This Dell Inspiron 15 Dual-core 15.6" Laptop is at such a low price it almost counts as a stocking stuffer. The dual core Celeron 1017U @ 1.6GHz isn't going to top out the benchmark charts but should run rings around most tablets and the 4GB DDR3 memory and 320GB HDD will give it more flexibility. It runs Windows 8 64-bit and has an attractive list of I/O ports.
Top Deal
- Dell Inspiron 15 Dual-core 15.6" Laptop for $279.99 with Free Shipping (normally $379.99 – use coupon code: DMG5HG3LJW2JF9).
Additional Deals
- XFX Core Edition Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card for$104.99 with Free Shipping(normally $199.99 – use coupon code: MASTERPASS).
- ViewSonic 27-Inch Screen LED-backlit Monitor (VX2770SMH-LED) for $224.99 with Free Shipping(normally $339.99 – use coupon code: GREENMD118).
- Dell 1210S DLP Projector for $325.00 (normally $369.00).
- Night Owl 4-Camera 500GB HDD DVR Surveillance System for $179.99 with free shipping(normally $269.99 – use coupon code: MASTERPASS).
- ThinkGeek Coupon: 25% off Orders of $40 or more
Interesting, I just bought an
Interesting, I just bought an Asus X200CA from Best Buy over the weekend for $217 (open box item). Same CPU, RAM, and HDD size but the Asus includes a 10-point touch screen. The Dell system does not have touch, but has a slightly larger battery and one extra USB3.0 port. Something to note: the Dell unit that is on sale does not include a DVD drive despite what the picture shows.
Considering how well Windows 8 works with touch I would recommend skipping the Dell and getting the Asus instead. I’ve got a SSD coming in on Wednesday to upgrade mine. Someone on the SSDReview website upgraded theirs and went from ~80MBps reads to ~500MBps reads. Should be a nice bump in performance.
As for the system overall, I would only recommend either of these as netbook replacements, they are nowhere near powerful enough to run modern games, maybe Minecraft and really old games like Half-Life 2. However, they handle HD video beautifully albeit the screen resolution is 1366×768. I’ve streamed full Blu-Ray rips over Ethernet without any problems. Wifi is not so good though. Not sure if the problem is my router or if the RALink wifi card is just crap, but a speedtest over wifi got 2Mbps download / 7Mbps upload. Really bizzare. Perfect system for web browsing, social media-ing, video consumption, and just messing around with Windows 8 (upgraded to 8.1 no problems).
One tip if you do buy one: turn off “edge” controls in the trackpad utility. It’s very easy to cause things like the charms bar to pop-up just from brushing against the trackpad.