Dell
Inspiron 8100 Notebook
The
Machine![](inspn_8100_front.jpg)
-
Dell
Inspiron 8100
- Regular Gray
Bezel
- Pentium III-M
1.0 GHz
- 512Mb DIMM of
133mhz SDRAM
- 48 GB Ultra
ATA-6 Hard Drive, 9.5 MM
- 1.44MB 3.5"
Internal / External modular floppy drive
- 24X CD-ROM,
Internal modular DVD-ROM drive
- 8X write / 4x
rewrite / 32x read modular CD-RW drive
- 2x Lithium Ion
Battery (Lasts about 7 hours)
- 3D Positional
Sound and Wavetable
- Integrated 56k
modem and 10/100 NIC
- nVidia Geforce2Go
4X AGP w/ 32Mb
- 15.1" XGA Active
Matrix Display
- Microsoft Windows
2000
Why
Buy from Dell?
That's a good question!
In the past, I've had reasonably good experiences with Dell. That was
about to change. I originally was going away to college,
and thus needed a laptop computer. I priced out a computer and placed
the order on August 3, 2001. When I called to inquire how long manufacturing
would take, I was told two weeks, and that I would definitely have my
Inspiron 8100 by August 16th, which is the day I left for college. Time
passed, and the day before the 16th I was getting curious as to its
status. According to Dell's order status page, it was still "in
production." I called, but they claimed they couldn't help me.
I went to college,
and continued waiting for the laptop. On September 11, 2001, cowardly
terrorists struck the World Trade Center. Priority was given to survivors
of the terrorist acts, which I must commend Dell for. With such an event,
the delivery of my Inspiron 8100 seemed so small and insignificant.
Although I had been waiting a long time, I could wait longer. Finally
on 9/27/2001, Dell's order status indicated that the computer had shipped.
Shortly thereafter, I received the package.
My Inspiron 8100
is an extremely powerful computer, given that it took almost 2 months
to receive. Nonetheless, I'm happy. The only problem I've had is the
metal strip on the top cover peeled off. I attempted to glue it back
on, but to no avail so I just removed it. Such is life.
Lessons
Learned
- It pays to complain
:)
When my computer wasn't showing up, I made sure Dell knew about it.
And did they ever! In fact, much due to my numerous phone calls, they
knocked $500 off and upgraded my hard drive from 20 to 48Gb. This
alone is worth more than $800, so although I had to wait, I was happy.
- Dell is a tradeoff
Few computer manufacturers can compare to Dell when it comes to performance/price.
Although their products may be less expensive, their service and support
has dwindled in the past few years. Dell can offer great deals, but
be prepared for long hold times while calling customer service.
On-line
Notebook Retailers
- Dell
- http://www.dell.com/
- Nice computers
at competitive prices. The three-year warranty on notebooks sold is
the best in the industry.
-
- Gateway
- http://www.gateway.com/
- Gateway's prices
are very affordable, but I couldn't get the right combination of screen
size and processor speed that I wanted. Either they configured the
screen size too small or the processor speed too fast.
- IBM
- http://www.ibm.com/
- IBM offers notebooks
that rival Dell's, however, they also cost quite a bit more. IBM was
a possible candidate, but given that their prices were at least $400
more for the same configuration I had, I chose to go with Dell.
-
Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts on the Discussion Forums...
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