Dell 8600

[oaktree5489]

I really want a laptop and while i'm saving money for one i thought i'd do a little research. So here i'm just giong to write some questions i have, that the inactive dell forums i've visited don't answer. Here goes

-okay first before i forget to ask, i've never had a laptop and i don't really know how they work or if they differ form Desktops so if this question sounds stupid that's cuz it probably is - I've heard that if u get the WUXGA display (which by the reviews i've seen it's pretty good) u get super-fine pixles and a super-small screen but if i don't want the resolution so high can u reduce it like a desktop?

-Second (again i don't know much about laptops so bear with me) -what is light leakage? Some people say the 8600 has very little light leak but i don't know if that's bad or if any at all is unacceptable so i'm afraid i'm going to have to plead ignorance on this one and ask one of u geniouses how this affects the overall quality. (By the way i have a general idea so don't judge me as a complete idiot yet cuz you have a couple more questions to conclude that if u like)

-Thirdly, i hear that the laptop's keyboard is "springy"? Now i guess i no what this is but just to make sure why doesn't someone just tell me. Now does this "springyness" (if that's a word) affect typing?. I know some of these neat freaks like to pick every detail to the Atom (not to offend anybody reading this that has, sometimes i do) but does this really obscure the process of typing long documents, or does the change just give the feeling of poor quality?

-Fourthly (I promsie i'll be done soon) and finally (there it is) if anybody has the specs, such as battery life, processor speeds, memory capacities, touchpad, display, bluetooth, wireless, usb, ethernet, modem, pc slot, and pretty much anything related to the laptop that requires mentioning, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You for your Time and, If applicaple, your responses

 

[jnev_89]

1st of all, don't get an 8600. you can score way better deals than that. go to www.pctorque.com and check out the 3790. it's got the same cpu as the 8600, but better vcard (9700 vs 9600). really good retailor, too.

if you dn't want a wuxga (1920x1200), you can get a wsxga (1680x1020) or wxga (1440x900). it's all personal preference. on lcd's if you change the res. from the native to a different res, the image will become blurry, so best to stay on native res at all times.

light leakage is basically light "leaking" from the bottom of the screen. i can't think of a better description. search notebookforums.com for some pics of it. you don't want to have it.

go to bestbuy and try typing something on one of their laptops. most laptops' keyboards feel about the same (though i've heard that ibm has the best keyboards). once you get used to it, you'll be fine with it. i know people that prefer it to a desktop keyboard!

basically, there are 4 cpu's you can get. p4, amd, and pentium m. centrino is a combo of a pentium m cpu, intel mobo, and intel wifi card. p4 givesgood app performance (same as on a desktop), but very short battery life. not more than 1:15. amd is good for gaming, same as the desktop version of it. battery life is around 2 hours. pentium m has the longest battery life, around 4-5 hours. it also, surprisingly, has very good performance. it's about as good as the amd in games (thanks to 2mb cache), and in office apps is as good as or better than the p4. p4 is best in apps like video/photo editing, programming, things like that.

hope i've helped. aandtech.com has some really good benchmarks of all 3 cpu's. one more thing. you should settle for nothing less than a 9700 vcard. everything below that is pure junk imo.