Original Post
Hi, I'd just like to say thank you very much to Ravuya for his help in my previous thread regarding whether or not I should grab a Macbook/MBPro. I'm afraid I've decided not to due to compatibility as I use a lot of Windows/MS programs (far too many to justify Parallels and Boot Camp, I'm afraid) and budgeting issues [sad]. So I've got my eye on a Dell, and need help finalising the specs of the thing. Here it is as it stands: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7200 (2.0 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz FSB) Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium - English (I've got Vista Business kicking around so I can install that if need be) 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™ 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024) 160GB (5,400 rpm) Sata Hard Drive 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7300 TurboCache™ Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software £834.23 This machine will be my own computer for University. It'll be getting used for all the basics such as Internet, e-mail, general office type stuff like writing reports, maybe the odd database or spreadsheet here and there. Also running apps like Dreamweaver, possibly Flash, Photoshop, Audacity and other stuff like MS Visual Studio Pro 2005 for C/C++ development with SDL, OpenGL etc. Also very likely going to be running Eclipse. What do you guys think of it? The CPU seems to be faster than my old 2Ghz Pentium M as it's a different architecture and Intel benchmarks show a serious improvement. Concerns: 1) The graphics card. It gets higher benchmarks than my friend's ageing Radeon Mobility 9700 in his laptop, but people say it's still crap. [google] is providing the usual mixed opinions from people and isn't really helping. It might be an issue for light gaming, but my friend says his crappy Radeon is running C&C Tiberium Wars pretty damn well and I'm thinking of getting it for LANs etc. I'm almost exclusively a console gamer these days but it's nice to have the option, just in case. Also, I'm possibly going to get involved in some OpenGL/DirectX coding, so is this going to be a problem? It's 256Mb shared, but with 2GB total RAM I seriously doubt it's an issue. And I doubt it'll take me a short period of time to reach the standard where it is a problem [grin]. 2) The screen. I had a 17" widescreen notebook running at 1440x900. I liked having the real estate, and even more so on my other friend's XPS at 1920x1200, but they're too expensive, bulky and heavy, hence my desire not to have another widescreen of that size. The machine I've specced above does have 15.4" widescreen at 1440x900 as an option, but should I get it? Surely I can just buy myself a massive monitor for when I'm at my desk (like people with tiny 13" Macbooks who hook up to a 30" Apple cinema display), and just use the standard screen on the move? I'm hoping to order in the next couple of days. There are reviews of this model stretching back about a year which makes me think it's quite old, but the specs are practically state-of-the-art. Somebody posted a review last week saying they'd had problems with Vista hardware compatibility and ended up formatting and installing XP, but hopefully it won't come to that. Opinions please? Thanks very much in advance for your help. ukd.