Replacing my Thinkpad - Part III
This is the last part of this 3 part post on purchasing a new notebook. In Part I and Part II I layed out some of the background work in order to know what to look for while shopping for the new computer. And finally it's shopping time...
I spent a few hours at NotebookReview, CNet, NotebookForums.com and a few other sites. I rather quickly came up with a list of models that I would like.
- Alienware Area-51
- DELL XPS M1710
- Apple Macbook Pro
- IBM Thinkpad T60p
Some brands are missing from this list because I don't like them. I've had two Toshiba notebooks and that was one too much. HP has had a reputation of bad customer service here in Israel and despite the fact that YNet published an article some time ago that it has improved a lot, I'm staying away from HP for now. I don't like Sony's look and feel, but that's just me.
I contacted Alienware. On the question on local support they said they don't have any local distributor. Too bad, this one was really on top of my list. I contacted DELL Israel and was told that the XPS line is not imported or supported in Israel. I ruled out the Macbook because I felt Apple hasn't been in the Intel based notebook field long enough. There were many issues with their first attempt. Anyhow I decided to drop Apple in this round. The Thinkpad T60p was a hard one. I am familiar with their previous model the T43p and despite the fact that I've been relatively happy with it I want to try something else. Back to the drawing board...
I came across a thread on one of the forums where they mentioned the DELL Precision M90. It is a high end work station model. I decided to take a closer look. The M90 has a case which is similar to the XPS M1710, just without the lights and colors. The more I looked around the more certain I became that this is what I want.
I searched for local resellers on the US DELL site and found a long list of official DELL resellers. On the list there was one with an online store, but it only had low end models and they didn't have time to talk on the phone. There are many online stores that sell DELL machines in Israel, but many of them do private imports. I didn't even consider buying from one of these. In one of these stores, the price on the M90 that I wanted was close to 40KNIS. Yes, 40K. That's a car, not a pc! So what do you do then? I called three large resellers and by all of them I was requested to leave a message and someone would get back to me. I left a message that I'm interested in talking to a sales person regarding a Precision M90. Only one returned my call.
A sales person from Omnitech contacted me and a few emails went back and forth before I decided exactly what I wanted and got a quote. Here's what I got:
DELL Precision M90
| Processor |
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7600 (2.33GHz/667MHz/4MB) |
| Operating Systems: |
Genuine Windows® XP Professional, SP2 with Media |
| Graphics card: |
NVIDIA® Quadro FX 2500M, 512MB (dedicated), OpenGL |
| Display |
17 inch Wide Screen WUXGA LCD Panel |
| Memory: |
2 GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMM |
| Hard Drives: |
100GB Hard Drive (7200RPM) |
| Module Bay Devices: |
8XDVD+/-RW w/Sonic Digital Media™/CyberLink PowerDVD™ |
| Wireless LAN (802.11): |
Dell Wireless™ 1390 802.11g Mini-Card |
| Bluetooth: |
Dell Wireless® 350 Bluetooth Module |
| Additional Power Cords / AC Adapters: |
2 X 130 Watt Additional AC Adapter with 6' Power Cord |
| Docking Solutions: |
2 X D/Port Advanced Port Replicator |
In addition it came with a 3 year warranty.
A few surprises:
- The price was lower than that on the US Dell site. I don't know if most americans buy at list price, but this was certainly good news.
- I was promised that it would be delivered withing 21 working days. That's a long time to wait. Every day my old computer seemed to be running just a little slower. After two weeks I was informed that the computer had arrived and that it just has to go through customs. A couple of days later I got it.
- I am used to sales people being very nice until a deal is made, but after that you are air. Not this time. Excellent follow-up by the sales representative.
Conclusion:
I have now been using the new computer for almost two weeks and I'm very satisfied with the performance. Actually I'm very satisfied with everything. Even Visual Studio works like a charm. Only CodeRush is still a little too slow loading tons of stuff, but that seems to be because of excessive disk access which hasn't improved since my previous computer. My experience with Omnitech was also great and I'll return when a new purchase is on the horizon.
What do I miss? When you buy a notebook you don't buy only hardware, you buy proprietary software as well. In this regard DELL doesn't even come close to IBM (Lenovo). The Thinkpad software suite is many times better than that of DELL's.
Here's a pic from NTRONICS post on the M90
And another one from Engadget
Reviews:
Recent review from xbit labs
InforWorld review
NotebookForums
NotebookReviews