Dell Inspiron 9400 With Intel Duo Core Available (specs)

ok so i phoned dell...in India

The Inspiron 9400 will ship in 25 days (i assume the release date is 25 - 7 or 10) from today.
The affiliate coupon for $650cdn will expire on Jan 19th (and is a better deal that the 300$ mem upgrade combined with the 15% off system that just came up.)

This will prolly be first time i buy a system before it is out. So i don't have reviews to back up my choice.

Its a great choice..right?

I mean the price is just awesome...but i'm not so sure those price discounts will be there after it does ship and i have had a chance to read the reviews).

 

edit: that 15% off is on systems purchases with easy step.
I tried a number of options but could not get it to apply to the 9400. So i guess that is why the $650[$300 if you still want that now non-free mem upgrade]coupon is a better deal

argh: wrong button

edit: Well, the 9400 system has been ordered. Took like an 1hr talking with Dell Support in India. Line quality was not the best and the accent was harder to understand this time around.

 

coupon where?

 

(a) I have Dell 9200, great screen, great for most gaming and programming C# and multimedia.
(b) If I to buy Dell 9400 to replace 9200, what is the significant change I expects to see?. I think I may stick with 1440x900 screen option.
(c) Where can I learn more on review between Duo and Centrino processor
(d) I know Dell 9200 has battery life of 2.5 hour in Starbucks, how long Dell 9400..I mean really how long (no gaming)?.

Thanks

 

well cdn. coupons can be found here:
http://www.edealsetc.com/dell_canada_coupons.html?src=google&gclid=CJ2Q_cTtuYICFTinIgodFTCtSQ

The 650$ coupon invalidates promotional offers already listed. But it still works out to best deal (but is only applied after you actually buy the thing.. You can't actually see the change until you are locked in. This is why i was talkin to Dell India..to make sure i got coupon first.)

The upgraded battery on the 9400 will last @4 hours with non gaming use.
The default will last about 3 hours. (or, so says dell India

-----

the best Place to learn about centrino duo and core duo is here:

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=2663

 

I wished there was a review that discusses how loud the notebook is...
There only seems to be one single review so far and they say nothing about this important topic
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1908402,00.asp

 

We'll have a review soon, we expect a review unit in the next week or so. That PC Mag "review" is on a pre-production unit too, so that's not the best measure.

 

Yup, HP and Acer using integrated graphics or a lowly ATI x1600 can't beat a go 7800 (i doubt it was a gtx version).
Something definately wrong with that PC magazine review.

Although when they say the core speed is lowered on the go 7800 to conserve battery power...i hope they mean it scales up when you are sucking the juice from a wall instead

 

Hi guys,

someone on the forums at whatlaptop.co.uk posted scores for the 7800go (as used in the Inspiron 9400/E1705) at around the 3800 mark in 3dMark2005 on a 2GHz Yonah.

However the TrustedReviews score of the Acer Travelmate 8204WLMI put that at 4380.

Given that the TravelMate is using an X1600 I find these figures very difficult to swallow - unless Dell is underclocking the 7800go very severely indeed.

Don't suppose any of you is in a position to comment on this?

 

Well I ordered two identical Inspiron 9400 laptops from Dell Canada yesterday!!! My wife and I are replacing our desktops and couldn't turn down the deal on them. We got them for 2191.00 CAD each plus tax ($4996.00 with PST/GST). Today when you price one out the same configuration costs $2950 CAD each plus tax!!

The specs for our 9400's are:

SKU # DESCRIPTION
---------- ----------------------------------------
222-1033 Inspiron 9400, Intel Core Duo Processor T2400 (1.83GHz/667MHz FSB)
311-5637 1GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm, for Inspiron 9400/E1705
312-0374 80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery, for Inspiron 9400/E1705
313-3865 24X Combo CD-RW/DVD, for Inspiron 9400/E1705
320-4559 17 inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WUXGA, for Inspiron 9400/E1705
320-4562 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 for Inspiron 9400/E1705
341-2946 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive for Inspiron 9400/E1705
412-0689 Image Restore
412-0751 Dell Media Experience 3.0 Basic
412-0845 Paint Shop Photo Album 6.0 Starter Edition
412-0850 Network Associates McAfee 7.0,English,90-day Trial
420-4770 Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2, English, for Inspiron
420-4830 DELL SUPPORT 3.0
420-4928 Windows Media Player 10
420-5775 CyberLink PowerDVD v5.7 Decoding Sofware for DVD Drives
430-0493 Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem, for Inspiron
430-1048 Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0, for Inspiron
430-1516 Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Mini Card (54Mbps) for Inspiron 9400/E1705
463-2282 Dell Owners Manual installed on your system,click on icon after system set-up to access
412-0674 AOL 9.0 - Canada
412-0803 Corel WordPerfect 12 plus Trial of Quartro Pro and Presentations
950-3610 Type 7 Contract - Mail-In Service, 24x7 Technical Support, Initial Year
960-2780 Warranty Support,Initial Year
983-2207 Thank You for buying Dell
009-6800 Shipping and Handling,Canada
950-9057 No Warranty, Year 2 and 3

Apparently we won't be getting them until the end of January or February due to lead time. I assume their waiting on Intel.

I do have a question. It's still unclear to me which version of the Nvidia 7800 comes with the Inspiron 9400? As you can see above it just says Go 7800 for Inspiron. Does anyone know?

Well I'll post again once Dell updates my order status (it takes 24 to 48 hours for you to be able to view your order status online and track it). Hopefully it will come sooner then later!

Has anyone else ordered one and if yes, when do you expect to get yours?

Cheers.

 

Could we have a bit of professional jealousy here?

 

"Has anyone else ordered one and if yes, when do you expect to get yours?"

As stated above your post ...T-25 from the 9th.

From the limited review...referenced just above your post...
the go7800 seems to equal an ati x1600 (i know its not the gtx..but i kinda thought it was the mobile equivi of the 7800 GT).

Here is hoping a review on an actual production model will be much better.

please..please..please

But ya...it was an awesome deal all the same!

 

The 7800 in the 9400 is a light version of the GTX, check out the Nvidia site for more information.

 

I ordered mine last Friday soon after they were offered. I was told to expect it in the usual 6-10 day window but we'll see. Apparently, I was the first to order one in Canada. I'll let you know when I get it.

My specs, if you care, are as follows:

Qty Part # Description
Quantité / No. de la pièce / Description
--- -------- ---------------------------------------------
1 222-1031 I9400,CDP T2500(2GHZ)
1 310-5941 XLARGE CARRY CASE,NYLON,I9200/9300
1 311-5637 1GB,DDR2,667MHZ,2 DIMM,I9400/E1705
1 312-0374 80 WHR,9-CELL,LION,PRIM BATT,I9400/E1705
1 313-3865 24X COMBO CD-RW/DVD,I9400/E1705
1 320-4558 LCD,17-INCH,WXGA+,I9400/E1705
1 320-4562 256MB NVIDIA 7800,I9400/E1705
1 341-2944 100GB HARD DRIVE,I9400/E1705
1 412-0689 IMAGE RESTORE, INSP
1 412-0751 DMX 3.0 BASIC,INSP
1 412-0842 MUSIC MATCH 10.1 BASIC,ODP,DIM/INSP
1 412-0845 PHOTO ALBUM 6.0 STARTER,DIM/INSP
1 412-0850 MCAFEE 7.0,OEM,ENG,90DAY,DIM/INSP
1 420-4766 WINDOWS XP HOME,SP2,ENG,INSP
1 420-4830 DELL SUPPORT 3.0,INSP
1 420-4928 WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 10,INSP
1 420-5775 DECODING SW,CYBRLNK PDVD,V5.7,INSP
1 430-0493 INTEGRATED NIC AND MODEM
1 430-1048 ADOBE ACROBAT READER,V6.0,INSP
1 430-1516 INTEL PRO/WRLS 3945,A/G,DC,I9400/E1705
1 463-2282 THANKS FOR PURCHASING YOUR DELL
1 412-0803 WORDPERFECT OFFICE 12 + TRIAL,DIM/INSP
1 950-3610 RTD,INSP,SOL,INIT YR, REL/PAI (HIGH-2)
1 960-2780 WARRANTY SPRT,INSP,INIT YR
1 983-2207 INFO, SERVICES DELL
1 007-1195 INFO, SERVICES DELL
1 950-3612 RTD,INSP,SOL,2YR EXT, REL/PAI (HIGH-2)
1 950-5442 WARRANTY SPRT,INSP,2YR EXT
1 900-9987 ONSITE INSTL DECLINED

 

Well I just spoke with Dell and they said the 9400's would be going into production either today or tomorrow! So maybe 6-10 days is right, the guy in India didn't seem to know much. Sounded surprised that there was a 9400 model.

 

I went to the Nvidia site and searched high and low for information on the card name listed in my purchase summary which is "256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 for Inspiron 9400/E1705". It doesn't say ultra or GT or GTX just Go 7800.

There is nothing on the Nvidia site that I could find for just Go 7800 only 7800 Go GTX. (plenty of info). If anyone has can clarify exactly what flavor of the 7800 is in the 9400 and can post a link to information for the card that would be great.

I was dissappointed by that initial review posted here. I've spent hours reading about the various components as I understood them and I thought the 9400 would totally kick butt and certainly way out perform machines with 6800 cards if you believe anything Nvidia says about the 7th generation technology compared to 6th generation.

What gives?

 

Heh ya, I found that too. I said 9400...and the guy said 9300.
Then after some checking..ok the 9400. When will it ship, i asked? He said 7-10 business days (the normal response). But, i said, the 9400 is not even released yet. Are you sure?

a few minutes later he comes back on the line and says it will ship in 25 days.

He gave me his extenstion to call back with any more questions

ext 7100 (i repeated it and he said ya)

So when i called back...the service asked for a 5 digit extension!!

So after waiting for some one else for about 10 min or less, I got this kind lady and a bad phone connection.

I asked about the 9400 and she said oh the 9300. 4 min later..oh the 9400.

When will it ship I asked? 7-10 business days. hehe.

(the funniest part was when she asked me what i would be using the laptop for? I said video editing and gaming...
and she kept asking what would i be using the notebook for after she would say "yes but,...

Finally i clued in(5 min later) that she was really asking me if i wanted to get MS Office. )

----

And now we get..going into production today or tomorrow?

edit: re go 7800 vs go 7800 gtx:

the only thing on nvidia site is this:

GeForce Go 7800 GTX GeForce Go 7800
Graphics Bus Technology PCI Express PCI Express
Memory Interface 256-bit 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 35.2 35.2
Fill Rate (Billion pixels/sec) 9.6 6.4
Vertices/Second (Millions) 800 600
Memory Data Rate (GHz) 1.1 1.1
RAMDACs (MHz) 400 400

plus the mention all the othe rtech is the same.

But my concern is in that review...an ati 1600xt is said to perform better that the go 7800 overall.

On ati 1600xt reviews i have read...it is not much better than a
nvidia 6600gt ( a 2 year old card)

SO, i am still hoping PC magazine got their hands on a real bad pre-production model.

 

There's not much info there, but I think you should've seen this page: http://www.nvidia.com/page/go_7800gtx.html . It lists the specs for both 7800. As you can see, the 9400's 7800 is a light flavor of the GTX.

 

I don't know about you but I've found the whole Dell purchase process to be a royal pain in the butt.

It took me from last Wednesday until Monday to get my order completed. The first Dell guy in India suddenly went on "leave" and didn't complete my order and didn't email/call me either to tell me he hadn't. I finally clued in and called and got a different guy and then had to "fight" for the price that it was when i first placed my order ($800 less each one). At the end of that the guy gave me the wrong customer # so my order # and customer # didn't match on their form and I couldn't see my order still.

Finally after another call today I got the correct info and low and behold my order sits in pre-production. No estimated delivery date listed.

I couldn't tell you how many hours it took me to finally complete the order. Geez. Nothing against India or it's fine citizens but I just can't understand a thing most of them say (and vice versa I would think). Very thick accents.

Oh well, I'm hapyy now!

 

I'll be very disappointed if the video card performs as initially reviewed. Looking at those specs though there are some big differences still you would think according to the hype that even the most basic 7th generation card should outperform the X1600. I thought it was going to top the X1800, i guess that won't be the case.

Crummy. If anyone finds another review anywhere else please post the link. I've not found any others yet.

 

As I mentioned, I ordered my system on Friday so didn't see the coupon you posted above until yesterday. It would be a better deal than I recieved.

I sent an emial to my sales rep today regarding it and he said that it was not applicable to the 9400 and that there were no promotions on top of the Ram upgrade currently offered. At first he said the code wasn't even valid until I sent him the URL. Do you have any information to support it's validity for the 9400?

 

Only that the coupon says valid for any system above 1899$ or whatever the number says.

and...We(I'm actually a buyer for some1 else) got it for that price with coupon (it is not valid if you keep the free mem upgrade. So you have to say forget that and let me have coupon instead)

edit: also these kind of coupons tend to have limits....I don't think this one had that disclaimer. but...

some coupons, for example, are only good for the first 4 000 people.

But YES, DELL seems very tenacious. You have to be very careful while wrangling with them.

We ordered a tv tuner only to realise it was not internal. We tried to get our order changed. But no luck. Once that credit card info goes..seems everything becomes final. This last, is only my opinion.

 

Thanks for the info. Everything regarding the coupon vs. my purchase lines up fine. The only argument given against it is that the 9400 isn't explicitly displayed onscreen with the other laptops. You say you purchased it with that coupon? Is there any information you can supply to help support my argument such as the day it was purchased or if it was via the phone or web site?

 

So what? If you can order it online . it is valid. And you can certainly bring up the 9400 online.

Just send the guy the url for the 9400.

http://configure.dell.com/dellstore...HS1&l=en&oc=OCINSP9402_RBP_CH9402E&~pbar=true

or even better go through process of buying one again...
input the code in the buy cart..show details...copy and paste that.

I don't see how they can say it is invalid.

The only problem i see is in trying to apply the coupon after the sale.

 

Hi Folks,

I've ordered a 9400 too. Due for delivery on the 25th.

Dual core review here:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2648

Gaming is a secondary concern for me, which is why I cancelled my XPS to order this.

Cheers,
Faiz

 

Does anyone who has ordered a 9400 actually have a delivery date posted when they check their order status at Dell. For me (Dell Canada) there is no text displayed under Delivery Date.

 

Wow, this thread died fast! Nobody with any new info on performance or delivery dates? My order still has no delivery date stated online.

 

My friend's ship date keeps changing everyday. I am now just waiting for a review to come out...which will hopefully be in 7 days from today

As for ship date..i am still going by what i was told on the 9th...ship in 25 days.

 

edit: btw..u guys keeping track of the 9 day business specials...the sales are good for 1 day only.
Yesterday they had 33% of a nice flat LCD 19 in monitor.

299 instead of 399.
today it was a nice 250 gig ext (uSB 2) hdd (7200 rpm)

http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/7_days_savings?c=ca&cs=CABSDT1&l=en&s=bsd

edit: sorry didn't wait long enough for edit to come up and pressed wrong button grr

 

Well I just purchased my own 9400 as well with the 2GB ram and ultrasharp screen. I'm a bit worried about the video though. I know it's still really good, but i'm wondering if it can be bios modded and overclocked? I've seen some bios hacks allow 7800 series cards to be overclocked. I wonder what kind of performance increase we could see oclocking a vanilla 7800. In fact, i'm wondering if something can be unlocked to turn it into a GTX. They seen to look very similar.

Oh my delivery date says January 27th btw.

So you guys ready to do DVD encoding and burning, MMORPG playing and web browsing all at the same time?

 

Just give me performance == 7800 GT and i will be happy

 

Weaser, if you run non dell drivers, like the mobileforce drivers at tweaksrus.com, you are given the option of overclocking your video. Dell drivers are very restricted when it comes to things like that.

 

Well I took a look on Nvidia's website and noticed a side by side comparison of fill rates for a few different cards.

The Vanilla 7800 is 1 billion pixels per second fillrate higher than the 6800 Ultra and about 50million more vertices per second. So while it is fairly slower than the GTX, it is a bit faster than the 6800Ultra so it's still not a bad card.

 

"The Vanilla 7800 is 1 billion pixels per second fillrate higher than the 6800 Ultra and about 50million more vertices per second. So while it is fairly slower than the GTX, it is a bit faster than the 6800Ultra so it's still not a bad card."

Exactly, that is why it is distressing to see the pc magazine review equate it with an ati x1600.

 

You know, something seems fishy about the differences between the 7800GTX and the 7800. According to Nvidia's website, spec wise they are identicle, except that the fill rates are lower for the 7800. Does this strike anyone as strange? Here's my opinion. They are the exact same cards, only the 7800 has something crippled through the bios which makes it a little slower. When you try to get the technicals specs for the 7800, it refers you to the 7800GTX specs. Odd? I bet you that the 7800 vanilla could be flashed to become a 7800GTX. Think about it, they have the same 256bit memory architecture, same ramdac speed, same everything. Here's an interesting tidbit of info some might be interested in with the 7 series Go cards:

-- Next-generation NVIDIA HD PureVideo(TM) technology, which lets users experience home theater-quality HD video on the notebook PC-key to the exciting new HD-DVD and Blu-Ray HD formats.

Nice!

 

assuming that the go7800 is like the 7800 GT, a review can be found in many places like(this is what i was basing my choice on):

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODAz

and the noteworthy part is:

"Therefore, what we have here is a GPU that has all the same features as the GeForce 7800 GTX except that it has 20 pixel pipelines versus 24 and 7 vertex units versus 8. The GT’s core clock speed is running at 400MHz versus 430MHz on the GeForce 7800 GTX and the memory runs at 1GHz versus 1.2GHz on the GeForce 7800 GTX. With the pipeline reduction and clock speed reduction, the texel (fragment) fillrate goes to 8 GigaTexels/sec versus the GeForce 7800 GTX’s 10.3 GigaTexels/sec. What this means to gamers is simply that the GeForce 7800 GT is a slower version of the GeForce 7800 GTX.

Another great thing about this card is its power requirements. A 350-Watt power supply is recommended and the total draw of the card is around 75-80 Watts, so it is very power friendly relatively speaking. There is 256MB of GDDR3 standard operating on a 256-bit memory bus. The total bandwidth is 32 GB/sec versus 38.4 GB/sec on the GeForce 7800 GTX.
"

Someone up above mentioned dell drivers...maybe that is what the holdback was.

Perhaps the notebookreview.com people will review the 9400 with the dell drivers vs the nvidia drivers installed.

edit: another example from a great hardware site:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2496&p=11

 

I tried to order a 9400 and was told the end of Feb was the estimated ship date!

 

Well a little searching throught the Dell website and I came across this link to the Inspiron 9400/E1705 Owner Manual.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins9400/en/om/PD5980MRs.pdf

 

just got word they are going to cancel order///not sure if it is just my friend's..or everyone's

outrageous

 

I'd think that the Go7800 GTX would be on par with a desktop 7800GT.

 

Hello there
I searched around the web for info about and tests of the 9400, and then came across this forum. My question to you guys is how much the 9400 costs in the US and if there have been any 9400s shipped there yet.
Last week i ordered a 9400 with specs as follows:
Core Duo T2500 2GHz
2048MB 667MHz
Geforce 7800Go 256MB
80GB 7200rpm
17" WUXGA

Estimated time for arrival is in two weeks. The price for this spec is about $3000(24500 Swedish kronor). And i wonder how this price compares to the same specs over there.

Sorry for the bad spelling and grammar
Fredrik, Sweden

 

Hi Fredrik,

I'm from Canada and I ordered two 9400's on January 9th. As of today there is still no estimated shipping date. I emailed Dell yesterday and they replied and said to call near the end of the week to see if there is a shipping date.

My gut feeling is that actual production models don't exist yet and it will be many weeks until anyone gets one delivered.

Price wise, I paid a total of $2498.00 each including tax (14%)
(specs are posted in my first post if you care to see).

Cheers

 

Well then we have about the same specs then. Over here the tax is 25% which increases the price a bit. A guy in a swedish forum who also have ordered a 9400 got the shipping date set to january the 20th, so we'll see if he gets it then or not.
And from what i've heard you've got some kind of coupons over there that can lower the price a bit? We don't have that kind of discounts(couldn't find the right word?) over here, the only thing i got was free memory upgrade(2x512 --> 2x1024(that normally cost about $400)) and a printer/scanner.


Fredrik, Sweden

 

Hi Fredrik. I also ordered the 9400 from Canada. The specs I chose were the 1.86Ghz dual CPU, 2 GB Ram, 17" UWXGA screen, DVD burner, 9 cell battery, and Windows Media OS. Cost me $ 2750.00 Plus 7% Tax. The sales rep at first said it would probably ship on the 27th of January, but on the website there is still no estimated shipping date.

 

Hopefully i get my darling on set date. Maybe I should call Dell today and see however the shipping dates have changed or not.
Windows Media OS isn't available here from what i can recall, only XP Home/Pro.
And the price difference is not as big as I thought it would be then.
There haven't been any reviews done over there yet?


Fredrik, Sweden

 

There haven't been any full reviews because it isn't quiet out yet here in North America. Do you know of any good reviews?

 

so none of you have been told orders may be cancelled due to technical difficulties with the 9400?

 

No reviews over here either unfortunately. I just sent an email to Dell, so we'll see in a while when it's gonna be shipped.

Fredrik, Sweden

EDIT

I have now recieved an email from Dell saying that the shipping date is still the same, no delays at this time.

 

Hi every1
I ordered a 9400 januar 9th, was told they shipped it januar 16th
received a mail from dell where they set shipping date to februar 16th. never heard of Dell cancelling orders .
This forum is great I found a lot of good info thank you all !!

Im from Denmark

 

I ordered a 9400 last week in Canada and it went from preproduction to production last night. The delivery date changed from 20th to the 30th. I'm looking forward to getting it. From what I heard, when it goes into production the process is pretty quick because they have all the parts, so I expect it here on the 30th. I also heard that dell has enough 1.8 duo cores from intel to keep up with demand, but that the 2ghz processor is slow coming from intel. So if you ordered a 9400 with anything other than the 1.8, expect to wait a week or two longer. T'was what I heard anyways, but not from anyone at dell or intel. I also got the deal where you get an extra gig of ram free. I didn't know about the coupon when I ordered.

Personally, I can't wait to get it, looks like its gonna be a sweet machine.