Which laptop should I choose? (To hardware experts)

Alienware Area-51 M7700
Intel Pentium 4 Hyper Thread 550 3.4 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 cache Socket 775
Dual Layer 8X DVD+/-RW. 8x/4x/8x DVD+RW, 8x/4x/8x DVD-RW, 2.4x DVD+R DL, 24x/10x/24x CD-RW
120GB of storage. 1x 120 SATA Drive (5400RPM)
17" WUXGA 1440 x 900 LCD
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 256MB Video Module
2GB RAM PC5300 DDR2 (2 x 1GB sticks)
Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem
Internal 802.11b/g WiFi Card
Integraded High-Definition Audio. 4 Speakers and 1 Subwoofer built into the casing
7-in-1 Media Card Reader, optimized for quick and easy file transfer with most peripheral devices.
Windows XP Home

or

Dell Inspiron 1720
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache)
CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Anti-glare, widescreen 17.0 inch display (1440 x 900)
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Mini-card
High Definition Audio 2.0
Windows Vista™ Premium

 

I would go with dell

better cpu

better graphics,

better hard drive

 

Dell Laptops are always better than alienware spec-wise, because the extra money goes on the t-shirts, the bags, the designer finish, and in that case the integrated speakers which I'm sure are still rubbish.
Go with the Dell, unless you have serious money to spend, don't even consider Alienware.

 

but dont forget that dells tech support is in india. I live in the USA so it is a pain to get to contact them, but for others it might not be that big of a deal, since some of you live in europe.

 

Why does it matter? It's not as if we'd go and drive there.
Dell's tech support I found quite helpful, to my surprise.

 

Tesco are currently selling a 3400 amd laptop for £299

 

Well then good luck talking to someone in indianish, paying out of you butt for the long distance and if you send your laptop back for RMA, it will take weeks, possibly months.

 

pcrepair: Yes but it'll be dump compared to these two, that wasn't a useful post.


Waymon: Lol all they have is an accent, they do speak english, the call cost nothing because it was a local number (just because the call is routed there doesnt mean you have to pay a fortune), and it wasn't about a return. A friend of mine had a dell laptop that needed replacement RAM and he got it within two days of making the claim.

 

Thanks for all your help! I decided to get the Dell Inspiron 1520 instead of the 1720.

 

Is there much of a difference?

 

No, but I can get the 1520 at a higher RPM hard drive than the 1720 and the size of the screen doesn't really matter to me.

 

Just be aware that a faster hard drive dramatically decreases your battery life, and offers only a marginal performance increase.