Fantastic Laptop

Author's Rating:

Pros: Good, solid hardware with nice design.

Cons: Good after-purchase support from Dell is a thing of the past.

The Bottom Line: 
Money well spent.

Author's Review
I purchased my 8600 with all the works back in early December 2003. I have a 1.7Ghz processor, 60GB 7200RPM HD, 512MB RAM, DVD Burner, Blue Tooth, Wi-Fi, 128MB Video Card, and the best screen they offer. I opted to not buy a floppy drive. I immediately purchased an additional 512MB RAM from NewEgg. I had nothing but problems with this laptop. Strange errors, lockups, dataloss, etc. I was just about ready to toss the thing when I decided to take out the new RAM. Everything now works great. I guess I should have bought the additional RAM from Crucial or Dell. I don't like the new numbering scheme for the processor. I don't know if I really believe my 1.7 Pentium M is as fast as a standard 2.4Ghz Pentium 4.

Despite the UXGA screen being ~16" wide, this laptop is actually lighter than my old Inspiron 7500. However, the larger screen size meant that I had to get a larger laptop backpack/carrying case.

The screen is pure bliss, but I'm often annoyed at the many websites and other applications that do not appear correctly because of the odd resolution 1920x1200. One of my DVD burning softwares (Pinnacle Studio) completely freaks out on the resolution to a point where it is practically useless.

I have only needed a floppy drive once (and that was just to try to test the faulty RAM). I bought an external USB drive from NewEgg and it works great. I'll never put another internal floppy in a computer again. I'll just stick with my 512MB USB Key.

The built-in 1394 (Firewire) port is great and really helps out with the video editing. The internal Wi-fi works much better than the PCMCIA card I had been using in my old Inspiron 7500. I haven't had a need to use the BlueTooth yet. I plan to buy a cordless BlueTooth mouse. The infrared port works without a hitch with my Treo 600 phone/pda.

The external 60GB firewire and 200GB USB hard drives that I plug into the laptop work perfectly.

If you like eraser-mice, then this laptop has one, but the buttons for it are non-responsive. You really have to press hard. Luckily for me, I don't use the eraser mouse. The touchpad is an Alps and is definitely not as good as the Synaptec pad that was on my Inspiron 7500. It does the job, but that was my biggest complaint from day one.

The sleek and slightly slanted sides of the case made it more difficult for me to find a security lock that fit. The combo-lock that I was currently using stuck out too much and made the laptop lift up and tilt a bit.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the hardware. I'm disappointed that it only has 2 USB ports and only 1 firewire port. I'd like to see 2 firewire and 3 USB, and I'd like the firewire to be Firewire 2.0.

I made the mistake of financing the laptop via Dell Financial Services. I won't go into detail, but let's just say that English isn't their first language and Customer Service is not even a distant second language for these people. Rather than take advantage of the 6 month, no interest program, I just paid the darn thing off ASAP due to the incompetency of their service reps.

Their tech support is worthless as well. If you are an advanced user who understands how computers work, then they won't be able to help you. If you are a newbie who tries to boot with a floppy in the drive and doesn't understand what's wrong, then they MIGHT be able to help you.