I've finally decided on a new laptop. After working on a couple of them, I've found I really like the Dell XPS M1530 (although it was a toss-up between that and the M1330, the video card options finally did it). So, I went online and built one that I liked, 2.2GHz C2D, 160GB hard drive, 8600GT, and 2GB of ram. With everything else, it came to a little over $1900. So, I started doing some research, found out that the ram was a bit overpriced (they charge $100 for 1GB->2GB, 2GB costs about $40), dropped it down to the 120GB drive, and made a few other tweaks (depending on which model you use as a base, the final price changes), it still came to $1817. So I hit up the internet. "Dell employee purchase program" turns up some very good links ;). I now have that system with 3GB of ram and an auto adapter (which isn't in the previous price) for a final, shipped and taxed price of $1516.94.
The biggest problem with the system is that it won't ship until Feb. 1st, meanwhile my laptop now simply doesn't show about 2.5" on the right side of the screen. For that reason, I'm having to put it on a credit card, but I had some vacation pay come in that I'd forgotten about, and also am planning on a big check next month, so it should be all paid for by the end of next month. Hey, maybe someone'll pay it off for my birthday :) |
