects, just plain slow. You'll really want dedicated graphcis, which are offered in the 6000d (in the form of a 128MB x300).

However, it seems you'll be doing a lot of video and audio encoding. That's the weakest point for the Pentium-M. In your budget, there's a much better choice: Gateway's 7510GX meets all of your requirements for $1250 on sale, and has a Mobile Athlon 64 3700+ (Newcastle), which will be a heck of a lot better for major encoding tasks than the Pentium-M. The Gateway also has a 128MB x600, which will breeze through your video editing with ease. The tradeoff is less battery life and more weight than the I6000d, but it'd be worth it in the time and frustration saved in your editing tasks. Even the more modest 7508GX ($1000, 64MB x600, MA64 3400+, 80GB hard drive) will fit your needs better than an I6000 and is pretty cheap.

For example: I recently converted all of .wma music library (~2 GB) to .m4a (for iTunes). On my Dell, with it's 1.86GHz Pentium-M 750, this task took over 2 hours. On my old Gateway 7422GX, with a Mobile Athlon 64 3400+ (ClawHammer), it took about 1.5 hours, despite the first-generation MA64 3400+ being in most respects a slower processor.

 

When it says shared, the video memory is taken from the system memory. There are a lot of good notebooks under 1500. You should consider our "What should I buy?" FAQ. Maybe we can find something better. Also for video editing, a faster hard drive is a good idea.

 

Ya that is wrong, but good guess. 'Shared' Memory, in this case with the 6000, means that the system memory is shared with the video card as well as the rest of the machine. So if you have a 64MB shared video card (as the 6000 has, not 6000d - I will get to that in a sec) then 64MB (give or take on certain applications, 64MB being the max) will be allocated for the graphics ONLY. Leaving the remainder for other multi-tasking applications.

If you take a look at the 6000d model, higher grade then 6000, you have 128MB ATi DEDICATED graphics. Meaning, this graphic card is a stand-alone component and has IT'S OWN memory to support the applications requiring the use of the graphic chipset (such as games and in your case 'A LOT of video editing'). The 6000 meanwhile, has integrated graphics which are enough for very light gaming and basic applications.

DO NOT even considor the 6000 for your video editing use. You will be doing 'A LOT' of video editing and this machine will come nowhere close to the performance you require. I would be hard pressed to even recommend the 6000d BUT, if you are on a tighter budget then go for the 6000d (NOT 6000 - don't forget the 'd') with the 128MB Dedicated ATi graphics.

Overall, for video-editing though, the 6000 line-up would not be your best bet. If you can spare a few more dollars, then go for the 9300 and UPGRADE the graphics card to the 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800 which should give you the video-editing power you require.

Goodluck in your decision.

- Mo

 

I would get the i9300 simply because of the 17 inch LCD panel and the option to get the Nvidia GeForce Go 6800 graphics card. The Pentium M processor is not that bad when it comes to video editing, it is pretty good when it comes to audio encoding as well. The Pentium M processor is on par with the desktop line of AMD Athlon 64 processors meaning a 2GHz Pentium M will perform the same as a AMD Athlon 64 3500+ or the mobile AMD Athlon 64 3500+. So the performance differences between the 2GHz Pentium M and the Mobile AMD Athlon 64 3700+ processor are negligable especially since the i9300 can be configured with 2GB of dual channel DDR2 RAM and it can come with a 7200RPM hard drive which will perform a lot better, when doing video rendering, than the 4200RPM hard drive in the Gateway.

If you will be doind a lot of video editing then you will like the 17 inch WUXGA LCD panel as it has the glossy coat and a large resolution. In my opinion, I say get the i9300 with the minimal amount of RAM and buy 2GB of RAM from newegg.com for around $200. It takes seconds to install and is really simple. I also recomend getting the Nvidia GeForce Go 6800 graphics card in the i9300 even if you aren't going to game.

The i6000D is not a bad system but, after using a 17 inch notebook for three weeks, I could not go back to a 15.4 inch LCD notebook. The Gateway notebook that was previously recomended is a good system that I thought about getting but it does not offer the performane of a i9300 with a 2GHz processor, 1GB of dual channel DDR2 RAM, and a 5400/7200 RPM hard drive.

 

Get the 9300 Definitely, mine was 1477 wiht a 750 off coupon, this system rocks compard to the 6000 and less than a hundred bucks difference in price usually.

 

Thanks a lot u guys...Your comments were really helpful, decided against a 6000, Just placed the order for a 9300 !..

 

congratulations!!!..i KNOW u will like it

 

Congratulations!! like luck there said, youre going to love this machine, I am soo glad I chose the 9300 over the 6000 for the various reasons I posted before.
Now just be patient while you are waiting for your system to arrive I know its hard, maybe stop by and spend some time at notebookforums.com too.
Best of Luck

 

Guys... i had another question and wanted to know from a owner of a 9300 , and not from reviews ,etc..

Q) what is the actual battery life after its fully charged. and on operation mode that is no sleep/hibernate /etc. (6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (53 WHr) )

*P.s i know it mite depend on the clock speed,etc. but i just wanted a rough estimate.... JUST can't wait for my 9300 to arrive !

 

well...with my settings set low...with lowered screen brightness...not using much graphic intense programs or anything...just like AIM, Microsoft Word...a lotta tabs in Firefox..i get around 3 hours and 5-10 min on a 6 cell for the 9300

 

I get three hours of battery life on my 9300 thats with the WIFI on and using the internet. I can also get through a DVD with no problems and usually time to spare. I dont use my battery all that often, only when I absolutely need to. I also use the brigthness a couple notches up from lowest when on battery.