Thank you so much! Do you think I need to wait for better deals or get
this configuration right now?
Well that depends on two things. One is how soon do you need it? If
you need it obviously get it now. If you dont , then it depends on
just plain luck. Im not a DELL deal fanatic so I dont know when the
best times are or how low the deals can go but Ive seen posts that
that imply that they can go lower though it doesnt seem like a bad
deal now if you need it. Waiting is always a gamble.
A better deal may come or may not. If you can wait say several months
then the odds are better obviously. There were better deals during
December obviously but that was Xmas ! You should have bought it then.
Thats over now. Now the question is will there be continuing deals or
is the Xmas season over which means a desert of deals until the next
excuse for a big sale - maybe Easter/Spring or maybe summer. Some
have implied that there might be better deals later this month.
Obviously you have to have a crystal ball to know for sure but by the
posts I get the feeling that now is not that great a time but then its
after the December period which is the best time for deals usually so
who knows. People have talked about astonishing deals intermittently -
stacking coupons and jumping on some sudden price drop , but who knows
when the next one will come along.
If you are just doing spreadsheet work, or other general stuff almost
anything even much lower than this works well. The only thing you
really need lots of power is rendering/3d graphics, manipulating big
files in photoshop and other editing programs, video stuff and some
sort of specilized scientific or business apps I guess.
Unless you do some really specialized stuff that really taxes the CPU
I would step down a bit get the 3.2 CPU and get the 6800 if you or
your kid is at all interested in games. Games really need powerful
graphics these days. If you arent interested at all in games and only
read mail, surf the web and do general bus apps then the X300 is OK
and you might then bump up the CPU speed though its not a huge
difference from 3.2 to the higher 3 gig CPUs.
If you REALLy are into the monitor then you might sacrifice a tiny bit
of CPU power and graphics card power to get a 19" LCD. The 17" as the
cliche goes is almost as big as a 19" CRT screen size wise. The 19"
looks positively huge. Thats what Im getting hopefully tomorrow. Once
again if your kid is into fast action games --- youll need a LCD with
fast response times at least 16ms to play it safe.
Supposedly the dell LCDs are pretty decent. The big things people look
for is size, whether it has DVI connections or just analog and how
fast the response times are for gaming.
Also they offer a built in sound solution on the standard which is
fine but they do offer a Audigy as a option. Do you need it ? Not
really unless you are really into the sound, especially for games.
Also the speakers - theres the cheap two speaker solution, the simple
two speakers plus subwoofer to get more bass - this sounds a lot
better usually. And then theres surround sound 5.1 , 6.1 etc That
means one subwoofer for bass and 4 speakers plus one center speaker or
more. This really makes a difference in games - surround sound is
really startling in games like DOOM3. Its all a tradeoff.
Also be aware that you can easily buy a printer - if you arent picky
about getting a first rate photo printer the Pixma Canon series
1500-2000 are cheap $49-60 and use cheap ink cartridges - $8 black and
$18 or so for color. You can get them far cheaper too with 3rd party
cartridges. Or if you only do documents a cheap laser printer is far
cheaper per page since ink is incredibly expensive on inkjets.
Recently there were sales on Pixmas as low as $20 or so w/rebates.
Speakers - you can find all kind on sale all the time. I got a 6.1
logitech surround system for $49 at compusa on a sale.
