Budget laptop: Inspiron 1501 vs 6400 (1 Viewer)

[Templar]

I need to get a budget laptop, and I thought about getting your opinion for it.

Currently there are two candidates for this. They are the Dell Inspiron 1501 and 6400. The laptop will be mainly used for generic uni work (work processing, internet etc) with the odd DVD so processing power is not a huge concern. In addition this will be mainly attached to a powerpoint, so battery life is not a factor either (although longer would be nice).

The current argument between the two models is the price. The 1501 is cheaper ($970) and comes with 120GB hard disc vs 60GB (at that level, extra space isn't significant though), but the 6400 ($1150) has a Core (Yonah) processor instead of the Turion on the 1501.

Both the processors run at about 1.6GHz and both are dual core. Apart from my personal stigma against Turions and cheaper Dells I suppose there isn't anything wrong with the 1501, but I would like to hear your opinions.

Is the Core that much superior to Turion X2 to warrant the higher cost? Does the 1501 look cheap and plastic? Has anyone seen and used a 1501?

I'm also willing to consider other brands but the person using it is used to Dells. Due to budgeting XP is favoured over Vista, which brings the question, is Home sufficient (in comparison with Pro)?

An additional piece of information: I know my computing hardware, but I'm more used to higher end components. So there's no real need to dumb down answers. There might be a few things above that sounds contradictory to buying a budget laptop, that's mainly due to the reason above since I'm used to dealing with performance based systems.

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[Collin]

Yonah is slightly faster than the Turion X2 clock-for-clock and should offer better battery life. But since this thing will be plugged into a powerpoint most of the time and considering you're not doing anything processor intensive, I'm sure you'd be quite happy with it.

I've got a 6000 (which pretty much uses the same chassis as the 6400) and I've played around with the 1501. In my opinion, I didn't think there was any real noticable disparity of build quality between the two.

 

[pete_mate]

shop around first, i think all dell's look bulky and cheap.

they're cheeky bastards, because you cant compare the size and appearance of the thing directly in the store, customers don't realise.

Look at Asus, toshiba and hp. you should be able to find ones that are about as cheap oncep you cut through dell's marketing gimmicks, and account for their crap service.

 

[Collin]

Here we go again, Mister Dell hater.

shop around first, i think all dell's look bulky and cheap.

Why do you 'think' that? Because you haven't seen all of Dell's range, obviously.

they're cheeky bastards, because you cant compare the size and appearance of the thing directly in the store, customers don't realise.

What a rather cynical paradigm of thought. But makes sense if you hate a particular company, I guess.

But yes, I REALLY think Dell somewhat relies on the fact that customers tend to not have the capability to see the machine first as a cheeky advantage. I'm sure that would be just fantastic for long-term business. Completely makes sense as Dell has just been absolutely failing in the market for the last how-many-years.. right?

Look at Asus, toshiba and hp. you should be able to find ones that are about as cheap oncep you cut through dell's marketing gimmicks, and account for their crap service.

Shopping around, I always agree with. Finding alternatives for around the same price, I doubt. Acer perhaps, although I wouldn't rate their service exactly excellent either.