Del coupons ended last night?

I was going to order my Inspiron 9300 last night but I had to do some family decision-making today, and OF COURSE, the coupon displayed on this very website ($750 off $1999+) no longer works. It supposedly expires 1/11 so I still had a few days...

someone help!

 

They usually expire after a certain number of uses, regardless of the date. Sorry you missed it. I'm sure there'll be another one out soon enough though

 

Inspiron 9300
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$1,664.50 Move Item to My Wish List

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Inspiron 9300
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 750 (1.86 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB), Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
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$2,015.00
$100 Savings on Select Intel Processors-Savings Already reflected in Price!

Expires Thursday, January 12, 2006 View Details

Save $500 on select Inspiron notebook purchases $1999 or more
- $500.00
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PCMCIA Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 ZS Notebook sound card
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1 $100.00

Netgear WGR614 Cable/DSL Wireless Router
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$55.00
Dell Home Customers: Save 10% off Select Networking!
- $5.50
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Sub-total $1,664.50

Shipping & Handling $57.00 Estimate Shipping & Handling and Tax


Shipping & Handling Discount -$25.00

Tax $0.00

Total Price $1,696.50



The total when the coupon worked was 1,446.50. Should I just go ahead and buy it for 1700 or should I wait? I REALLY need a notebook bad, and I don't want a 15.4"-inch screen. I don't see ANY deals for 17-inch notebooks by Sony or Toshiba, etc. I REALLY don't want to wait long for another coupon. How long should I expect a better deal, and should I just take the -500 right now (it expires at the end of the month). This sucks!

 

The new coupon will very likely arrive next week.

 

I said you should wait. But if you really need it and your life is depend on it, go ahead. But I pretty postive they will have some new coupons. Maybe better or equal to, plus new models coming out so...

 

the new model Dell (e1750/9400) has Dual Core processor (I'm not going to be gaming too much on here, moreso using other forms of media--music videos, wwe.com live events, howard on demand, sirius streaming, itunes, aim)...do I really need that?

what would be TOO MUCH on my notebook? I live and breath the internet, I want something FAST as I tend to multi-task often and something that will last me long enough without having to upgrade...

thanks peeps.

 

Here are the specs, anything you would change to limit cost or perhaps flop...i'd like to spend at least $1999 total to get the $750 coupon once its available again.



Inspiron 9300 Intel® Pentium® M Processor 750 (1.86 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB) <<< upgrading to 2 GHz that big a deal?
-Operating System (Office software not included) Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
-Display 17 inch Wide Screen XGA+ Display <<< Trulife, seems like no one on this site can come to a conclusion; well, neither can I...
-Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm
-Video Card 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800
-Hard Drive 80GB 5400rpm Hard Drive <<< 60 GB good enough for what I do (look above--possibly lots of MP3's/videos)...how about going up to 7200rpm?...I heard its noisy and seems awfully expensive...
-Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
-Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
-CD/DVD Drives 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
-Wireless Networking Card Intel® PRO 2915 and Dell 350 Bluetooth Internal Wireless Cards <<< difference in price for 2200 and 2915 isn't much...I'm hearing Bluetooth could be essential for wireless routers/mouse/headsets one could possibly want, esp. cell phones..
-Office Software (not included in Windows XP) No productivity suite- Corel WordPerfect word processor only <<< heh, who doesn't have a friend with an MS Office disc..
-Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) No Security Subscription << I'll buy or download my own
-Primary Battery 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (80 WHr) << the extra $100 might be worth avoiding the hassle of always plugging it in...sounds lazy but you never know..
-Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support <<< this is my most striking question...people tell me warrantys are ripoffs, while others say you start to see notebooks do funny things AFTER a year/year and a half...I'd hate to drop crazy $$ for a warranty I'm not so sure of..
-Dial-Up Internet Access 6 Months of America Online Membership Included
-Miscellaneous Award Winning Service & Support
-Financial Software No QuickBooks package selected - includes limited use trial
-Operating System Backup & Recovery PC Restore recovery system by Symantec
-Dell Digital Entertainment Starter Entertainment Pack - Basic digital Music, Photo and Game experience

ACCESSORIES
-PCMCIA Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 ZS Notebook sound card Qty 1
Unit Price $100.00 <<< upgraded, this will basically be my iTunes and Satellite Radio player for my room
-Netgear WGR614 Cable/DSL Wireless Router Qty 1
Unit Price $55.00 <<< I'm sure I can get a cheaper router at Best Buy right? that would bring the overrall price under $1999, thus voiding the deal for $750 (when it comes back around again)...
Dell Home Customers: Save 10% off Select Networking!
Limited Time Offer! View Details
- $5.50


TOTAL:$1,664.50


Will be $1,445.50 once the coupon strikes again...

 

Why don't you buy the 9400? It's newer and you can add pretty much the same things and the previous $750 coupon worked with it too.

 

none of the things you listed are stressful for even medium or low spec'd machines. you should be more concerned about your broadband connection than your notebook specs; that looks like your performance bottleneck.

 

The $750 coupon has expired and who knows when it will show up again... For now they just have...

$600 off $1899 39FQL7F?LV3RVB
$300 off $1099 Z5HJTRN9M8LPDB
$500 off $1599 QZKLVJV?HMCS1F

These coupons all expire on the 11th...

 

IMHO, upgrading CPU is not dollar for dollar cost effective for overall system performance, so you should be fine. It all depends of course on what would be your primary use. For serious computer power I would look at the new Yonah platform that gets very positive reviews ( Intel's Core Duo Launch - Notebook Performance Revealed) in both performance and energy efficiency.

I just received my order with WUXGA screen and it is simply beautiful. No sparkles or white banding either that some people report. Reflections are a problem though, so if you intend to use your laptop in non-controlled environment often, I would recommend against TrueBrite. Also, the WUXGA resolution (1920x1200) is completely mismatched for the size of the screen. This leads to very tiny fonts that require perfect vision and quickly strain eyes. The solution is to increase the DPI from the standard 96 to 120 or even bigger, which leads to issues with non-properly designed Web Sites and program interfaces built by amateur designers, who did not consider DPI scaling when creating UI. But for watching movies or photo editing this screen can't be beat.

I went with 80HB 5400RPM simply because the upgrade from 60GB is so cheap and extra 20GB is always a good thing to have. 7200RPM drives are noisy and also battery suckers, so they are not well matched for a laptop solution.

I am using an AntiVir free Anti Virus software ( http://www.free-av.com/) that has one of the best benchmarks for protection (completely leaving Norton solution in the dust), free, very quick updates and very small memory footprint (which is very important for a resident process).

If you go to Ebay, you would find genuine Dell 9-cell batteries for less then $80 shipped. This way you would have your original 6-cell battery as a backup. This would be a better deal then to pay Dell $100.

To answer your question, if you look at the warranty as a downpayment for future repair work, then it is not a smart investment as statistically people only get 20-40% of their money back in the form of repairs. But if you look at it from the peace of mind perspective, then it is well worth it. Applying this general principle to laptops, I would shift my bias slightly towards getting the exrta warranty, as your laptop would become a primary tool of use in your life, you can not repair laptop by yourself in most of the cases and out of warranty repair would cost you an arm and a leg.

Most of the accessories at Dell are overpriced and you can find better and cheaper alternatives elsewhere. Also, not all of the accessories can be counted against your total. I have purchased a Port Replicator from Dell with my order and it was priced separately from the system.

 

I don't think $20 is worth the difference to bother with annoying Ebay...but other than that, awesome review...i have poor vision so i won't be getting TruLife lol...

 

That $100 for the battery UPGRADE means you give up the 6 cell and they give you a 9 cell in it's place. OR....

You can take the 6cell that's included at no extra charge.

Order a 9cell on Ebay for $75-80 shipped and then you have 2=== count them ==== TWO batteries... along with an extra 20 bones. If you go back and look, they offer a 'secondary' battery. I believe the charge for the 9 cell 2nd battery was $129. Therefore your actual savings are : $54 - $59 plus TAX if you purchase from someone who doesn't live in your state. SO... your choice.

I ordered the 6 cell with my i9300 (Dell just rec'd it on RMA return.. so I'll order my 9400 soon I hope) and I got about 2 hours battery life with the GO6800 card. That should get you by while you place the Ebay order

As for the SOUNDCARD issue.. you should read reviews on the product here http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16829102183 . I didn't see anything too negative and surprisingly, Dell's price is right-on with Newegg. That's a first.


Order your RAM from Newegg as well. They have WAY better prices. If you like to multitask, go for the 2x1gb package for $149 at Newegg. I bought the SINGLE 1gb stick it was like jet fuel compared to the stock 512mb. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146440

Dude's right about the 7200RPM's. Noise, heat and power sucking is all they are good for. The negatives take away from the positives. Stick with the 80gig 5400, you'll be happy. Best bang:buck ratio.

On my 9300, I wish I would have NOT done bluetooth, NOT done the wireless card upgrade (since ALL Intel Wireless adapters SUCK!-- buy your own MINI-PCI card model, research this forum, you'll find a good suggestion-), I wish I WOULD have upgraded the display to the wUXGA.

Hope that helps ya a little. I returned mine in the 21 day timeframe and should get a full credit. Mine had flaws that I just couldn't deal with for a $1350 unit (after discounts). I'm going to wait and get the 9400 (probablY).

 

outstanding...thank you...what type of performance errors did you have?

why did u WISH u had the WUXGA screen? I heard u can raise the font so if u got bad eyesight it'll all work out to your favor..

 

My errors were in the display (light leakage was excessive and brightness wasn't all that great), the touchpad sucked (though, can't help that much, all 9300 have the same one), the wireless (upgraded to the highest one with bluetooth) sucked so bad, by the time it would connect I was too mad to bother enjoying it, the heat from the go6800 card was enough to light a cigar from and the keyboard felt like I was going to pop keys off when I typed (fingers get caught UNDER adjacent keys when you type).

reason for screen upgrade... discontent with the wXGA I had and amount of forums I've read where people have it and love it.

I also just bought a 42" plasma HDTV and would love to try out that DVI / RGB (dv-15) on that puppy.

 

Frankly, I do not understand your reasoning here. All the issues you mentioned having with 9300 would be the same or multiplied with 9400.

- WUXGA screen is brighter then WXGA but not by much. It is not the brightest screen around. WUXGA also has the same tendency to leak light plus it sparkles for some people which makes white backrounds diffcult to tolerate. Add there the DPI problem that I mentioned in the other post and you would be hard pressed to choose between two. I, personally chose WUXGA mostly because it was, ironically, cheaper for me then if I would have gone with WXGA (not enough to apply $750 off). Another reason was that the intended use by my parents would include a lot of movie watching and the TV-like sceen would be more natural for this setup then typical laptop LCD.

- The touchpad and keyboard are the same among all Inspirons. I agree that touchpad is small and awkward to use, but for most part it does not bother me as I use wireless mouse instead.

- I had no problem with Intel wireless - it searches the area and connects to the default router in less then 10 seconds after start up and the speed I am getting is simply beyond amazing. (250kbps on a secure connection).

- If you think NVidia 6800Go is hot - wait until you try 7800 that comes with Inspiron 9400.
Cheers,

netscorer.

 

Yeah, that's why I haven't settled yet. The 9400 looks delicious but I'm worried about having the same issues with it that I did on the 9300. The amount of leakage on the xga in my 9300 was beyond anything I've seen before and I've owned about a dozen LCD's ranging in price from FREE to the $1100 sony 19".

Wondering if the XPS shares the same components since they are often seen listed together ( xps/insprion - that fashion).

I may ditch Dell altogether and buy another brand.

 

grrrrrrrr....now what

 

by all means, don't base your decision on what any one person on these forums says.

you have to collect / gather all of the input you can and then decide for yourself.

I suggest looking for a 'dell store' in your area. I think my closest one is at an airport and then maybe touch a dell laptop for yourself.

It felt like a solid machine to me. I'm a very picky person when it comes to the quality I expect for the price i pay. IMHO, for the money I paid for my i9300, I didn't receive the quality that should have been there. My HP laptop (sempron 3000+ cpu) that cost HALF what the i9300 did-- seems better in ways of quality and overall individual compenent satisfaction. IE- the keyboard types nice, the touchpad is nice, the display looks good and no light leakage, the wireless works flawlessly.

Some would / will say "then go get another HP". I don't want another HP. I want a Dell I also want a no-interest payment plan HAHA.

 

I'm stubborn like that too...I think i'm going with the 9400 as well...1.83 Dual Core/1 GB/80 GB/best video card/soundblaster card, etc. etc....just don't know on the same screen or warranty lol...horrible

gotta get them darn coupons back too!

 

Well, Dell seems to be shifting away from mass-computer building and wants to head into the Gaming-Rig section more. I believe they may have cut their coupons completely or may be giving them to a select people.