Hi all,
I bought myself a new laptop a few weeks back,
and while I know no one ever says dont buy
what I just bought
its terrible!, I thought
to share what I found in case anyone was looking for the same type of item.
I wanted a powerful fast laptop with a large
comfortable keyboard, and if possible, a
numeric keypad built-in. I didnt want to
spend a lot of money on a touch-screen or a
high-resolution tablet that I couldnt use; and
I didnt want it to be too heavy to easily carry around.
I inlisted the help of some sighted relatives,
and finally decided on a Dell E6530 (the
primary reason was that their laptops were very
configurable when you ordered one; you had an enormous number of options).
To get one which had more emphasis on
capabilities, and less emphasis on touch
screens and gaming features I had to order from
the Dell Small Business collection. This is
important to know if you want the same type of
notebook/laptop; small business usually means less trendy graphics options.
I got a 15 inch screen, but with a large
comfortable keyboard which has a numeric
keypad, and a full set of modifier keys on both
sides of the spacebar (the one key which is
missing is the applications key, usually
found to the right of the space bar, it can be
used to bring up a context menu, the same as shift-F10).
It has a full set of function keys (which are
configured as function keys and not preset to
execute various programs), a set of six pack
and arrow keys, and buttons for mute and volume controls.
I chose the 32-bit form of Windows 7 (you had
your choice of Win 7 or 8, and 32 or 64 bit; my
reading tells me the extra memory usable by the
64 bit version of windows is rarely a big
enhancement, while the troubles and
incompatibilities of the 64-bit requirements
can be quite aggravating; in any case, you can
have it your way whatever you want).
I chose an I7 dual-core processor (next to
their best; their best being a quad-core, but
which automatically upgraded the graphics card
and the resolution of the monitor, throwing a
lot of money into the graphics options). The
performance numbers for the process and memory
are all around 7.2 and 7.6. I chose a hybrid
hard drive (a standard hard drive which has a
very very large memory cache to enhance speed
and reduce power consumption by allowing the
drive to spin down). You also have choices for
just a traditional hard drive of different
sizes or a SD hard drive (which is small, but which is memory only).
It has a bay for removable devices where I keep
the CD/DVD RW device mostly, but if you buy
other devices you can pop out the optical
device and put in something else (another
battery, Im not sure what all they sell for the bay).
It weighs around 5 pounds, and I got the 9-cell
extended battery, which gives me around 5 hours
(or sometimes more) of operating time. You
need to buy a larger capacity charger when you
buy the extended battery, because it has a
feature where it can charge the battery to 80% capacity in less than an hour.
Its physically somewhat wider than my
last 15 inch laptop due to the full-size keyboard.
Its very cool when sitting on your lap.
You can get a cell modem as an option, an SD
card reader, a wireless link for the video to a
monitor somewhere in the room, and of course
various levels of WiFi and bluetooth. It also
has several USB 2.0 and 3.0 connectors.
An unusual option I purchased is a docking
station; it allows you to keep the power and
any external video and USB and Ethernet devices
plugged into the doc, and you can just lower
your laptop into the dock and it can start
using all of these without you having to fiddle
with the connections (and the dock will
accommodate the extended battery). The dock
also comes with the larger capacity charger mentioned above.
One unusual feature is the audio connector for
a headset. Its a new standard in that it
accepts a four connection 3.5 mm plug for a
stereo headset with mike, but will also except
a standard 3.5 mm stereo earphone connection
(no mike). When I went looking on the
internet, I had trouble finding a stereo
headset with mike which had one of these new four connection 3.5mm plugs.
There is no separate 3.5mm mike input, but
you can buy an adapter from places like Radio
Shack which gives you the separate mike and
headphone jacks. I see a 2.5mm jack as well,
which I think is for a cell type of headset
connection, and another which I think is a mike input.
The internal speakers are extremely good (and
quite loud) as compared to my last laptop.
Theres also a mini-pci card slot, and an
e-sata connector (for external disk drives I
think). If you need to share with a sighted
user they also offer this in a variety of
screen sizes and resolutions, and a separate
graphics card for anyone who wants gaming level graphics.
The price is so dependent on your choices for
all of the options that it makes little sense
to place any value on the number I finally paid
(somewhere around $1400 I think); its not
going to be the cheapest notebook, but it can
be configured to be anything you want, and it
certainly is easy and comfortable to use. With
that price I obviously chose every expensive option.
Oh, BTW, Dell made a point of saying they gave
you an option of having no extra
software installed from third-parties by them
(which I chose), and indeed, it came with no
shovelware at all! Not one thing!
Finally, I purchased a backpack carrying case
from them instead of the traditional shoulder
bag; Im very impressed with the backpack,
which has a lot of places for books and
water-bottles and cell phones, not just the
laptop (and is black with orange trim).
Hth,
Chip
