Inspiron XPS just arrived

[Typedef Enum]

Hey folks,

I've been mighty quiet these last 2 years or so, busy like you-know-what at work. Anyhow, I was one of those dudes that swore up and down I would never own a laptop. Times change, and so did my needs.

I ended up getting a pretty killer deal on this thing. I ended up paying $2250 total for the setup, and that pretty much included everything. 3.4GHz P4, 1GB RAM, 8x DVD burner, upgraded the wireless support, 9700 (stock, of course), upgraded to 7200 RPM drive, etc...The only other option I could have had (and wanted) was bluetooth support, but it would have made the deal I got more difficult to come by.

To make a long story short, this thing has well exceeded my expectatrions. I had been using an HP 5xxx series laptop the last 10 days, but opted for the Dell due to the really good price I ended up with. In some ways, I wish the XPS were more like the HP, from an aesthetics standpoint. But when you talk about "desktop replacement"...the XPS delivers. My main use for this setup is Visual Studio 2003, and it has been awesome. About the only thing I sorta wish for is what I have @ home: 2x10,000 RPM Raptor 74GB drives in a raid array

Anyhow, I was pulling my hair out trying to decide on a laptop, and the XPS should be considered, IMHO, by anybody looking for some desktp power in a laptop, without blowing $4000 on an Alienware-like setup.

 

[mczak]

But when you talk about "desktop replacement"...the XPS delivers. My main use for this setup is Visual Studio 2003, and it has been awesome.

For Visual Studio 2003, you'd be better of with a A64 based notebook though, they are a lot faster than any P4 (can't get that from dell, I know...). I'm not sure exactly why, but I suspect Visual Studio can't compile in parallel, since the linux kernel compile benchmark (when compiling with at least 2 threads) shows about a draw between A64 and P4.
Performance with Visual Studio:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040601/socket_939-27.html
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1884&p=14
Kernel compile time with gcc:
http://www.linuxhardware.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/02/1654234&mode=thread

 

[Typedef Enum]

Yes, very true. My first choice was to find an A64 laptop. Unfortunately, there isn't a single A64 laptop that met all of my requirements. In general, I found it very difficult to find something that came close to meeting my requirements. I had been pulling my hair on this for a couple of weeks now.

As it stands, this guy is more than enough as far as compiling goes...and all the other stuff sorta' sealed the deal. (I love the replaceable gfx. adapter concept. A guy from Dell told me that they will have a replacement part in between now and the end of the year. Presumably, it's based on the X800 series...duh!)