the new intel santa rosa centrino pro platform just came out, so its time to upgrade my 4 year old laptop

need an ultraportable, trying to choose between these two 13 inch sub 4lb notebooks

http://www.dell.com/content/products...=19&l=en&s=dhs

and

http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/product/VGN-SZ650N/C

they are around the exact same price within 50 bucks of each other when similarly equipted.

sony offers better battery power with option to turn off the geforce video card, as well as hybrid harddrive with onboard flash memory for fast access and power saving.. its slightly lighter with a carbon fiber chasis

dell... for 330 bucks you can get 3 year accidental protection... lets say in 2.5 years your laptop gets "accidentally" dropped into the swimming pool , dell would send you a new laptop for free thats the latest model with the latest specs at the time...DOMO

 

i'm not a fan of sony. my bro had a pentium 4 vaio laptop that was huge. it overheated a ton too. and now the video card is fried, but it is integrated into the motherboard. i vote dell. i've had mine for 4 yrs and it's starting to get slow as hell, i need to reformat, but have been too lazy. i had the home warranty where they come to you to service it which was awesome. I'd only buy a dell with all the warranties. i'd consider a lenovo t-series for my next one.

 

Just be careful of this, that's like the Best Buy PSPs where supposedly any damage and they'll replace it. I've read too many horror stories where BB tells you to go fvck yourself. Never been much of a Sony fan, all their crap is too proprietary and WAY overpriced at times. One of the bad things I've heard about Dell is that they're screens wash out real bad in daylight, you planning on using this outside much? I'm like 60/40, Dell/Sony.

 

yeah, ill be using it outside, taking it everywhere with me, it going to be mainly for software development running visual studio, flash etc which are memory hogs. will need to play starcraft 2. they both have LED screens, which is about 50% brighter than regular LCDs, so they should both be fine in the day light... i hope. .. im leaning toward the xps m1330 since 2 people are both saying dell is better

 

never ever buy a Sony laptop. C'mon man I thought you were up to date with these types of things Get an IBM. They set the standard.

 

Get the Dell, should be rock solid. Sony's are over priced and not very good at all. Might want to look at the Lenovo Thinkpad line too (avoid the 3000 line since those aren't IBM's at heart).

 

i would consider IBM if they have a good ultraportable, unfortunately their 12 inch laptop is very old and not even wide screen. im not a vaio fan but the spec for the SZ650 is really sweet. I need an ultraportable because i will be taking it everywhere literally. even 13 inch is already kinda bigger than I like

what wrong with sony though? their laptop seems very sleek and lately they pack nice video cards

 

since people overwhelmingly favors dell. just ordered the xps... via educational discount from umd and b*tched at them for 10 min to get 100 bucks off... (dell apparently bargains)

2.0ghz core 2 duo santa rosa
1gb ram
120gb hdd @ 5400rpm
bluetooth
hdmi out
remote
LED thin screen
geforce 8400m gs 128mb ddr3
slot loading dvd burner
3 year accidental protection warranty

2100 bucks 1 year no interest at 60 bucks a month

 

F*ck a PC, MAC FTW. If you don't mind spending the extra dough I would go w/ a MAC (worth it IMO).

 

i like macs, but i develop on the microsoft .net platform, so i dont want osx.

 

laptop wont ship till mid august, so i can cancel at any time i guess, if theres something better

 

I feel u. I use both Mac's & PC's @ work and always having some kind of problem w/ the PC's (crashing, viruses, etc......)

 

ooooh i want an XPS can't afford it though.

 

Yeah I just got one about 2-3 months ago. I love, but mine is a desktop.

 

do the dell prefered account man, just 60 bucks a month with no interest, then pay the rest off in the last month. plus if you pick up the warranty its like 2 laptops for the price of one if you want to abuse it...