Thoughts on the Dell 1525 laptop?

[William33 110]

http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...;l=en&s=dhs

[Dan J 277]

http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...;l=en&s=dhs

That's my laptop. Works just fine.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

I would avoid the base model with the Celeron processor, otherwise the three upgraded systems look pretty good. Support is always better with the XPS models though, so consider comparing the three better Inspirons to the base model XPS laptops.

Edited October 17, 2008 by ready4ONE

[IAMX 3,055]

What is your intention with this laptop?

(i.e. just basic browsing, or gaming, or video editing, etc.)

Edited October 17, 2008 by SRVT

[Heracles 417]

Never been a fan of dell. I think HP makes better laptops.

Going cheap on a laptop is not good as it will be extremely slow..

Edited October 17, 2008 by Aficionado

[IAMX 3,055]

Never been a fan of dell. I think HP makes better laptops.

Going cheap on a laptop is not good as it will be extremely slow..

I've used Dell laptops for 6 years. Like all laptops, it only depends on what's inside the computer, not the logo.

Right now I use a Dell Vostro business laptop. Comes with a 256MB GDDR3 dedicated video card (512mb overall, as 256 is variably shared with the CPU), was actually cheaper than their gaming ones, and also good enough to run full 1080P VGA with beautiful graphics out to my Samsung HDTV. Not to mention newer games like Oblivion on medium-high settings.

Anyways, if the OP isn't going to do much, a basic Dell with crappy IGP is going to be fine. If they want to do things at a reasonable price, I'd go with the Dell Vostro lineup, maybe mid-range Asus laptops. Anything other than that I'd not recommend, but I suppose just go with higher end Asus or Alienware (not really into high end laptops anyways as they aren't too realistic for their fast obsoletism, unless there's some trade-in plan).

Unless you want the cheapest of cheap ####### and want to do what most people do, which is watch movies or do things with at least some graphics involved, always go with at least 256mb dedicated (never go with IGP/integrated video -- almost always IGP goes through Intel chipsets, so look the other way when you see a laptop that includes "Intel" graphics).

Edited October 17, 2008 by SRVT

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The Toshiba 17" Widescreen laptop I bought back in June has given me zero problems. It's a great computer and very powerful for what I need. Bought it at Circuit City.

[Ana&D 0]

I love my Inspiron But as was mentioned, it depends on what's inside

[Ling Ling 22]

Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro FTW.

Don't like Mac OS....you can run Windoze on it too.

Mac OS-X has 95% fewer viruses, more creativity, fewer crashes, runs all the same apps...and Windoze.

[LoriLawless 0]

http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...;l=en&s=dhs

That's my laptop. Works just fine.

Mine too! I loves it!

[William33 110]

What is your intention with this laptop?

(i.e. just basic browsing, or gaming, or video editing, etc.)

Internet surfing. Our 7 year old Dell Inspiron 2650 finally crapped out.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Dell actually has an offer on that laptop model at the moment - but for $50 you could get a better one.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...=lthp&s=dhs

Hope that link works.

The 1525 is decent enough from what I've read - I don't think Dell makes bad laptops. I had an old P4 Inspiron 8500 which had an overheating problem, but you won't get that on something that you're just using for Office / Web browsing etc.

Anyone looking for gaming laptops would probably need to spend a bit more money to get something decent - as the videocards build up quite a bit of heat (which is what lowers the lifespan of the system over a desktop).

[PlatyPius 5]

The Toshiba 17" Widescreen laptop I bought back in June has given me zero problems. It's a great computer and very powerful for what I need. Bought it at Circuit City.

My Toshiba laptop is about 4 years old. I haven't had a single problem with it. Circuit City for mine, too.

That said, I would go with the 3rd laptop from the left on the page you linked to. Why? This:

"Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1"

Y'all know that I don't like Vista (even though I'm using it now - had to buy a new computer last night). However, if you're gonna use Vista anyway, get the Premium version. The basic version, from what I've read, is awful. The networking isn't as easy to set up, you don't get the "aero" GUI, you don't get Media Center, etc.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-v...ns/default.aspx

OR, you could go with the last one and upgrade it to Premium (it's only a $30 upgrade). Then it'd be really cool. Especially if you got one of the cool colours or graphics upgrades. Yeah, I'm a dork.

[Niels Bohr 72]

I'm surprise that in my field, we still look at brand name computers. Weird.

Technically, a computer has a collection of components. A memory controller, now integrated onto the CPU itself, is a part of the CPU. Therefore, it's made from Intel or AMD. The chipset is made from several companies such as Nvidia, Ati, Via, Sis, Intel, etc...Not many. Memory is made from so many companies.

In terms of a complete computer system, it has all these components. HP, Dell, Gateway all gather parts from these vendors and pack them inside the machines. They do not make the mobos, or components. Since their business is just packaged systems. From my perspective, the computer brands are just a symbol to indicate what Brand. It does not show performance, or reliability.

Where do people get it when it's all in their mind? The computer crashes. Well, it could be from a number of reasons. The first one on the list is that it's generally is the user who created the problem.

Anyway....that's enough of my rant on this topic. If you're smart with computers, don't fall into this trap.

[Dan J 277]

The Toshiba 17" Widescreen laptop I bought back in June has given me zero problems. It's a great computer and very powerful for what I need. Bought it at Circuit City.

My Toshiba laptop is about 4 years old. I haven't had a single problem with it. Circuit City for mine, too.

That said, I would go with the 3rd laptop from the left on the page you linked to. Why? This:

"Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1"

Y'all know that I don't like Vista (even though I'm using it now - had to buy a new computer last night). However, if you're gonna use Vista anyway, get the Premium version. The basic version, from what I've read, is awful. The networking isn't as easy to set up, you don't get the "aero" GUI, you don't get Media Center, etc.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-v...ns/default.aspx

OR, you could go with the last one and upgrade it to Premium (it's only a $30 upgrade). Then it'd be really cool. Especially if you got one of the cool colours or graphics upgrades. Yeah, I'm a dork.

Some of the lower end laptops handle the premium versions of vista poorly. Aero sometimes requires more video power than the laptops can handle. Leading to sluggish performance. You can disable it though in any version.