<p>Over the weekend, we purchased a Dell laptop for D’s use at college in the fall. Beforehand, I asked our IT administrator at work whether I needed a code to qualify for the higher education discount (I work at a university). He suggested that I compare prices among the (1) Home/Home Office, (2) Small Business, and (3) Higher Education sites. I did that and was surprised to find that we could save $200-300 through Small Business (versus the other two). What made the difference was the lower starting price for the system, a free upgrade (we chose the extra battery), and a $500 discount plus free shipping and handling.</p>
<p>Hi Little Mother-
We also recently purchased 2 laptops (sending off twins!) from Dell and felt really good about the price we got through husband’s Employee Affiliation program–but now I have to wonder if we could have gotten better!! Which laptop did you end up choosing? We went with the Latitude 610, including carry case, docking station and external keyboard, and with higher than recommended school specs for just under $1600 each, including shipping & tax. We do still have to get the software, as recommended bundle was not available through the Employee program.</p>
<p>I won’t be at all surprised if your deal might have been better, as it never fails that the moment I buy anything a better deal comes along!!</p>
<p>Redsquared, could you post the specs on the 610 you bought, I’m also sending twins to college. What version of the 610 did you purchase, speed?, RAM?, hard drive size?, DVD burner or DVD player/CD burner? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Little Mother, how did you get the $500 discount?</p>
<p>Right now Dell has coupons for Home/Home office:</p>
<p>$400 off on select Dimension Desktops $999+ Coupon
Code: 9T2XD1XS4HJQ9H Exp Th 7/14/05 5:59am CT or earlier
May not be combinable with Deals of the Week, Outrageous Deals, dollars off, percentages off or select other promotions. Only one coupon may be applied per cart at checkout. Coupon code expires after first 7000 uses, or earlier if offer is terminated earlier. Offers subject to change.</p>
<p>$600 off on select Inspiron notebooks $1499+ Coupon
Code: DKS2KKN65GQN40 Exp Th 7/14/05 5:59am CT or earlier</p>
<p>$750 off on select Inspiron notebooks $1899+ Coupon
Code: R0BT?B4?65SHF7 Exp Th 7/14/05 5:59am CT or earlier</p>
<p>I would recommend people don’t buy Dell laptops. They are pieces of crap. Dell makes great desktops but their laptops are far behind. If you are considering getting a laptop look at IBM or Toshiba (or Mac if you have a preference for them). They make the best laptops. handsdown. The IBM T43 is an especially nice and reliable computer (unlike Dell) and IBM usually has deals with many universities so I’d look into one of these. Plus for security purposes the new IBMs come with biometrics (fingerprint scanner) so that no one can access your computer. </p>
<p>The only good thing about Dell is that they have excellent customer service.</p>
<p>btw no offense to anyone who has already bought a dell. I just made the mistake last year (freshman year) of purchasing a Dell. I purchased the top of the line 9100 and it pretty much stopped working within a year and a half. Many people at school had similar problems. So I just wanted to warn people so that you don’t end up buying a dell and then having to buy a new computer sophomore year.</p>
<p>Some schools have great package prices. Some don’t. You DO need to shop around.</p>
<p>An additional point of confusion for Dell is that Dell has two lines of laptops, the Inspiron line and the Latitude line. Inspirons are targeted at home users and have short product life cycles. The Latitudes are targeted at corporate users, come with additional computer management software, have long product life cycles (the same model will stay available for several years) and generally cost more. Curiously, Inspirons and Latitudes often have the same chassis and have parts interchangeable with comparable models.</p>
<p>Unis often recommend Latitudes, and one can save a bit by buying the corresponding Inspiron. If the Uni is a factory authorized service center, you can often also save by not purchasing on site service. You’d get the same thing in a practical sense at the U’s service site anyway. Could be worth a phone call.</p>
<p>Another tip: Try to configure what you want in different ways. I found that you can have pretty different totals depending on where you start customizing.</p>
<p>More: Several on line websites post Dell coupon codes. We used a $500 off $1500+ to get a nice system for my D at just over $1000.</p>
<p>One final way to save: Buy the minimal memory configuration and order extra RAM online.</p>
<p>We have three Dell laptops…all Latitudes. I would NOT recommend buying the Inspiron. I know many folks who have had trouble with them and have needed to USE that extended warranty. Our Latitudes range in age from 2-5 years and none has given us any trouble at all. Having said all that…DS is getting an Apple Powerbook but that is because Apple typically has better audio and video capabilities…and DS is a music major who will be using a lot of music software that works better on the Apple Powerbook. If that weren’t the case, we’d be buying him a Dell Latitude.</p>
<p>You might want to think twice about “IBM” Thinkpads - they are now produced and owned by Lenovo, a Chinese company. Every penny that ends up in China is another help to them in building up their military at an unprecedented rate. And the Chinese government is notorious for permitting the pirating of intellectual property. Billions of dollars are being “stolen” by the bootleg selling of movies, music, etc.</p>
<p>My S bought an Apple iBook. With student discount and 3 year warranty, and with extra RAM (memory not purchased from Apple, total 1.25 Gb) it came to under $1200. It has built in WiFi, Bluetooth, 60 GB HD, Firewire, USB 2.0, Ethernet, DVD player/CD burner, and Mac OS X Tiger. He has had it for a while now, and has had no trouble, no viruses, and we love the Apple iChat with the iSight camera so we can talk over the Internet and see him (smoothly) in real time, even when traveling internationally. It came with Apple’s iLife software, not available on a Windows platform, and he purchased MS Office for the student discount price of $139, I believe.</p>
<p>The thing configures itself. Plug something in, and it makes all the adjustments, the software or hardware just works. He uses it seamlessly with his iPod, and sends integrated pictures, sound, and videos, he creates. He even composes his own sound tracks with Garageband software that comes with the computer.</p>
<p>I used a Dell laptop years ago, but switched to a Mac, my company’s entire management is switching from Dells to Macs as well. They just want the ease of use, OS stability, search capabilities, and lack of spyware and viruses.</p>
<p>Little Mother - That is a good tip when shopping for a Dell. I bought my desktop last year through their small biz side getting a deal that was not available on the home computing side. It was $350 (without monitor) after $150 rebate, and much to my surprise the rebate check came promptly! </p>
<p>We will be ordering a desktop from Dell for S#1 very soon. He will get a flat panel monitor due to limited dorm desk space. A laptop would be a bad idea for this kid! If it didn’t walk out of his room on its own then he would surely drop it or loose it somewhere! </p>
<p>I was told to check these 2 websites for extra deals and/or coupons on Dell computers:</p>
<p>Slickdeals dot net, and Techbargains dot com.</p>
<p>little mother - we also discovered the difference between home and small business. We have 3 Dells, and really like them. We did have a problem with one, and I have to say that dealing with the Dell service people was not a problem at all. They sent a pre-paid box, we put our computer in, called DHL to pick it up (at Dell’s expense) and got it back fully repaired about 3 days later.</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind: if you make the purchase from the small business side, you must remember that you did, because their records are split between home & small business. In other words, you must go through the small business menu on the telephone in order for them to recognize you as the purchaser for warranty purposes.</p>
<p>Michael Zevon–
Hope this makes sense to you–I’m taking the abbreviations directly off the order status listing. Total for 2, including tax and shipping, plus docking stations and external keyboards was just under $3200.</p>
<p>Latitude D610, PM 750(1.86GHZ) UMA, 14.1 XGA
1.0GB, DDR2-533SDRAM, 2DIMMS
60GB, HD, 9.5MM,5400RPM
WINDOWS XP PRO, SP2, W/MEDIA
DELL USB 2BUTTON OPTICAL MOUSE
INTERNAL 56K MODEM
65W AC ADAPTER
24X CDRW/DVD
INTEL PRO/WIRELESS 2200 802.11B/G MPCI, DX00
RESOURCE CD
6-CELL PRIMARY BATTERY
NYLON CASE
NTFS FILE SYSTEM
SELECT CARE 3YR EXTENDED
ACCIDENT DAMAGE SERVICE 4 YEAR
GOLD TECH SUPPORT
D/PORT
128 MB USB 2.0 MEMORY KEY</p>
<p>We have had good success buying several Dells from their outlet center. These are customer returns/cancelled orders. The inventory changes daily and you can often find an upgraded machine for the same price as “new”. Both the laptop and the desktop we bought were in “perfect” condition.</p>
<p>The biggest difference in the Inspiron and Latitude lines is that the Latitudes have XP Pro and a 3-year on-site warranty. The Inspirons have XP Home and a 1 year warranty.</p>
<p>stricter quality control, i believe, is the determining factor. after all, home users tend to be driven by price first ($2-300 for increased reliability? the average user would just see dollar signs!). on the other hand, most businesses demand extreme reliability. after all, a laptop failure in the middle of a business trip could mean more than the price difference in lost time. the parts are probably quality controlled…highest scorers are used in latitudes, lower (but within acceptable range) scorers are in inspirons. :)</p>
</p>