I'm curoius which one is better in terms of performance?
DELL ins 8500 or da 5100?

the Latitude D800. But out of those two? the 8500 definitely.

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

It is the obvious one of course
but i was asking because I noticed the benchmarks done by cnet showed the 5100 gets a higher score than the 8500.....
thats why

In terms of what?
The 5100 uses Desktop Processor (2.8GHz) whereas the 8500 uses a P4-m (2.5GHz) so in CPU performance, the 5100 would excel simply because it is clocked higher, but it has a far inferior graphics card. (M7 vs M9)

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

is the lat. d800 good for games as well? i know it has great 3d marks and all, but i've read (can cnet reviews really be trusted?) that it's not the greatest for games. i'm trying to decide between sony vaio grv680p and dell lat. d800. They both sound great to me. sony has a reputation as having horrible support though , that's all that worries me about the vaio.

In terms of overall performance :-)
But the thing is.... Cnet dont do 3d benchmarks on lower end notebooks..... so i was wondering how does the 5100 with ati m7 32mb fare in 3dmark2001se?

Well what games do you want to play? I personally wouldn't get the Radeon 7500 for the latest games (though I don't know what kind of 3dmark score it gets)-- the D800 you can get with the GeForce4 4200 Go 64MB. And Cnet did NOT say that the D800 wasn't really great for games... on the contrary, it said that this laptop "scored so well that it would even rival many desktop systems in 3D performance. If you're a gamer who's looking for a notebook that won't let you down in the frame-rate department, look no further."

It sounds like, at least until the Radeon mobility 9600 and GeForceFX 5600 mobile version become available, this may be the fastest for 3d/games right now...

<<<is the lat. d800 good for games as well?>>>

It is. It plays all the games that I've thrown at it so far with ease - even at 1600x1200.

<<<i know it has great 3d marks and all, but i've read (can cnet reviews really be trusted?) that it's not the greatest for games>>>

NO, they can't really - they give a good outline. Let me tell you, unless you get a notebook with a GeForceFX go 5600 or an ATI Mobility Radeon 9600, you are not going to find a notebook that is better for games. The only minor problem is the wide aspect display - but that is not really an issue and most new games support the resolution anyway.

<<<i'm trying to decide between sony vaio grv680p and dell lat. d800. They both sound great to me. sony has a reputation as having horrible support though , that's all that worries me about the vaio.>>>

Well, I was put off of the VAIO for several reasons:
-CPU: It is a standard P4, no P4-m so no powersaving which means decreased battery life.
The Latitude uses a Pentium-M (Banias) CPU which (although only running at a max of 1.7GHz) will beat a Pentium 4 2.5/2.6GHz; it has 1MB of L2 cache and extensive power saving technologies.

-RAM: It has a maximum RAM size of 1024MB, whereas the Latitude's is 2048MB, allowing for future upgrades. and increased efficiency in Database and CAD Applications

-LCD: The Latitudes Widescreen is more usefull for watching DVD movies, and the resolution is far higher resulting in sharper images (1920x1200 vs 1280x1024 (Sony))

-GPU: I've had a notebook with the M9, and now 1 with the GF4Go 4200. The GeForce 4 go 4200 is way, way, way better for games than the 9000 and suffers (in my experience) fewer driver instabilities, in fact, none so far.

-HDD: I'm not sure if the Sony Hard Disks are 5400rpm or not, but i would make sure - a hard drive is the biggest area of bottleneck on a notebook, get the fastest one possible.

-DVD/CD-R/RW: At least Dell now offer a DVD Writer, but i personally would not get one, writing a DVD at 1x will take an hour, and would use significant battery life, it is more effective to get a faster, external DVD-Writer.

-Battery: The D800 offers significantly increased battery life - I do my school work on it, and, so far,I've never had to bring the charger along with me. Taking notes, using powerpoint, and playing music, the notebook lasted 4.5hrs on battery, and it still had 5% remaining when i packed it up. you can also insert a 2nd battery into the D|Bay which will extend battery life to 7hrs or so.

-Modem: The D800 uses a V92 modem vs a V90 of the Sony (big diff )

-Ethernet: The D800 supports up to 1000BaseTX (i.e. Gigabit) Ethernet

-Multimedia: The Sony supports Sony Memory Stick input, The dell uses Smart Cards for multimedia or security

-Pointing Devices: D800 has DualPoint Touchpad plus Pointing Stick.

-Dimensions: Dell weighs 7.0lbs vs 8.1lbs Sony; Dell is 1.5" thick vs 1.6-1.8"; Dell is 14.2" X 10.9" vs Sony 14" X 11.8"

All in all I prefered the Dell in most aspects.

<<<In terms of overall performance :-)
But the thing is.... Cnet dont do 3d benchmarks on lower end notebooks..... so i was wondering how does the 5100 with ati m7 32mb fare in 3dmark2001se?>>>

I dont have any benchmarks, but i believe it is safe to say that it would not score higher than 6500 3DMarks.

<<<Well what games do you want to play? I personally wouldn't get the Radeon 7500 for the latest games (though I don't know what kind of 3dmark score it gets)-- the D800 you can get with the GeForce4 4200 Go 64MB. And Cnet did NOT say that the D800 wasn't really great for games... on the contrary, it said that this laptop "scored so well that it would even rival many desktop systems in 3D performance. If you're a gamer who's looking for a notebook that won't let you down in the frame-rate department, look no further."

It sounds like, at least until the Radeon mobility 9600 and GeForceFX 5600 mobile version become available, this may be the fastest for 3d/games right now...>>>

actually, the FX5600 is available on Toshibas, (in canada i think), But it only scores 8000 3DMarks, and about 2000 in 3DMark2003 - which is very impressive. The 9600 scored similarly as you can see from Tom's Benchmarks.

RaPTuRe

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

Rapture-- I just have a couple questions about Dell laptops since you have the D800-- 1) How long did it take for yours to ship once you ordered it? and

2) concerning memory upgrades-- does Dell still use proprietary memory for their machines? (meaning am I going to have to go through dell if I want to upgrade the memory on a new Dell laptop?) I know in their older systems they used proprietary RAM that you could only get through Dell but I'm not sure if this has changed or not. Thanks for your help!

1) Well, where do you live? In the US, it usually takes about 2 -3 weeks i believe, longer if you order the 5400rpm HDD because there is a shortage from Hitachi. I live in South Africa, I ordered it on the 20th, it shipped from Ireland on the 23rd. I received it on the 27th.

2) No, Dell use PC2100 DDR 400-pin SO-DIMM memory modules available almost anywhere. My Dell uses Samsung, and on Friday I will upgrade it. The most reliable RAM to use on a Dell is Crucial, but most types should suffice. You CAN go through Dell, but it is more cost effective to purchase elsewhere.

Anytime,
Paul

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

Thanks for the info. I'm in the US, I placed my order on the 7th and the Dell web site now says it's in "boxing" (assembly and testing are complete). I was simply curious because a friend recently ordered and he said it took several days to get from the boxing phase to the shipping phase and wondered if it was just him or if it was common. I can't wait for my D800 It was actually your comments in this thread that convinced me to go with the D800 as opposed to the Acer TravelMate 803LCi-- thanks!

That's good to know about the RAM, too-- I will likely upgrade in a few months. Thanks again!

hey thanks for your help guys....
I really want the D600.. but couldnt afford it :-)

Glad I could assist. You won't regret it, and you will be the king at LAN parties .

Let us know your 1st impressions when you get it.

Paul

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

The D800 is simply awesome. I've yet to even try any games but the screen blows me away-- the resolution and the amount of real estate i have to work with-- amazing. I love the widescreen.

I have one issue I've noticed-- when I browse the web, images look pixelated. I can save the image to my desktop and view it there and looks sharp and crystal clear-- is there something with Internet Explorer that's causing images to be displayed pixelated within the browser?

Try adjusting Text Size in the View control in the top Tool Bar.

<font color=red><i>Doctor Hooter</i></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.page3.com/" target="_new"><b>(·Y·)</b></A>

Would the text size have anything to do with the images looking pixelated? Because interestingly, the text is as crisp as can be in the browser, regardless of how small it is.

Yes, I noticed that too with mine.

I fixed it by changing the dpi to 96. It makes the text much smaller, but I have good eyes so I don't mind - the pictures are no longer pixelated.

RaPTuRe

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?