E1505I6400 Comments Please 1816

I've had my E1505 just over a month. That's not a very long time to evaluate a new product, but so far I've been very happy with the laptop. I haven't found anything significant I dislike about the laptop - a couple of nits that I haven't tried to figure out (such as getting it to come out of hibernation automatically when I open the lid, like my old Toshiba did, instead of having to press the power button each time).

I think you will want to add the TV Tuner NOW if you think you will ever want it. Yes, I'm sure it's possible to add it later but it doesn't seem too easy to do, like adding RAM or changing the hard drive would be; you would have to open up the whole laptop to do it, it seems.

I got the larger battery too. It lasts about five hours. I got it as a second battery, because it was only $129 extra vs. $99 extra just to upgrade (so effectively $30 for a spare battery). The standard battery lasts about three hours, and I use it most of the time; I'm trying to use the bigger battery only once a week or so, when I really need it, to try to save it.

I just upgraded my RAM from the standard 512MB to 2GB (Newegg.com - some PC4200 cl4 I got for about $150 total). The upgrade was easy, although since adding it I've had some issues hibernating (tried disabling and turning hibernation back on, not sure if that has helped yet). But - yes, you should be able to add just another 512MB later to the base 512MB.

I got the Intel wireless card, too, and it's great. Sure it's adequate - what else could you need? I don't think Dell offers any other options besides their own card or the Intel card plus adding an internal bluetooth card, which I now wish I'd gotten. (New cell phone has bluetooth). I imagine I can still add it, not sure. You can get wireless cards that are faster than those offered by Dell, to go faster than 54Mbps, but you would never need that for surfing the internet, only if you will be using your laptop with a server and need to edit large files over wireless - then a 108Mbps wireless card might help but you might have to add one externally, anyway.

I thought about (am still thinking about) getting XP Pro, because I have had need for it a few times in the past few years. I don't do much media stuff on my laptop so I don't have much need for MCE, but it was the same price as XP Home and I saw no drawback to getting it. Maybe I'll care later.

I went with the standard sound and video cards. The integrated video is more than adequate for basic use, including watching DVDs. It might be slow for games but I don't care about that at all. I would be surprised if the Soundblaster card would really sound better to most ears than the integrated card; the speakers would probably make more difference in this case. I wonder, again, if this wouldn't be more important for games and not for audio quality.

So yes, I'm happy with my E1505 so far. I've talked to a number of Inspiron 6000 users (very simliar machine) and they have all had nothing but good things to say about that machine, so that bodes well for this one.

Andrew -- ******************************************************************* *******************************************************************