HOT Inspiron 600m Laptop $499

[rasputinj]

Dell has really dropped the price on this model.

get the 600m

for only $499 with no MIRs to worry about.

comes with Celeron 360 cpu, 256mb, 40GB, DVD/CDRW combo drive, 802.11g, 1yr warranty.

 

[cw42]

not bad if u need a budget laptop on the go, or for basic pc usage.

 

[yourdeardaniel]

there's alot of cheap laptops around for 500ish
most come with 512mb ram, better to search and compare

 

[buzzsaw13]

Originally posted by: yourdeardaniel
there's alot of cheap laptops around for 500ish
most come with 512mb ram, better to search and compare

The 600m comes with a Radeon 9000, may not sound like much but its only slightly bigger than the 700m. A friend of mine has a 600m and it runs HL2 with details at medium decently so this is a pretty hot price.

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: buzzsaw13

Originally posted by: yourdeardaniel
there's alot of cheap laptops around for 500ish
most come with 512mb ram, better to search and compare

The 600m comes with a Radeon 9000, may not sound like much but its only slightly bigger than the 700m. A friend of mine has a 600m and it runs HL2 with details at medium decently so this is a pretty hot price.

Not with 256 memory and that Celly

<- plays Battlefield Vietnam on his 600m with 1GB memory and 2GHZ Pm

 

[SimMike2]

Originally posted by: yourdeardaniel
there's alot of cheap laptops around for 500ish
most come with 512mb ram, better to search and compare

I've been looking at cheap notebooks for the last few months. While it is true that some do come with 512MB, I would put the percentage at maybe 25% or less. So your "most" I don't think is true. Memory is usually the cheapest and easiest thing to upgrade, sometimes with rebates making the extra memory dirt cheap, so just because a budget has only 256MB, doesn't mean you can't upgrade easily and cheaply.

Where this notebook is better than most $500 deals is the size and weight, which are less than average for budget notebooks. The battery is also fairly decent for a budget notebook.

 

[uwannawhat]

Thanks for posting this rasputinj

I picked one up with a mouse ($20 off coupon seen on FW) for $414. I had a $50 GC from a test drive offer through AMEX and used a $35 off $300 from ebay for .99.

Perfect for what I needed another lappy for.

 

[Granorense]

Originally posted by: SimMike2

Originally posted by: yourdeardaniel
there's alot of cheap laptops around for 500ish
most come with 512mb ram, better to search and compare

I've been looking at cheap notebooks for the last few months. While it is true that some do come with 512MB, I would put the percentage at maybe 25% or less. So your "most" I don't think is true. Memory is usually the cheapest and easiest thing to upgrade, sometimes with rebates making the extra memory dirt cheap, so just because a budget has only 256MB, doesn't mean you can't upgrade easily and cheaply.

Where this notebook is better than most $500 deals is the size and weight, which are less than average for budget notebooks. The battery is also fairly decent for a budget notebook.

True, I just bought 2 512MB modules of mushkin at Fry's for 29 AR each!

 

[cmv]

What is the deal on the Celeron M? I understand there are regular Celeron M and low power usage Celeron M models but it isn't clear which is which. Also, the major drawback to the Celeron M is the lack of support of SpeedStep yet they still seem to put in respectable battery life times. The other drawback is of course the smaller amount of cache (L2 1/2 equivalent P-m?).

I'm wondering how the battery life is with a Celeron M (1.4 or 1.5 Ghz) versus a Pentium M (typically higher Ghz).

I've been looking at laptops in this price range too and the 600M is attractive because it is small, the upgrade to SXGA+ screen is relatively inexpensive, and the battery life should be decent. I see there is the option for a secondary battery at $99. Alternatives I'm looking at are the Compaq V2000Z with a Turion but that only has a WXGA screen.

 

[Jeeper94]

Originally posted by: cmv
What is the deal on the Celeron M? I understand there are regular Celeron M and low power usage Celeron M models but it isn't clear which is which. Also, the major drawback to the Celeron M is the lack of support of SpeedStep yet they still seem to put in respectable battery life times. The other drawback is of course the smaller amount of cache (L2 1/2 equivalent P-m?).

I'm wondering how the battery life is with a Celeron M (1.4 or 1.5 Ghz) versus a Pentium M (typically higher Ghz).

I've been looking at laptops in this price range too and the 600M is attractive because it is small, the upgrade to SXGA+ screen is relatively inexpensive, and the battery life should be decent. I see there is the option for a secondary battery at $99. Alternatives I'm looking at are the Compaq V2000Z with a Turion but that only has a WXGA screen.

I have been looking into this deal with the upgrade to SXGA+ and 64MB video ($100 upgrade). Do you think it would be somewhat easy or at least possible for a person that works on and builds desktop computers to buy and install a Pentium M CPU into this computer at a later date, possibly after the 90 warranty expires?

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: Jeeper94

Originally posted by: cmv
What is the deal on the Celeron M? I understand there are regular Celeron M and low power usage Celeron M models but it isn't clear which is which. Also, the major drawback to the Celeron M is the lack of support of SpeedStep yet they still seem to put in respectable battery life times. The other drawback is of course the smaller amount of cache (L2 1/2 equivalent P-m?).

I'm wondering how the battery life is with a Celeron M (1.4 or 1.5 Ghz) versus a Pentium M (typically higher Ghz).

I've been looking at laptops in this price range too and the 600M is attractive because it is small, the upgrade to SXGA+ screen is relatively inexpensive, and the battery life should be decent. I see there is the option for a secondary battery at $99. Alternatives I'm looking at are the Compaq V2000Z with a Turion but that only has a WXGA screen.

I have been looking into this deal with the upgrade to SXGA+ and 64MB video ($100 upgrade). Do you think it would be somewhat easy or at least possible for a person that works on and builds desktop computers to buy and install a Pentium M CPU into this computer at a later date, possibly after the 90 warranty expires?

There is actually a little door that opens up on the bottom where the CPU resides.

Looks to be [pretty straight forward.

<- Loves his 600m

 

[kki000]

Originally posted by: buzzsaw13

Originally posted by: yourdeardaniel
there's alot of cheap laptops around for 500ish
most come with 512mb ram, better to search and compare

The 600m comes with a Radeon 9000, may not sound like much but its only slightly bigger than the 700m. A friend of mine has a 600m and it runs HL2 with details at medium decently so this is a pretty hot price.

Also none of those 500ish laps are as light. With the plastic media tray, the 600m can weigh as little as ~4.5lbs

The radeon 9000 is also good enuff for wow, (at low rez/detail). Nothing too great, but its perfect if you need to raid on the road every now and then.

 

[weirdichi]

Originally posted by: kki000

Originally posted by: buzzsaw13

Originally posted by: yourdeardaniel
there's alot of cheap laptops around for 500ish
most come with 512mb ram, better to search and compare

The 600m comes with a Radeon 9000, may not sound like much but its only slightly bigger than the 700m. A friend of mine has a 600m and it runs HL2 with details at medium decently so this is a pretty hot price.

Also none of those 500ish laps are as light. With the plastic media tray, the 600m can weigh as little as ~4.5lbs

The radeon 9000 is also good enuff for wow, (at low rez/detail). Nothing too great, but its perfect if you need to raid on the road every now and then.

So I'm thinking this can handle Guild Wars when I wanna take a break from my studies at the university library? I think with an educator's discount, it's not a bad deal at all. (499 - 35 - 10% + 35 tax = 470ish)

I couldn't find that it had a Radeon 9000 in the product details. Any links?

 

[Coolgreany]

Also none of those 500ish laps are as light. With the plastic media tray, the 600m can weigh as little as ~4.5lbs.

I just ordereed one with the 1gig and DVD burner for approx $480 delivered. So, do you mean I can make this lighter by replacing the dvd burner with some sort of plastic placeholder?

 

[weirdichi]

Originally posted by: cmv
What is the deal on the Celeron M? I understand there are regular Celeron M and low power usage Celeron M models but it isn't clear which is which. Also, the major drawback to the Celeron M is the lack of support of SpeedStep yet they still seem to put in respectable battery life times. The other drawback is of course the smaller amount of cache (L2 1/2 equivalent P-m?).

I'm wondering how the battery life is with a Celeron M (1.4 or 1.5 Ghz) versus a Pentium M (typically higher Ghz).

I've been looking at laptops in this price range too and the 600M is attractive because it is small, the upgrade to SXGA+ screen is relatively inexpensive, and the battery life should be decent. I see there is the option for a secondary battery at $99. Alternatives I'm looking at are the Compaq V2000Z with a Turion but that only has a WXGA screen.

How much of a difference does XGA vs SXGA make? Why would I need to upgrade to SXGA?

 

[RedGSR]

as far as I know sxga just means max res. at 1280x1024 while xga means max res. at 1024x768. So sxga on a 14.1 inch screen is pretty much useless unless your eyes are as good as Superman's

 

[littlebitstrouds]

In for 2... I've had two friends annoying me to find them a "good" laptop but they only wanna spend $600 (isn't this always the story). Didn't wanna go used so this should be exactly what I was lookin for.

 

[lzpoof]

Originally posted by: RedGSR
as far as I know sxga just means max res. at 1280x1024 while xga means max res. at 1024x768. So sxga on a 14.1 inch screen is pretty much useless unless your eyes are as good as Superman's

1280X1024 is the standard resolution on 19" LCDs and some larger ones. So absically you'd be using the same resolution found on a 19" on a screen that is 3/4 the size

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: RedGSR
as far as I know sxga just means max res. at 1280x1024 while xga means max res. at 1024x768. So sxga on a 14.1 inch screen is pretty much useless unless your eyes are as good as Superman's

typically you're sitting closer to the notebook's screen than a desktop. my 600m at 1400x1050 (sxga+) is perfectly easy to see. i hardly have the vision of superman (of course, it is corrected to better than 20/20 in my left eye, and about 20/20 in my right).



and yes, you can replace the modular bay drive with a plastic place holder (used to be called the airbay). i have one and i've never used in in almost 3 years of having my 600m.


the processor does not reside under a door in the bottom of the notebook. it is between the keyboard and the motherboard. it isn't particularly hard to get to, though. i've taken mine apart and applied arctic silver to it, and the radeon 9000. with 64 megs of ram it can play various games on low to medium settings (though last game i really played on it was the original call of duty, which it ran pretty well).


the processor is upgradable, but it may be cheaper just to do it through dell rather than buy one separately. frankly, my 1.4ghz runs pretty much everything just fine. it's getting a little long in the tooth for games, but then it's only a radeon 9000. i'd probably gain more battery life going from banias to dothan than any other measure.


battery life can be pretty good. using 3 batteries i was able to watch all of the indiana jones movies going across the atlantic. i had them in xvid on my hard drive. pick up batteries for cheap on ebay. battery life is likely better with the pentium-m than the celeron-m, as the p-m has speedstep, and iirc the celeron does not. but, after seeing the comparison between a full speed, but idle, pentium m770 (2.13 ghz) is only 9 watts (1.0 -> 9.9), battery life shouldn't be that much better with the p-m. remember, the celeron runs much slower at full speed so may draw 6 watts.

 

[probzy]

Nice post OP!

 

[kosstamogen]

how did you get the -$35 and -10% ?

 

[superflysocal]

is this sb or home?

 

[superflysocal]

don't forget, 600m is one of the very few laptops that has a parallel port still. not useful for most, but for some of us ho's work is in the stone age and requires a parallel dongle for security, it's critical.

 

[littlebitstrouds]

What's the deal with a discount for students? Is there a specific code that I need or just something that I need to call Dell for?

 

[Pneumothorax]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: RedGSR
as far as I know sxga just means max res. at 1280x1024 while xga means max res. at 1024x768. So sxga on a 14.1 inch screen is pretty much useless unless your eyes are as good as Superman's

typically you're sitting closer to the notebook's screen than a desktop. my 600m at 1400x1050 (sxga+) is perfectly easy to see. i hardly have the vision of superman (of course, it is corrected to better than 20/20 in my left eye, and about 20/20 in my right).



and yes, you can replace the modular bay drive with a plastic place holder (used to be called the airbay). i have one and i've never used in in almost 3 years of having my 600m.


the processor does not reside under a door in the bottom of the notebook. it is between the keyboard and the motherboard. it isn't particularly hard to get to, though. i've taken mine apart and applied arctic silver to it, and the radeon 9000. with 64 megs of ram it can play various games on low to medium settings (though last game i really played on it was the original call of duty, which it ran pretty well).


the processor is upgradable, but it may be cheaper just to do it through dell rather than buy one separately. frankly, my 1.4ghz runs pretty much everything just fine. it's getting a little long in the tooth for games, but then it's only a radeon 9000. i'd probably gain more battery life going from banias to dothan than any other measure.


battery life can be pretty good. using 3 batteries i was able to watch all of the indiana jones movies going across the atlantic. i had them in xvid on my hard drive. pick up batteries for cheap on ebay. battery life is likely better with the pentium-m than the celeron-m, as the p-m has speedstep, and iirc the celeron does not. but, after seeing the comparison between a full speed, but idle, pentium m770 (2.13 ghz) is only 9 watts (1.0 -> 9.9), battery life shouldn't be that much better with the p-m. remember, the celeron runs much slower at full speed so may draw 6 watts.

How do u like this laptop el fenix? I keep hearing horror stories of overheating and games going @ 1 fps when hot. There's also the issues with a flimsy keyboard and hot hard drive under the palmrest. I'm thinking about canceling my order and going with a more modern laptop like the 630m or xps 140.