Dell TSV

[Aleksandr Orlov]

My son needs a new comp and has been saving for an applemac but to me as a bit of a thicko when it comes to computers this one looks really good for the kind of thing he uses comps for,webcam,music ,games etc.
He is still sleeping so hasnt seen yet and I wondered what others forumees thoughts are on this item.Is it a good deal ? please advise

 

[Snoopy]

It looks the dogs nuts really but i'm sure you could spec a similar one on the net cheaper but the easy pay and 30 day mbg may make it worth getting.Dell build quality is supposed to be very good too.

 

[Aleksandr Orlov]

thanks snoops hope it is still available by the time he gets out of his pit (usually late afternoon -ish !)

 

[WillyNilly]

This one is £629.00 on the Dell website, It's the basic Dell XPS M1530.

See here
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1530?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

 

[Snoopy]

TSV has 4 year warranty.

 

[WillyNilly]

TSV has 4 year warranty.

In 4 years this laptop or any other you buy at the moment
will be obsolete you would not want it repaired.
1 year to 18 months warranty is more than than you need.
I have a 3 year old laptop and to upgrade it myself would cost
more than the cost of a new one, it is slow as hell as it was not made to run
the latest softwares available, and the the hardware for this is only available
on ebay. Also after a few years it's hard to find updates and so on.

 

[Sazza]

Not everyone can afford to be buying a new laptop/pc within 4 years so having the 4 year warranty will be ideal for them.

 

[Snoopy]

What Sazza said.

 

[dunlop73]

Hi
This does look like a great laptop but if your son has made up his mind he wants a mac he won't want this. A macbook compares pretty well with this at £699 spec wise (unless he wants to play games in which case this would probably bet better), but comes with iLife software which would cost a fortune to replicate on a Windows machine. Also if your son is a student he will be entitled to educational discount.
I changed to macs about 4 years ago and wouldn't go back for all the tea in China.

 

[tootsie]

This laptop looks amazing, I have the XPS M1330 and it's a fabulous piece of kit, having had several laptops die on me when they were still relatively newish I was more than happy to pay for the extended warranty on mine - yeah the machines are obsolete fairly quickly but if you are paying £700 for a piece of kit you do expect it last a bit longer than a year.

I bought mine with similar spec for about £150 more at Christmas. Sayinmg that, if your som is after an imac then this is no good to him - there are some programs which will only run on Macs, and if he wants his computer to run these specific programs then he really won't want this Dell machine.

 

[Tilly]

Could I buy Office Pro seperately and load it onto this machine without crashing it?

 

[sheepdog]

Well some good advice here - I'll just add my usual comment of laptops being dead money - basically it goes badly wrong then you might as well flog it on ebay. The parts that can be upgraded are: RAM, Hard drive & DVD/CD unit. Sometimes you can upgrade the CPU but its not cheap to do. In a few years time, you will be able to upgrade the graphics chip by inserting a slot-in card.

I'll also add, I spent £750 on my Asus 17" laptop over 18 months ago which came with a 2year International warranty. Taken it halfway round the world and been in the boot of my car and it still works fine. I had to replace the hard drive as it died just after backing up and upgraded the RAM (which reminds me I have 2x512MB to sell) which was very easy to do.

WilyNily, I'm guessing you bought a Celeron processor version with the limited cache - that's one of the reasons your laptop would be slow. The other being a 4200RPM hard drive. Even upgrading that to a 5400RPM makes a big difference. You might have too many programs starting up consuming memory too which msconfig will sort out for you.

BTW, having a MAC is great until you find out you can't actually play the latest PC games!

Sheepdog's advice: budget for a backup device & software when buying a laptop and backup regularly. It's a darn sight easier to reload the image than trying to reinstall everything on a new hard drive.

 

[sheepdog]

Could I buy Office Pro seperately and load it onto this machine without crashing it?

Yes. But as long as you're willing to pay that amount for office pro

 

[Tilly]

Sheepdog, you certainly sound as though you know what you are talking about. I am like a car driver, can use the car but haven't a clue what goes on under the bonnet.

I can use my laptop (has to be a laptop) but my eyes glaze over when I try to work my way through the spec options.

I am used to the Office Pro i have had for five years and would like to retain that familiarity. I have never used Works.

I have seen this:

http://uk.insight.com/apps/productp...roduct_id=MS79G00000&nbs_search=K=office+home

and an even cheaper version:

http://www.software4students.co.uk/?gclid=CKCd7-qLvZQCFRJvugodASMHTg

but if I buy the QVC Dell offer and remove Works and install Office Pro, I would like to be confident it will all work.

 

[SUPERCOOLWILLOW]

i`m more or less certain that office pro will work on the dell tsv

 

[Tilly]

Thanks SCW. I intend to watch QVC at five and make up my mind then.

 

[SUPERCOOLWILLOW]

yep glad i could help

 

[Aleksandr Orlov]

Hi
This does look like a great laptop but if your son has made up his mind he wants a mac he won't want this. A macbook compares pretty well with this at £699 spec wise (unless he wants to play games in which case this would probably bet better), but comes with iLife software which would cost a fortune to replicate on a Windows machine. Also if your son is a student he will be entitled to educational discount.
I changed to macs about 4 years ago and wouldn't go back for all the tea in China.

Hi dunlop thanks for you advice. My son is not a student but he wants the mac to plug guitars and things into which i dont think you can do with this one. I am confused now . I texted a question to QVC but they didnt answer to ask about the intruments and also they said you need a wireless N router does that mean our normal router i use for my wireless will not work? if we need to buy a new one then thats adds to the cost too doesnt it.

 

[Aleksandr Orlov]

Btw we bought aforementioned son a desktop with 250gb the xmas before last and that has died and of course it only had a 12 guarantee . I am wondering now how easy it would be to get it repaired? It doesn't do anything does that mean the hardrive has gone?anyone??

 

[logfire]

Amazon have a Dell XPS 1530 for £600 . Might be worth a look .