jonottawa

Now that Randy and Paula have spoken, I'll speak for Simon ... It's an okay deal, for Dell. Which means that it's nothing to get excited about. If you really want a Dell, you're probably not going to do much better than this. For a Dell deal, the specs are surprisingly balanced. About the only thing you NEED to upgrade is the battery. But they definitely jacked up the pre-sale price and a comparable system could be had for a couple hundred less elsewhere, albeit without the Dell name.

Here's my logic on the upgrades: 1. Hard drive: 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM (1/3 faster.) Do you really want to spend this much money on a computer with a newly-introduced processor and have your hard-drive be the bottleneck? 2. Screen: Again, if you're buying this computer for the processor, you're going to be using it for videos, at a minimum. Don't you want them to look halfway decent? 3. Battery: 'Yeah, I bought a kick-a** computer from Dell but I didn't want to spring for the standard-size 9-cell battery that everyone else has so I'm stuck with a piddly little econo-size battery that comes standard.' I don't think so ... 4. RAM: On this, you could probably get by on 512 MB without taking much of a performance hit but 1 GB is rapidly becoming the standard Goldilocks number for price-performance tradeoff. If I had to live without one of my upgrades, this would be it. And yeah, you could rip open your new Dell laptop and try to sell their crappy components on Ebay and replace them with better ones and hope for the best. But if you're that good at building computers you really don't need Dell at all, do you? Anyway, my two cents ... I'll be shocked if this 'deal' expires early.

Ehhh, same old Dell shenanigans. If you're just using your laptop for email, this isn't the computer for you. If you want a nice upper mid-range laptop, this will run you about $1200 ($1423 before rebate) once you select all the upgrades (60 GB (their smallest) 7200 RPM hard drive, SXGA+ screen, 1 GB RAM, 9 cell battery) that get you from a lopsided lunker into a somewhat reasonably equipped machine. Then, if you want to hit those coupons you have to start choosing the upgrades you don't really need. They've got this thing down to a science. Plus, expect it to take over two weeks to ship. On a slightly different note, I'm surprised that Lenovo hasn't offered any great deals. I thought they were after market share and name recognition.

Okay, barely eligible, if you want to quibble. If you've been a long-time ING customer, though, the amount of new deposits you're going to make in the next couple of months is piddly in comparison to the balance in your account currently. And your current balance will only be earning 3.8%. Say you have 10,000 currently and deposit another thousand in the next 3 months, only 1,000 will earn 4.75% (your weighted average interest rate is 3.886% in this example, barely an improvement on the status quo, even less so because your new deposits will be earning that interest rate for fewer days (since they won't all be made right away.)) Whereas if you have 10,000 in Emigrant or HSBC currently and transfer it to your inactive ING account (roughly the situation I'm in) then the whole 10,000 will pull 4.75% until April 15.

I think you misunderstand what that sentence means, Ross. It just means that if you get in on this deal now and hold deposits for a year (3 months at 4.75% and 9 months at 3.8%) you'll earn more than if you get in on this deal on April 10 and hold deposits for a year. (5 days at 4.75% and 360 days at 3.8%) There's nothing funky in the fine print except the part about loyal ING customers being ineligible. :-)

Ha! All you suckers who have been loyal to ING get 3.8% but those of us who were smart enough to switch out get 4.75% for a few months. Sweet! (The 4.75% amount is only for new deposits. They take your balance on January 19 and only amounts in excess of that are eligible.)

Ah well, figured as much. Too popular still for drastic price reductions. And I don't feel like waiting for PS3's to come out to buy a PS2 so I pricegrabbed it for $143 and change (all-in.) Hope my 95%-rated vendor doesn't leave me with the 5% end of the stick.

What's the best way to go on a Playstation 2 console? Everyone seems to have them for 149.99, is that likely to come down? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Ummm, that's why it's called gott(A)(DEAL). They post about one real deal per week and the fun begins when you wade through all the crap they post to try to find it. :-) Happy hunting!

Hmmm, if they had acted a little sooner I might not have opened my Emigrant account, but sure not switching back now! You guys must have money to burn.

These prices include handling charges?

I'm too good of a deal-hunter. I'm incompatible with Dell.

If Dell is discontinuing deals, and the name of this site is GottaDeal.com ... you fill in the rest. I had planned to buy a new computer this fall, but if they aren't gonna play ball and offer me (even briefly) decent value for my hard-earned coin, they can keep their overpriced boxes.

This deal wouldn't still be live if it were any good. Not until mid-October, you say? That's just next month, right? Anyway, I wish Dell would cut all the BS and offer a TRULY great deal like once a year and then keep prices the same the rest of the year. And if we reserved the HOT! tag for truly hot deals only, that would be cool. Hook 'em!

Lowest price was 396 and change in May, if memory serves. Calling this deal great is a bit of a stretch. Someone should tell the Dell folks that in their industry either technology gets better or prices get lower. They're still selling virtually the same boxes that they sold 2 years ago, for comparable prices.