Is it worth the extra $90?

[boxed]

Well i'm looking into buying a notebook...Dell's having that special again...which includes the 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife..

now is it worth the extra $90 to get the

15.4 inch UltraSharp? Wide Screen SXGA+ Display with TrueLife?

?

Is it that much night and day difference?

Currently my setup on my order...


Intel® Core? 2 Duo processor T7400 (4MB Cache/2.16GHz/667MHz FSB)
(really worth the extra $150 for the 160mhz? from the 2.00?)

Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
15.4 inch UltraSharp? Wide Screen SXGA+ Display with TrueLife?
(worth the $90)

512MB Shared Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM 533MHZ, 1 DIMM

60GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive

24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive

256MB ATI MOBILITY? RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory?

Hi-Speed Wireless Card Only: Dell Draft N Wireless

 

[Enig101]

I can't answer the processor question. I wouldn't think so, unless you are running processor-intensive programs.

As for the screen WXGA is 1280x800 resolution, and WSXGA+ is 1680x1050. Obviously the higher resolution gives you more potential screen real-estate. It's up to you whether it's worth $90.

The only other consideration is if you are gaming. Most people recommend getting WXGA so that you can run games smoothly at the native resolution. Getting a WSXGA+ means using higher resolution settings (putting more stress on your video card), or forcing the resolution lower, which is supposed to degrade picture quality on laptop screens.

 

[alimoalem]

i've heard dells look pretty good at native resolutions but look bad when not run at native resolutions. personally i think 1680x1050 is too high a resolution.

as for the CPU upgrade, no way is it worth the price. go with the T7200. if you feel like cutting back a little more, the T5500 should be able to handle all of your tasks but i wouldn't go with the 1.83GHz CPU option (not sure if it's still the T2400 or T5600 now). at least when you move up to the T7200 you get 4mb cache...i don't see ~200MHz with the same cache as a noticable upgrade

 

[fbrdphreak]

Personally I can't stand WXGA, I think WSXGA+ on a 15.4" is awesome. All depends on how small you like things on the screen

 

[mb]

Yes, get the Wide Screen SXGA+ LCD. To me 1280x800 seems way too small for a 15.4" LCD.

As for the processor.. I'd go with the 2.0GHz, not the 2.16GHz. I doubt you'd notice the difference in everyday use between the two.

Also, I suggest getting at least 1GB RAM. It may be cheaper to get the base 512MB from Dell and another 512MB from newegg. But however you do it, go with at least 1GB.

And, I wouldn't recommend Dell Draft N Wireless card.. unless you already have a Draft N router and really think it's worth it... but I guess that's up to you.

 

[HomeyFoos]

Me, personally, I think the better resolution is fantastic. 1280x800 just doesn't give me much real estate. I work for a small, private company and our software was programmed by a friend (it's very complicated stuff and he's quite the genious) who is a partner in this company. Everything works great but he was literlly forced to make the interface window almost 800 pixels tall by probably 400 wide because all of the computers in the company at the time he made it were optimized for 1024x768 and all the sales people were complaining that anything smaller and they wouldn't be able to read it. Well, on my desktop, this isn't really an issue. However, the first time I tried to use my laptop (15.4" toshiba P-4 - currently used to melt the polar ice-caps and expediate global warming) the stupid interface almost took up the entire top-bottom of my screen and left me little room to do the rest of my job. At times, I had to grab the top bar and almost hide it off the top of the screen just so I could see what was going on in the bottom status bar. Yuck. While there arent many apps that run that large, you just don't get much real estate at 1280x800.

On the other hand, I opted for the 1920x1280 screen for the e1705 I just bought and Im thinking that is too much real estate. Anything further than an arm's length and it gets a little small. I'm not dissatisfied whatsoever, it's just that I think 1680x1050 would have been perfect for this screen. The 15.4" is not much smaller than the 17" so I think you would be very happy at that rez. But of course, we all use them for different things so it, too, could be too small.

my .02

 

[Rockinacoustic]

It's not worth that kind of money to make an already fast processor even faster. Spend the $150 on the better screen and a larger HD with whatever is leftover.

 

[boxed]

thanks guys.