Laptops Notebooks--Hi im thinking about buying a laptop, but not sure if this laptop im looking at is a good one for me.

by alex
(west covina)

Dell XPS 1640 Laptop
SPECS:
XPS 1640, Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 (2.8Ghz/1066Mhz FSB/6M L2 Cache
6GB, DDR3, 1067 Mhz 2 Dimm Ram Memory
ATI Mobility RADEON M96XT-1GB Video Card
320GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit Operating system
Im getting it for game purposes, like H.O.N n diablo 2 , 3
u think this is a good choice?

ANSWER

This was a good gaming laptop two years ago when it was a new gaming laptop on sale on the Dell website. The Intel Core2 Duo T9600 was one of the faster mobile (laptop) processors available. It isn't anymore. Any full powered second generation core i processor is faster. Any of last year's full powered core i5 or core i7 processors are also faster.

The graphics card is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670. This was a good graphics card, but not truly top even then.

The good news is that, because they are older games, this hardware should not have any problem running Heroes of Newearth or Diabalo II. I can't comment definitively on Diabalo III. The release has been pushed ahead again to January 2012. Although it struggles to run some of the newest games, the 4670 may be able to run Diabalo III when it comes out.

I would need to get a real good price before I bought this laptop. Staying in brand, you can go to the Dell website and get a Inspiron 17 Gen for $739 (plus tax). This will have a second generation core i3 2310M processor which is somewhat faster, the same 6 GB of memory (faster though), a 5400 rpm 320 GB hard drive and a Nvidia GeForce GT 525M graphics card. In every spec other than the hard drive speed the Inspiron is better. The price would have to be significantly lower than $739 and include some sort of warranty before I would think about buying the XPS 1640.