laptop...specs sufficient?

Well ive been configuring laptops for my mom who needs one to replace her desktop at work. she needs a laptop thats very capable of running powerpoint presentations, surfing the internet, doing some graphics design and checking email. her budget is capped at pretty much 1400 dollars. are these specs good for what she needs?

Inspiron 6000D
CPU: Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Display: 15.4 inch UltraSharp WSXGA+ LCD Panel
Memory: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM 2 Dimms
Video Card: 128MB DDR ATI's MOBILITY™ RADEON X300 PCI Express x16
HDD: 100GB
Drive: 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Wireless Networking Card: Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200 Internal Wireless (802.11 b/g, 54Mbps)
Battery: 9-cell Lithium Ion Battery (80 WHr)


keep in mind that this system will NOT be playing games but im still wondering if the graphics card is powerful enough for powerpoints and such. this and a lot of other necesseties came out to just over 1300 dollars with one of the coupons on notebookforum.com

kinda need some advice fast as she wants to order this evening. thanks guys!

That is a very nice laptop, make sure you use the 40% off and the X300 is more than enought for PP pres. Even an Intel Extreme card would be fine. IMO it is a bit much for what she is using for.

Vengance_01 said:

That is a very nice laptop, make sure you use the 40% off and the X300 is more than enought for PP pres. Even an Intel Extreme card would be fine. IMO it is a bit much for what she is using for.

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that price is with the 750$ off 1899 or more and this is a better price (as configured) than with the 40% off. I'm sure she would rather pay a little more and get something that will last her a long time.

EDIT: this also has a 100gb hdd which means plenty of space. also this includes the docking station that she will leave at work and she does very intense powerpoint presentations compared to the average person. also like i said it will be used for some intense graphics design using xara-x and photoshop.

Looks good, a little overkill but a solid laptop that should last a good 2-3 years.

6000d are pretty good mid-range laptops. the only problem is, like with most later Dell laptops, is overheating. most ppl blame the cpu but it's not actually correct. i took apart 3 of those, and in each case the vid. card cooler is to blame... takes a bit of effort to re-build but it's possible.

mcoleg said:

6000d are pretty good mid-range laptops. the only problem is, like with most later Dell laptops, is overheating. most ppl blame the cpu but it's not actually correct. i took apart 3 of those, and in each case the vid. card cooler is to blame... takes a bit of effort to re-build but it's possible.

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do you consider this a big problem? i cant imagine the x300 puts out a lot of heat but i do realize that this is in a laptop with greatly decreased airflow.

You sure the 6000D's overheat? My 9300 has a 6800NU and its fine. gets a bit toasty, but nothing out of spec.

it's not a great problem... the hot-spot above the vid card is pretty annoing though. if you run something intensive on the vid. card, it takes some time for it to cool down. not sure if you are familiar with simptoms of vid. card over-heating - like the icons on the Desktop take their sweet time to refresh, links seem to disapear and so on... i doubt the pp pressentations would put that much strain on vid. card though.

thanks for all the help guys....is it just me or does that seem like a great price for the specs. its like 1380 shipped

it's not bad. would be cheaper to get more basic specs and upgrade things like ram and cpu (overclocked P: ) and m/b even hard drive, not sure about the prices on those... this way for the same $1300 you can get a top-of-the-line model; would last longer. and don't forget to re-do the cooling, that helps a lot.

mcoleg said:

it's not bad. would be cheaper to get more basic specs and upgrade things like ram and cpu (overclocked P: ) and m/b even hard drive, not sure about the prices on those... this way for the same $1300 you can get a top-of-the-line model; would last longer. and don't forget to re-do the cooling, that helps a lot.

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Its not bad, but again I think there might be better options. What warrenty are getting? Dell does have decent service and quich turn arounds if problems arise.

its only a one year warrenty but the company where my mom works has computer guys that can handle anything that gets messed up after the warrenty period. overall im happy and i think it will last her a good while.

well my mom got her laptop today but we are having a few problems. first of all, the screen is a bit too dark. is there any way that you can turn up the brightness on a laptop. second, the icons and pictures have jagged edges for some reason. i know that the x300 128mb mobility isnt good for games but i expect it to render pictures correctly. could this be because dell has their graphics drivers installed? would it help if i downloaded the latest mobility radeon drivers off atis website? thanks guys for your help!

EDIT: im seeing now that it only appears to be certain fonts and small pictures. i dont quite get this and when i went on atis site it says the mobility drivers are only for the x700 and x800....no x300?
someone pls help!

SECOND EDIT: ok figured out the brightness thing....thats way better but images are still a bit distored and jaggy when small (when large they look perfect)

umm it might be the res of the screen. Which screen did you get? Also has you messed with the DPI setting? And are you running native screen res or not?

could be that UltraSharp thing, i haven't noticed it on the regular screens.

when the dpi was reduced to normal (was set on 125%) and the resolution set one notch lower but still on widescreen the screen looks great! that was all it took. thanks for the help though guys.