Question:
Dell 6400 (1505) vs Lenovo N100
Dell:
Core Duo 1.6 GHz
120GB
2GB
15.4" 1680x1050 WSXGA+ glossy
9 cell battery
0 shipping
$1150
Lenovo:
Core Due 1.6 GHz
80GB
512MB
15.4" 1680x1050 WSXGA+ glossy
6 cell battery
0 shipping
$900 (employee & friends program, if not, $100 rebate $1000-$100=$900).
This is in Canadian funds.
Concerns:
Light leakage. Brightness. Better than 1280 or 1440 resolution (1680 WSXGA+ is good). Build quality. Bulkiness (must have at least 15.4" screen though). Price. Keyboard quality.
Not a concern:
Batteries exploding and other lame headed hypes.
Built-in speaker quality.
Software that comes with it; windoze will be immediately replaced with Linux Red Hat Fedora Core 5. Both lappies seem compatible according to what I found so far.
I value other people's opinions very much. It'd be really nice to hear from people that own either one of these laptops.
I briefly looked at Dell's 1705 (9400) 17" laptop, but I am fed up with the way Dell horses around fiddling with stupid little options like CD/DVD "combo" drives, and stripping things out making you pay to get it back. Dell *really* needs to streamline things. The 15" inches are better, but the 17" has *way* too much dancing around a decent target.
I also don't like how one week there are good "free" upgrades like a "free" upgrade to the 120 GB HD, and then next week you get a bunch of useless "free" upgrades like CD/DVD combo to a RW+-dual layer R R ww w something something r w dvd drive (a $40 value, wooptydoo), making you pay like $150 for an HD upgrade.
I guess it's Dell's "wave" deal practices I just can't stand (pass this on to to Dell ;-).
So which one? The Dell 6400 or the Lenovo N100?
Answer:
Re: Dell 6400 (1505) vs Lenovo N100
i agree that Dell's free offers are very annoying, as I am looking for a laptop myself, but if you wait long enough, once in a while they have great offers, or look in flyers for value codes.
As much as I find Dell's site to be mildly annoying, I have only ever owned Dell computers (2 desktops and 1 lappy) and I have to say the service and tech support is excellent, they are very helpful, and one time the motherboard broke, and next business day it was fixed, no questions asked. So I recommend Dell for service, but get a 3 year warranty at least, its only 130$ CDN
Also as hardware goes, a 9 cell battery is, as the numbers imply, longer lasting than a 6 cell, and the 512 MB of RAM on the lenovo probably will not cut it in todays world, especially if you ever want to upgrade to windows Vista or do any gaming, so without further consideration i suggest Dell, based solely on the stats you have written there and previous experience with Dell.
Answer:
Re: Dell 6400 (1505) vs Lenovo N100
without further consideration i suggest Dell
Ok, how about the 17" 9400 vs the 15.4" 6400.
I'm ok with the heavier larger laptop.
For around $1500 I could have the 17"er with WUXGA.
But then for that price the $900 Lenovo sounds pretty good again. Round and round I go. $900, $1150, $1500, $900...
And then the extra $130 for the 3 years warranty. How about the $900 and when it breaks after a year, throw it out and buy a new one. Such a consumer society...
My current laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8200 (? I'm at work, forgot the exact number), P4, heavy. Light leakage? You have *not* seen light leakage once you see this puppy... ;-)
Paid $2k for it 3 1/2 years ago. Got the 3 years next day at home service.
After I upgraded the Bios, the laptop only shows a flashing cursor in the left top corner when I turn it on. After letting it warm up for 5 minutes or so, I turn it off and on, and then it boots, every time. This started happening about 2 1/2 years into it, but I was too slack in reporting it.
Answer:
Re: Dell 6400 (1505) vs Lenovo N100
The Lenovo will offer much, much better build quality. The Dell is the best in terms of price/performance ratio. Do consider filling out the FAQ (or, if you already did, posting a link to that thread) for better recommendations. :)
C.