4 weeks ago, I ordered a Dell XPS laptop for the wife. Arrived a full week later. Got it, love it (see review below). Last night, I see on slick deals and other 'deal' web sites that you can get it for $1349 plus tax. Significantly less than what I just paid for mine. So, I click the links and setup the laptop as they specified. Dell had raised the price and now, the cheapest you can get it is $1409, and that's without the DVDRW that had been included for $1349. $1409 is still significantly less than the $1999 I just paid 3 weeks ago. So I called Dell to ask about price matching and what not. The BEST they could do was refund me $250. So, I ask if there was a restocking fee for returns. There is not. But I have to pay to ship it back. So I asked for an RMA#. I got one. Clicked 'order' for the same exact system at $1409 plus tax (free shipping, no handling) that I had sitting in my shopping cart.
Instead of price matching, they are building me a brand new system and taking my 'old' one back. I'm saving a total of $625 minus the cost of shipping the laptop back to them.
Review:
Hole. Lee. Geez. What a nice laptop. 17" wide screen true life monitor. Beautiful is an understatement. You'd have to see it. Couldn't describe it here. Beyond that, it looks like your typical laptop. Standard keyboard, mouse pad thing, etc. 7800 GTX video card kicks much butt as well. Playing EVE on it was smmmmooooooth. I've played games on laptops before and didn't much care for it. You knew you were playing on a laptop and it just never felt right. but it work if in a pinch, on the road, etc. Give me a desktop any day. Playing on this laptop was awesome. If I had to play games on this laptop instead of my desktop from now on, I would not complain at all. VERY solid gaming machine. I have the minimum CPU 2GHz Pentium M, but again, plenty of horsepower to run EVE. Granted, EVE's not the most intense hardware pusher out there. But it's no slouch either. Haven't tried Call of Duty 2 or anything yet, but I'm sure I won't be disapointed.
The Dell XPS gets a thumbs up from me. If you are considering a desktop upgrade, this system could easily be a good substitute if you might need portability as well. Even if you don't, it could still be a consideration because it would be smaller than a desktop, but perform just as well. And there would most likely be a day when you'll be glad you can pick it up and take it with you someplace.
It's well worth the $2k I originally paid. Getting one for $1400 right now almost makes me buy a second, even though I don't need one. Just seems like such a steal that something so good sells for so little.
But I still think Dell is dumb for making me return the one I have instead of price matching. I'm still getting what I want, but we are both being hassled for it.
Oh ya. Last week, we got a letter in the mail from Dell selling a warranty upgrade. System ships with a 1 year standard. They wanted to upgrade it to a 4 year. They wanted $255 for this upgrade. At the time of purchase, it would have cost $330+ for the 4 year warranty. So it seems, if you want a warranty, buying it later might be cheaper. Will see if they do it again with this laptop.
Dell story
When I did my research back around xmas (and a quick look now says things are getting better, but this is still the case) you can get a single core that out performs a similarly price dual core. Since I went base CPU, I was glad it wasn't dual core. These were gaming benchmarks I was looking at though. I think it does office apps better though. If you run multiple apps, or apps written for dual core, there are advantages. But for pure gaming, you get better performance for less money going single. All that being said, there were no benchmarks that I found that compared mobile single/dual CPUs. So, this all might be different for mobile CPUs.
But there are some VERY aggresively priced 1705's as well. Comparably configured system with a dual core (high end video and the screen of dreams). But you'd be giving up the happy multi colored blingy lights too!
But there are some VERY aggresively priced 1705's as well. Comparably configured system with a dual core (high end video and the screen of dreams). But you'd be giving up the happy multi colored blingy lights too!
I was able to price a 1705 with 1GB RAM, 1.83 dual core, 60GB 7200 RPM SATA drive, x1400 with 128MB RAM and 80-kWhr battery for just under $1100 the other day.
That was hot, but I'm waiting until late fall/next year unil the dual core 64-bit chips are released. My current laptop is only 8 months old.
Sounds like the XPS rocks, I hope they put that type of graphics option into the other PCs one day. It will be interesting to see what happens with Alienware now that Dell owns them.
That was hot, but I'm waiting until late fall/next year unil the dual core 64-bit chips are released. My current laptop is only 8 months old.
Sounds like the XPS rocks, I hope they put that type of graphics option into the other PCs one day. It will be interesting to see what happens with Alienware now that Dell owns them.
It's not me, it's someone else.