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15 out of 27 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Great Gaming, Great Laptop, Great Price"
Pros: video card, WUXGA screen, Bluetooth
Cons: battery life, a little thick for a centrino
Summary: This review is intended to be a reasonably brief presentation of my personal opinions and impressions concerning the hardware performance of the Inspiron 9300 laptop along with a short explanation of how I have set-up my specific system.
When choosing a laptop, I went through much the same process as I image most people do, ?How to get the most for the money and at the same time get the options I want for my PC needs?? I mainly use my computer for gaming, programming, and other multimedia tasks. I sold my desktop, which was top of the line by the way, and wanted a true ?Desktop Replacement?; well, as realistic as was possible for under $1,500. These were some of the most important requirements for me in a laptop: integrated Bluetooth, a Centrino Processor (Pentium M 7xx), at least a 533 MHz FSB, an HD size resolution and screen (16:9 and >1080i), a powerful video card (w/ DVI out), integrated WIFI, and a double-layer DVD Burner. I found the options I wanted for a reasonable price at Dell. Unlike other ?gaming/desktop replacement? able laptops whose costs are in the mid to upper $2,000s, Dell offers the new Sonoma 915 chipset express technology for a much cheaper price. I obviously went with the 9300. Here is my customized configuration:
-Centrino Pentium® M 730 Processor (1.60GHz/533MHz FSB)
-17 inch UltraSharp WUXGA Display with TrueLife
-512MB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
-256MB NVIDIA® GeForce Go 6800 (with DVI out)
-Hard Drive 60GB 7200 RPM
-XP Professional Edition SP2 (came with XP Home)
-Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
-8x CD/DVD(DVD+/-RW) double-layer write capability
-Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200 (802.11 b/g, 54Mbps) Internal
-Battery 6-cell Lithium
-350 Bluetooth Internal
In combination with my laptop, I use the following keyboard, mouse, and headphones with my laptop as a sort of ad-hoc docking station for gaming: Logitech Bluetooth Wireless Elite/MX900 Keyboard/Mouse and Altec Lansing AHP512 Studio Headphones/Mic.
I also achieved my goal of staying under $1,500. With a ?$750 off? coupon I found on bensbargains.net, I bought this laptop for $1,466.79 (See Below).
Unit Price: $ 2,105.00
Discount Coupon: -$ 750.00
Sub-Total $ 1,355.00
Shipping (2-day): $ 69.00
Discount Shipping: -$ 69.00
Tax: $ 111.79
Grand Total: $1,466.79
I received the laptop about 9 days after I made my initial order. This was pretty fast considering they must build your customized laptop, test it, and ship it. The first thing I did after receiving the laptop was to erase and reformat the hard drive. I wanted to remove all the hidden partitions and sales software that Dell pre-installs. I then installed my own copy of Windows XP SP2. This takes care of any complains that some may have with software problems on the laptop.
In some ways I feel the laptop runs smoother than my desktop did. Gaming is certainly better than my old desktop computer. I had an Intel 2.4 HT, 1GB Memory, 74G Raptor, NVIDIA FX5600 128 MB, etc computer. My new 9300 laptop has an amazing 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 video card that runs at DDR1 with a max resolution of 1920 x 1200 in combination with the 9300 WUXGA LCD screen. This is not as good as the ?Ultra? card in this same model that runs at DDR3, but it is certainly more than sufficient my gaming needs. I have a one track mind when it comes to gaming, so I apologize up front for this. I only play Half-life 2 and modifications there of. With that said, I will review Counter-Strike: Source (based on the HL2 engine). I have a high-speed cable internet connection and while playing on-line I get an average of about 90 fps. It drops as low as 70 fps and as high as 120 fps (obtained using system console ~ ?cl_showfps 1?). My settings are as follows:
Resolution: 1414 x 900 (goes up to 1920 x 1200)
Display Mode: Full screen
Aspect Ratio: Widescreen 16:10
Model detail: Medium
Texture detail: Medium
Water detail: Reflect world
Shadow detail: High
Antialiasing mode: 4x
Filtering mode: Anisotropic 8x
Shader detail: High
Wait for vertical sync: Disabled
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX v9.0
Software DirectX level: DirectX v9.0
In summary, I am very happy with my 9300 laptop and have zero buyer?s remorse. The screen resolution is excellent and so is gaming. It plays Counter-Strike: Source surprisingly better than I expected, since ATI claims game play advantages with their cards over that of NVIDIA?s cards. This was not the case. Battery life could have been better. I get about 2.5 hours on battery, but that is with WIFI and Bluetooth radios on and LCD brightness settings on full. Overall, I was able to get all the options I wanted in a laptop for a good price.
- 2 replies to this review
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Great machine but google "9300" and vertical lines if your thinking of buying a used one.
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I recently purchased a 9300 from Dell. 35% off from BensBargains.net
Pentium M (2.0 Ghz)
17IN ULTRASHARP WXGA+
1GB DDR2 533MHZ 2 DIMM
256MB NVIDIA 6800
80GB HARD DRIVE 5400RPM
8X DVD+/-RW DRIVE Dual Layer
2 year warranty reg.
2 year accident warranty
I can not wait to get this from dell, the total came to 1690 after tax and shipping.
Did you reformat your Hard Drive to clear most of junk dell puts on the computer or did you just leave it. If anyone has, will it make much of an improvement on the performance of the 9300 gaming wise?
Thanks
