Dell M60 vs Dell Inspiron 8600

Hello All,

I am trying to decide between these two laptops and only see two major
differences for the $1000 diff in price. The M60 has a better,
physically stronger case structure. The M60 has an Nvidia Quadro FX Go
700 and the 8600 has an Nvidia FX Go 5650. Will I experience the
Solidworks multiple window slowdown on the non Quadro card that comes
with the 8600?

Also, I'm planning on getting the 15.4" WUXGA monitor resolution. Are
the pixels too small to be used comfortably? They are .0068" square, by
my calculations - this is about 70% the size on the desktop monitors I
currently use.

Finally, does anyone know how the 1.7 Ghz Mobile Pentium compares in
speed to my 3.06 Ghz Pentium in my desktop?

Sincerely,
Jerry Forcier

 

Propably yes, but I guess you can still "fix" it with old drivers and
SoftQuadro.

I'm using 15.1" with 1400x1050 in my 8100 and for _my_ eyes this is not
too small.

 

I use an earlier Inspiron 8000 and am looking at the same things. A
friend is using his M50 and is absolutely delighted at his performance
and screen.

I am using a 1600 pixel screen on the Insp 8000 on a 15" LCD meaning
about .078" wide pixels and that for me, with 20/20 vision is as small
a line as I can easily see.

The 1680 pixel WSXGA+ is the equivalent pixel size to my existing LCD.
The WUXGA @ 1920 pixels is about .006" wide, and I feel it is too
small for a single pixel line for me. The WUXGA screen will have 30%
more pixels to render in a given view and hence will consume about 30%
more rendering power from the video card in my estimate, and thus is
likely to be slower than the WSXGA+. Hence, I am sticking with the
WSXGA+.

If Dell put a 17" LCD out with 1920 pixels, then I'ld buy it instead.

Searching the messages only 4-6 days back you will find a discussion I
started on "Devil is in the Laptop Details". Krister wrote that his
1.7 ghz M60 was not that far from the performance of his Dell 360 Dual
Xeon desktop (I am going by memory). Read the users comments.

Later - Bo

 

Thanks everyone,

I have decided to get BOTH an HP laptop with the 17" (1440 x 900) screen and
number pad AND a Dell 8600 with the 1920 x 1200 screen and no number pad.
I'll have them at the same time and return the one I don't want. 30 day
return privileges for the Dell and 6 months for the HP (thru Costco.com). I
hope my eyes can handle the 1920 x 1200 pixel size. I guess I'll also try
to do a soft Quadro hack on the video card.

Does anyone know if the video card hack will enable 'RealView' in 2004?
Real View sure is pretty when set up for aluminum - looks like the real
thing!

Does anyone know what is the max number of windows the FX go5650 (or 5600)
will work with before slowing down?

Sincerely,
Jerry Forcier

 

Jerry

I use a USB third party numerical keypad with my Dell M50, and find that it
is better in one respect (for a right hander) than a built-in keypad: I can
put it at the left end of the laptop keyboard, so I can keep my right hand
on the mouse, and my left hand doesn't have to leap long distances from the
shortcut keys to the keypad.

The unit I have is made by Targus, and my only complaint is that I have to
press the keys quite hard to be sure of closing the contacts.

 

The 1600 x 1400 screen noted above is a typo, as the older screen used
with the 1.333 aspect ration was the 1600 x 1200.

Just to settle the screen issues more clearly, the following table of
information spells out what is going on with screens on the Dell side.
Paste this text into a word processor and the tabs should put a
mono-spaced font in so all characters are in columns.

Computer Pixels w x high # of Pixels Aspect Sym Dot width
Dell Inspiron 8000 1600 1200 1.92E+06 1.333 UXGA 0.0076
Dell M60 Laptop 1680 1050 1.76E+06 1.600 WSXGA+ 0.0078
Dell M60 Laptop 1920 1200 2.30E+06 1.600 WUXGA 0.0068


Bo

 

Some prior posts by a couple people seem lost, but the jist of the
posts is that the M60 is a very good machine. I've used a friend's
M50 which he just loves, after being stuck on an immobile desktop for
years.

My Dell Inspiron 8000 is good, but no longer fast enough, or as
connectible as I wish.

Some Thoughts & a prior comment by Krister:

1. 1 gig DRAM Memory from crucial.com is cheaper than from Dell.
2. Large Fast Hard Drives can be cheaper than Dell, too.
3. The last time I ordered from Dell, they offered to switch the
laptop, if I did NOT LIKE THE SCREEN RESOLUTION! I may try that again
this time.
4. I do NOT like software hacks as it presents issues I don't want to
deal with, so I buy the best video card I can get.
5. If I buy the M60, I expect to get a good 3 years of productivity
out of it, just like my last Inspiron 8000.

Bo Clawson

Copy of Krister's prior note on M60:

Message 3 in threadFrom: Krister L
()
Subject: Re: Devil in the Laptop Details  
View this article onlyNewsgroups: comp.cad.solidworks
Date: 2003-11-23 21:15:55 PST

I have a M60 running on WinXP Pro and can't see any difference from my
workstation (Dell precision 530) which has W2K. I use XP with the
windows classic settings and I must say I like it better then W2K
The workstation is 2x2,8GHz Xeon and the M60 PM seems to be just
slightly slower, hardly noticeable.
I use the WUXGA with1920x1200 resolution and as You say it takes good
eyes to see what happens...but as I never used the other one I can't
really
compare them .....this resolution gives a good workspace for SW
though....and the graphic speed is quite okay...at least for me. Use
it for quite big assys....up to 6000 plus components without any
problems.
Installed 2Gig's ram from start and has some rather heavy PW2
rendering of big plant-layouts on it, had some problems with memory
but it was a Win problem

Krister L

 

Andrew,

I just ordered a USB number pad, made by Ambir (never heard of them before). It
looks super slim and has a built-in two port USB hub as well - saving space
over a larger 4 port hub. Many of the newest laptops have four USB ports
already in place - the Dell 8600 only has two! I hope the key 'action' is
okay. I'm thinking of trying out one of those Space Travelers - if they'll let
me return it if unsatisfied.

Thanks for the comments,
Jerry Forcier

 

Bo,

You have a good idea here about buying the RAM from another source than Dell. I should have only
ordered 256 kb with the laptop and then just chucked it for 2 Gig from Crucial.

Oh well,
Jerry Forcier