Slashdot Mirror
Dell Introduces Laptop With WUXGA
Cutie Pi writes "Dell has just released the Inspiron 8500, a new 15.4" widescreen notebook with a WUXGA screen--thats 1920x1200, high enough resolution to watch HDTV quality movies. Couple that with the new nVidia 64MB GeForce4 4200 Go (much faster than the ATI Radeon 9000), and you've got quite a notebook!! Can't wait to get my hands on one!"
Gotta love this gouging, under the customization look at what they charge for extra ram:
512MB,DDR,266MHz 2 Dimms
512MB,DDR,266MHz 1 Dimm [add $200.00]
640MB,DDR,266MHz 2 Dimms [add $300.00]
768BM,DDR,266MHz 2 Dimms [add $400.00]
1GB,DDR,266MHz 2 Dimms [add $650.00]
1.5GB,DDR,266MHz 2 Dimms [add $1,800.00]
2GB,DDR,266MHz 2 Dimms [add $3,300.00]
And what are the chances of actually being able to see the end of that HDTV movie before the battery runs down?
Not good, I'd say...
"It may be me, but I would rather have a cheaper, lighter notebook with a long (8 hours or there abouts) batterylife than a HDTV+DVD-player combo with a computer attaced. But hey, each to his or her own."
Ditto
check out http://www.dynamism.com. Japanese laptops with a US warranty.
The sharp MM1 looks sweet, and it doubles as a USB2 hard drive.
Cheers,
prat
That was exactly my response, too.
FWIW, an IBM salesdroid I talked with a few months ago said they might ship linux on their laptops this year. We'll see. Nobody's getting my money if I have to send a portion to Redmond, too.
Just gimme a friggin' laptop without Windows on it! [OK, at a reasonable price, Apple-boy.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Crikey, at that price, I might as well save up to get either a 17" PowerBook or get the 15" now.. both are way thinner, lighter and better looking. I think no discussion about notebooks is complete without a comparison to Apple notebooks and the obligatory Mac Vs. PC debate. However, I'd just like to point out that their [Apple's] notebooks are just *that* much better (IMHO) than anything that's on the market. Dell and co should take Sony's stand and actually try to build a)Fully featured notebooks b)Pay attention to asthetics c)light and portable enough to be actually used as a mobile computer. *start rant* I take my iBook everywhere with me and much to PC notebook owners, I don't feel it a hassel to open it up just to check on a date on my iCal or catch up on work anywhere. OS X's instant on makes it as if I'm using a palm top.. unlike XP's startup from sleep. It's those 20 seconds or so that puts people off from starting their computer *end rant* I took a look at the "bottom" of the Dell on the website and noted all the fugly holes, ventelatiion, battery compartments, compulsory Windows stickers and other bloat. Why can't they just keep it simple??
Fight Crime - Shoot Back!
By sharper but not smaller, I mean that I can make the fonts larger (in pixels) so that the keep the same "real size". That means that there are now more pixels that define each letter, making it sharper.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Outside of the one that SGI released a few years ago, there have been no widescreen tubes or panels for the PC (perhaps some very high-end models).
Widescreen is nice. The Mac world proves that.
So, why aren't the PC makers and monitor vendors come out with 16:9 displays and give everyone a reason to upgrade?
jonathan
are dell laptops just looking worse and worse. I'm not talking about features.. I'm talking about physical looks. they've release 3 different laptops recently of varying economics, they all look the same.. and they all are ugly as SIN!
..
At least teh old inspirions.. standard black.. with the wildly overprice clip on color pads.. were neutral looking. It was black.. it went with anything. Now these things area light blue and odd shade of gray. Seems like colors you'd have as baby-shower decorations than on a laptop.
Laptops are a fashion statement.. if your gonna be lugging one into your local starbucks it better not be an eye-sore. I looks like they cut the side off some old computer cases and formed them to a laptop case.
The laptop I will get next will need to be power efficient and powerful(not so concerned about weight).. But if I have to pick i'll choose mroe power than power efficiency. Thats why i've got hopes for Centrino.. or some variant with the Pent-M
This laptop is neither of my requirements.. and its an ugly monster to-boot
Who makes you Sig?
I've had the misfortune to have two Dell laptops (Inspiron 7000 back in '99, Latitude C840 presently). They were not my choice - work machines. Both have been heavy, cheaply made junk. The Inspiron had multiple hardware repairs before I got rid of it (screen failure, memory, casing). The current Latitude is only 5 months old and the hard drive crapped out last week. It takes the patience of Job to deal with Dell Support, particularly when you are an IT professional and you already know what is wrong! It only took 3 days to argue the drive replacement out of them.
Also I'm not sure why Dell bother putting Nvidia graphics adapters in these 'high-end' laptops. Check out the most recent update available for the Geforce 4 440 Go drivers for the Lat C840 (v28.35 anyone?).