Need advice & help on purchasing a Inspiron 8200 Laptop....

[Jesse]

I'm looking to buy a desktop replacement laptop to replace my old Dell
366mHz Inspiron 7000, which just had its third birthday. I'm looking at the
8200 series, but I wanted to feel you guys out on the system's shortcomings
first, as well as its advantages. The biggest problems I've had with my
Inspiron mainly centered around its weak internal speakers, its extreme
weight (more than 9lbs.), and the great deal of heat it generates. Are the
speakers any stronger/clearer on the newer lines? At 10, the speakers on my
7000 were reedy and squeaky, and I've long since supplemented them with
external Laptalk speakers. As far as weight goes, Dell lists the system's
max. weight as 8.23lbs. - now, I know they tend to be a little stingy when
reporting the actual weight of the systems: are fully-outfitted 8200's this
heavy, or heavier? And are the heat sinks on the system any better these
days? I can work up a sweat sitting over my 7000 after a few hours. Also, it
looks like the 8200's now have the PCMCIA slot on the right, and the phone
jack on the left - how is the port arrangement?

But in a more general sense, how do the 8200 series run? What are their
drawbacks? What should a potential buy know about the new systems? As far as
modular bays go, it looks like the CD-ROM drive is docked on the computer's
left side, while floppy and a battery come out the front - any disadvantages
to such a configuration? Can the CD-drive be removed? (I'm used to having my
CD/DVD drive and floppy in one combo bay on the front on the computer.) How
does the CD-R/CD-RW set-up work - do you copy CDs primarily by caching them
on the hard drive? What should I look out for?

I'm going to be doing a good deal of high-res gaming, some Photoshop work,
but primarily internet multi-tasking on the machine - and I'll be traveling
with the system every two months or so. Is the 8200 the way to go, or would
a smaller 2650/2600 Inspiron better suit my needs?

Just looking for a bit of help from the folks out there who've been through
all of this before. It's much appreciated, thanks.

Jesse Young
odi...@yahoo.com

[Tom Jones]

Hi Jesse,

I just ordered a fully-loaded 8200 (2 Ghz, 1G RAM, 2 5400 rpm drives, 64M
GeForce4, etc), and I am very excited to obtain it. My biggest fears are
that the 1600x1200 screen is going to be _too_ high of a resolution; meaning
that I will have no choice but to crank the size of the screen fonts way up
(thus somewhat nullifying the extra screen real-estate). Also, I am
currently using a Toshiba Satellite that has AWESOME sound (built-in sub
woofer) - I keep hearing that the sound from Dell's are rather tinny. ;-(

As soon as I get it setup and tested, I'll let you know my thoughts.

Tom

"Jesse" <odi...@NOSPAMyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ayp%8.27505$fr6.55...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...

[SATUJINN]

I just got my I8200 the other day. Here's what I know, hope it helps:

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 03:54:46 GMT, "Jesse" <odi...@NOSPAMyahoo.com>
wrote:

>I'm looking to buy a desktop replacement laptop to replace my old
Dell
>366mHz Inspiron 7000, which just had its third birthday. I'm looking
at the
>8200 series, but I wanted to feel you guys out on the system's
shortcomings
>first, as well as its advantages. The biggest problems I've had with
my
>Inspiron mainly centered around its weak internal speakers,

I find the speakers to be great. I think they are better then my old
I8000. When I watched "Top Gun" last night it sounded great.

its extreme
>weight (more than 9lbs.),

Both my old I8000 and the new I8200 are very heavy in my humble
opinion. I'm a big guy and have been a heavy lifter for many years
now. I can travel with this laptop, but my wife says it weighs too
much to take it anywhere.

and the great deal of heat it generates.

i was surprised by the heat generated. In fact, if I didn't know
better I'd say the I8200 is running hotter then the old I8000.

The one HUGE mistake I made when I configured my I8200 is that I took
all the advice you read here about saving money by buying the lowest
amount of ram and then buying the ram from Crucial. What I didn't
know at the time is that Crucial has the 256mb as the largest chip for
the I8200 I could not buy 512Mb and thus have 1024Mb of ram. Another
here tells me that it is due to lack of availability and that i should
just wait awhile. I really don't have a choice.

The modom/10/100 built in are on the left as you've noted. I liked it
better on the right just because my desk is set up that way. I did
not buy any extra drives, but instead invested in a second battery. I
learned that lesson with my I8000. If this unit will be used mostly
at home and office, I recommend the docking station.

Other then the ram issue, I'm pleased as pie. Xp sucks as far as I'm
concerned, but I'll fix that soon enough. The UXGA screen is out of
this world. Shipping was early and well communicated. I got smart
this time and bought the APR with the laptop. I'm a novice to casual
computer user so having Dell preinstall drivers and make sure it all
worked together before my unit was shipped was great for me.

As a side note, I found it amusing that while spell checking this post
in word XP is shown as misspelled and one of the suggestions is Spy.
Is Bill trying to tell us something?

And now a few confused statements from Michael Newdow, Athiest poster boy

"Newdow said that taking an 8-year-old to church doesn't mean the girl
is choosing to be religious - and at any rate, it doesn't matter what
the child believes. "

And then this:

"Newdow said the girl is also injured, because the pledge interferes
with her right to freely express her beliefs "without the government
intruding religious beliefs upon her.

"There are three kinds of people in the world. There are wolves and there are sheep. And then there are those who protect the sheep from the wolves..."

[Tom Jones]

Thanks for the detailed info! I am psyched for you!

To you find that the screen resolution (1600x1200) is just too darn tiny?

Thanks,
Tom

"SATUJINN" <satu...@attdot.net> wrote in message
news:3d3ecbd3...@netnews.worldnet.att.net...

[maya god Ž]

With that CPU and the two hard drives you're going to have one hot system as
well. Literally.
My i8200 is of lesser stature as yours: 1.6MHz, 512MB DDR SDRAM, 1- 30GB
4500 RPM HD, 64MB Geforce, etc. and it get's pretty hot.
The games still look great on the 1600x1200 UXGA screen, even FPS' like
Return to Castle Wolfenstein and NWN. Sound isn't to bad, but probably
nowhere near the quality of the new Harmom Kardon spec'd Toshibas (I still
wouldn't tag the sub woofer of the Toshiba a 'sub woofer'). I just hook a
set of Altec Lansing ATP3's to the i8200 and it makes the grade.

P.S. Loved your show with the Red Hot Chili Peppers!

"Tom Jones" <tomjo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ujt68go...@corp.supernews.com...

[maya god Ž]

It is but you'll get use to it.

P.S. Loved your show with the Red Hot Chili Peppers!

"Tom Jones" <tomjo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:ujud2lk...@corp.supernews.com...

[SATUJINN]

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 19:12:08 -0400, "Tom Jones"
<tomjo...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Thanks for the detailed info! I am psyched for you!
>
>To you find that the screen resolution (1600x1200) is just too darn
tiny?

I'm getting used to it. I toy wityh the idea of an external monitor,
but I don't want to take up any more realestate on my desk.