Dell XPS M1710 review

Dell XPS M1710 Overview

The Dell XPS M1710 is the latest premium gaming notebook from Dell that replaces the current XPS M170. The M1710 has a 17" widescreen and comes in a choice of two colors, "formula red" or "metallic black". On the inside it houses the 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo processor, up to 4GB of RAM and the icing on the cake -- the latest and greatest nVidia Go 7900 GTX graphics card with 512MB of memory. If you like to do serious gaming or simply have the fastest notebook money can buy right now, this notebook is for you!

System: Dell XPS M1710 (Red color lid)
Processor: Intel Core Duo T2600 (2.16 GHz)
Memory: 2GB @ 667MHz - 2 DIMM Slots (2 x 1GB) (Max Ram 4GB)
Hard Drive: 100GB capacity at a speed of 7200 RPM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX with 512MB DDR memory
Screen: WUXGA Truelife (1920 x 1200)
Optical Drive: 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW/+R) with Dual-Layer
OS: Microsoft MCE 2005
Wireless Card: Intel 3945 (802.11b/g)
Battery: 9-cell lithium ion recharegable battery
Ports / Slots: 5-in-1 Memory Card Reader, DVI-D, VGA video output, S-Video, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), 6 USB 2.0, Express Card slot, Modem, Ethernet/LAN, Microphone in, Headphone out

The Dell XPS M1710 design is, in a word, brazen. In daylight the striking red or metallic black lid will catch the eyes of just about anyone nearby. In the dark, if you stand far enough away this thing looks more like a UFO as the lights glow in a somewhat eery yet cool manner. I'll let the pictures of the light display the M1710 emits tell the story, the light colors are configurable with up to 16 color options for each light via a Dell included QuickSet program:

Outside of the lid and lights, the rest of the look is silver. I'm used to seeing a black keyboard on Dell machines, but this one sports a more sleek looking silver keyed look, which is nice and fits the design well.

You'll notice the XPS M1710 has somewhat of an industrial look and this is true to the actual build of the notebook. The M1710 is very sturdy; it uses an all magnesium-alloy case on the top and bottom. The keyboard and palm rest area is made of a thick rugged plastic. This results in strong overall physical protection of the notebook, worry-free of case cracks appearing or problems with excessive flexing. The hinges are constructed of steel, Dell claims they have been tested for up to 20,000 cycles (openings and closings) to assure freedom from loosening and wobble. Honestly, the lid on this notebook is possibly the strongest I've tested on any notebook, it does not flex at all and is stronger protection than even the renknowned ThinkPad notebook line. The hard drive has a StrikeZone shock absorber for small drops and bumps for protection in small drops.

There is one part of the build that's lacking, the plastic on the bottom of the LCD is easy to bend and flex. It's not likely that you would be touching this area often, but still worth noting to keep the review honest. The area above the keyboard where the status lights are is also somewhat flexible.

The weight of this notebook isn't as bad as you might think. I've run across seventeen inch screen notebooks that make you groan just picking them up to move from one surface to the next. The XPS M1710 is quoted as being 8.8 lbs by Dell, I weighed both the M1710 and its power adapter together and the total came it at just over 10 lbs.

I benchmarked the first level of FEAR from the moment my character stepped out of the car until the end of the first checkpoint. A 1600x1200 resolution is certainly within reach for the Go7900GTX. It is playable all around, with only certain scenes causing the framerates to drop into the low 40's/high 30's. Despite averaging 59 FPS with 2X AA, there are a few scenes where the frames drop under 35 for a few seconds. It's still playable at these settings, but I would recommend leaving it at 1600x1200 because the performance is more consistent. I would only add anti-aliasing at this resolution if you had a dual-graphics card SLI or CrossFire desktop. Playing FEAR at these settings, without a doubt, is incredible. You can't ask for any more out of a single-card system, desktop or laptop.

Heat and Noise:

The Dell XPS M1710 has a very efficient and quiet cooling system. Not only is it quiet, but it also is has a very smart design. Dell has split up two of the most heat-producing components in the notebook, and placed them on opposite sides of the computer. The processor is on one, and the video card on the other, both using separate fans and heatsinks. This is very effective at cooling the M1710, because heat is spread out and has more room to escape.

Even after hours of gaming, the surface of the notebook only gets mildly warm, nothing to worry about in the least. The palm rests remain cool at all times. No part on the surface gets hot to the touch. The bottom, however, does. Directly in the center is the RAM compartment. It is perforated to get ventilation, but still remains very warm. It is somewhat uncomfortable to touch. The bottom right side also gets very hot. It's not unexpected to have the bottom of the notebook heat up, given how powerful the internal components are.

This is the quietest notebook I have used to date. Even at full tilt, it is hard to tell the fans are running. At idle, it has to be completely silent to hear the soft trickle of warm air coming out. Very, very impressive!

Keyboard, Touchpad and Buttons:

The keyboard on the XPS M1710 actually looks and feels quite a bit different to all other Dell notebooks I've used. The keyboard keys are not black, as they so typically are, but rather a silver color that blends with the rest of the case color. The keys are also more springy and have more travel than is typical with a Dell notebook, which is to my liking. The keyboard actually turns out to be extremely usable and has a nice feel, and while the M1710 is not meant as a productivity tool for Office Applications, I'd be quite happy doing a lot of typing on this notebook. There is no flex to the keyboard, it is built very sturdily. In addition, the palm rests are extremely solid. Since the battery lies underneath the palm rest area, this would explain the sheer solidness of the area (a good thing).

At the top of the keyboard there resides two functional buttons, the Media Direct button allows you to quickly boot to a Linux OS that allows you to play media (see OS section for more) and then there's the rounded power button located at top center.

Dell XPS M1710 keyboard

The touchpad is very cool with the XPS lighting, but more importantly it's actually a decent size and works well with scroll zones on the right side for vertical scroll and on the bottom for horizontal scroll. Again though, if you're using this notebook more for gaming and entertainment then the touchpad won't cut it for accurate input control, you'll need a game controller or high precision mouse.

At the front area are located handy media buttons for play, stop, skip and volume up/down. These buttons work in both Windows and the Dell Media Direct quick boot application

Input and Output Ports:

The port selection on the XPS M1710 is about as good as you can ask for, 6 USB 2.0 ports is better than many desktop machines and you have all the video connectors you could want with the VGA out, DVI and S-Video out connector. You could gripe about not having a PCMCIA slot if you have old accessories you'd like to use with this, but the ExpressCard is fast becoming the default expansion slot for notebooks -- hopefully accessory makers will catch up soon by making more cards that fit this slot, right now the selection is a bit limited.

The external TV Tuner is an option for the XPS M1710 and if you have the Windows Media Center Edition OS it might be a nice add-on since you could record live TV.

Wireless:

The XPS M1710 comes with an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 card, supporting A, B, and G bands. It is one of the newer cards in the mini PCI-express format, versus the older mini-PCI format. It is much smaller and consumes less power.

I had some major wireless-related problems early on with the XPS. I could connect to my Netgear 802.11g router fine, but I had fluctuating speed issues. Gaming was nearly impossible over wireless. After about twenty minutes of being connected, I had additional problems -- I would lose my connection, and the small WiFi light would begin to flicker. This was odd, because I set the wireless card to not turn off and to stay at maximum power. It flickered for about one minute, then went off. From then on in, I could not access anything to do with the wireless connection or the settings of the wireless card -- as soon as I did, the system would freeze. The only way I could restore the wireless was to do a full restart, and then I would have the same problems.

I attempted to uninstall the wireless card drivers and software and reinstall them, updaing the drivers, changing network keys, and so on. How I eventually fixed it was by completely uninstalling the wireless adapter, and letting Windows install the wireless card. It now works great using the generic Windows wireless software. On a system of this caliber, I should not have to fool around with the wireless to make it work -- it should perform flawlessly right out of the box. Hopefully, this will only be an issue on the review unit and not on future systems, we conferred with Dell on this issue and they had not heard such reports and emphasized this is a pre-production unit.

Battery and Power:

The battery is a 9-cell located at the front area of the notebook, which is a little different to the normally far back positioned location. The battery has a nice feature in which you can push in on it to light up 5 green LEDs to display how much charge is left, this works whether the notebook is on or off.

4400mAh dell high quality inspiron xps m1710 battery Specs..

Battery Type: Li-ion

Voltage : 11.1V

Capacity : 4400mAh

Color : Black

Dimension : 209.40 x 71.80 x 19.80 mm

Net Weight : 467.77 g

Dell inspiron xps m1710 Laptop Battery fit OEM Part/Number: dell 310-6321 , 312-0340 , d5318 , replacement for dell inspiron 6000 , inspiron 9300 , inspiron e1705 , inspiron xps m1710 notebook battery...

The dell inspiron xps m1710 battery has a gauge that lights up to indicate charge level when you push in on it, this works if the notebooks is on or off for a quick way to check charge

Now, if you're buying the XPS M1710, there's probably a good chance that you won't be spending a lot of time on battery as it's more of a desktop replacement gaming style machine. But if you do, the battery life is respectable for a computer with this much power. With the screen brightness at 6/7 (near maximum, keep in mind), wireless at full power, and while surfing the Internet, I clocked the battery power to be two hours and five minutes. That's not bad at all. You could certainly add more time if you turned down the brightness.

The power adapter that comes with this notebook is rather huge, to say the least. It weighs about 1.6lbs and is only slightly smaller in length to a DVD (see picture below).
The power adapter is large, almost the size of a DVD in length and much thicker

Operating System and Software:

You have three choices of an OS: XP Home, XP Professional and XP Media Center Edition. The operating system I got is Windows Media Center Edition 2005. This is basically Windows XP Home with media center software on top. I didn't get a TV tuner with this unit, but is an option for configuration with the XPS M1710 (external USB solution, not integrated).

At the top of the keyboard you see a "Media Direct" button that allows you to push and quickly boot to a Linux based OS in which you can view photos, play DVDs and Music located on the hard drive, media card, external USB storage or from a DVD

Unfortunately the XPS M1710 comes with the typical amount of garbage software that I'd imagine gamer types will cringe at. Then again, techno savvy gamers would be the first to wipe a system and reinstall the OS to their liking, so maybe it's not such a big deal. Software such as Yahoo Music, McAfee, AOL, Corel trial image software are on there to name a few and will pop up and try and get you to subscribe/buy the software.

One nice thing you get with the XPS M1710 is the Media Direct functionality that allows you to quickly load up the machine to play music, view pictures or watch a DVD. You do this by clicking the "Media Direct" button on the front of the laptop. The first time you do this it takes a minute to boot and configure, but after that it's a quick 15-seconds to getting to an application that allows you to play music and other media. I was impressed by the interface and ease of use, all of the media buttons on the front work just as they do in the actual Windows bootup.

The conclusion is quite simple for the M1710: If this were the state fair and the contest were for best performance notebook, then the blue ribbon would go to the XPS M1710. The coolest thing being, you could even adjust the lights on the M1710 to blue to match that ribbon!

Pros:

Unmatched 3D performance, fantastic for gaming or high-end 3D tasks
Cool and quiet, even when gaming for hours
Very cool looking, especially the lights -- could be mistaken as UFO from a distance
Great keyboard
Nice screen, very bright and good colors
Cons:

Wireless problems, for this pre-production unit at least
Area below LCD and top of keyboard has some flex
No PCMCIA card slot for any accessories you had for older notebooks
Want it? Show Dell the money! Premium notebooks command a premium $$ price.

ACER aspire 3000 1680 battery LCBTP03003

14.80V, 4400 mAh Li-ion ACER aspire 1680 battery replacement LCBTP03003. Cheap-laptop-battery.US is an online discount chain ASPIRE 1680 laptop battery store, the Li-ion 14.80V, 4400 mAh ACER ASPIRE 1680 battery on sales will be perfact repalcement your original ACER ASPIRE 1680. As a global power saler we will stand behind our ACER ASPIRE 1680 battery 100%, full 1 year warranty and 30 days money back. We guarantee your aspire 1680 laptop batteries transaction will be 100% safe.

Design of Apple 12.1-inch PowerBook G4

Design of Apple 12.1-inch PowerBook G4

The Powerbook is Apple's desktop replacement notebook, but unlike most PC notebooks in this category, the Powerbook is not bulky, nor is it thick and heavy. In fact, the Powerbook is about as thin as mainstream notebooks get, and as light as I could imagine any laptop with this size screen.

The 12-inch PowerBook is the smallest and lightest notebook available from Apple, albeit by a slim margin. It measures 1.2 by 10.9 by 8.6 inches and weighs 4.6 pounds. The more affordable 12-inch iBook is a few tenths of an inch bigger in all dimensions and weighs just less than 5 pounds.

Like most Apple notebooks, the 12-inch PowerBook resists categorization. It is notably heavier than most Windows-based ultraportables, such as the Dell Latitude X300, the HP Compaq nc4000, and the IBM ThinkPad X31, which also carry 12.1-inch displays. The comparison is misleading, however, because the 12-inch PowerBook has an internal media drive, putting it in a similar league as thin-and-lights, which despite the name, are slightly bigger and heavier than ultraportables. No matter how you look at it, the 12-inch PowerBook strikes an excellent balance between portability and features.

The anodized-aluminum case feels very solid and seems to resist scratches better than the old titanium cladding. Some users have reported that the metal case gets toasty, but we didn't find it to be unusually hot. The 12.1-inch display, with a 1,024x768 resolution, opens and closes on a sturdy hinge. You can adjust the display brightness from the keyboard or in System Properties.

Aside from the size and weight, the best design attribute of the 12-inch PowerBook is its keyboard. It's superior to that of the earlier PowerBooks, the current iBooks, and possibly even Apple's desktops. A good touch typist can really fly on this full-size keyboard, which offers good response, has comfortably shaped keys, and does not flex at all. The trackpad is large and responsive, as well. Sadly, this model still doesn't have the cool keyboard backlighting found on its 15- and 17-inch counterparts (with SuperDrives).

The 12-inch PowerBook doesn't come with Wi-Fi either, but you can insert a $99 AirPort Extreme card by popping out the battery on the base of the notebook. To add more memory, you unscrew an adjacent panel.

Reasons for Buying:

I was very apprehensive about buying the Powerbook because I had used PC's for my whole life. In fact, I was comfortable enough with PC's that I had become the sort-of neighborhood mechanic. When it came time to choose a computer for college, I had in the back of my mind the aesthetic appeal of the Apple line of computers and hoped that I could find a windows laptop with a similar look and feel. After what seemed like endless searching, I came upon the Asus W3v, which hadn't even begun to ship to the US yet. So, I put most of my eggs into one basket and decided upon the Asus. But, when they started shipping, I heard nasty things about palm rest heat that scared me away enough to go to my local Apple store and test-drive a Powerbook in the flesh. In a matter of minutes, I was sold.

System configurations:

Apple PowerBook G4 867MHz

OS X 10.2.3; PowerPC G4 867MHz; 256MB RAM; Nvidia GeForce4 420 Go 32MB; 40GB 4,200rpm

Apple PowerBook G4 1GHz

OS X 10.2.7; PowerPC G4 1GHz; 256MB RAM; Nvidia GeForce FX Go 5200 32MB DDR SDRAM; 40GB 4,200rpm

Battery life of Apple 12.1-inch PowerBook G4 Battery

The 12-inch Apple PowerBook G4 battery provides 2.4 hours of uninterrupted DVD-playing power--slightly less than the previous 867MHz model, which lasted 2.6 hours. Each system has the same 47WHr battery, so the difference is most likely due to the newer PowerBook's faster, more power-consuming G4 processor. The 12-inch Apple PowerBook G4 battery won't get you through The Fellowship of the Ring, but it should have enough juice to handle most movies from opening credits to the final frame.

Service and support of Apple 12.1-inch PowerBook G4

Apple offers a somewhat stingy, one-year warranty on the 12-inch PowerBook's parts (such as Apple Powerbook G4 battery)and labor, and the free telephone support lasts only a disappointing 90 days

Dell inspiron 2650 notebook review

To get this laptop to $1,299, though, Dell makes a couple of compromises that are like cramming a turbocharged motor into a car that doesn't have the suspension to match. The marginal amount of memory—128MB—screams "compromise to hit price point," and the display resolution of 1,024-by-768 (XGA) is vanilla. Our $1,777 test unit was better-balanced. The CPU was bumped from the entry-level 1.4-GHz P4-M to a 1.6-GHz CPU; DDR system memory was doubled to reach 256MB; graphics memory on the nVidia GeForce2 Go 100 was also doubled, to 16MB; and the CD-ROM drive was replaced by a more versatile 8X CD-R/W drive. But the system still had the entry-level 20GB hard drive and a 14.1-inch active matrix display, lithium rechargeable inspiron 2650 battery.

Dell inspiron 2650 Key Specs

Processor manufacturer: Intel

Processor model: Pentium 4 Processor-M

Clock speed: 1.6 GHz

RAM installed: 256 MB

Hard drive size: 30 GB

Graphics processor: nVidia GeForce2 Go 100

Graphics RAM: 16 MB

Display diagonal size: 15 in

Dimensions (W x H x D): 32.8x3.7x27.4 cm

Weight: 3.65 kg

Operating system: Windows XP Home

Aside from its combo drive, the 2650 is a plain, simply designed, all-in-one notebook with a monochromatic case. You get some connections, including a parallel port, a VGA port, and headphone and microphone jacks. But don't look for FireWire, built-in wireless, or even the now-common TV-out port. There's no serial port, either, and you get just one PC Card slot, which will stymie some peripherals junkies.

The Inspiron 2650 battery certainly performs well, thanks to the combination of its Mobile Pentium 4 processor and 256MB of DDR SDRAM. Its Business Winstone 2001 score of 32.8 means that it runs mainstream productivity applications like those in Microsoft’s Office 2000 very comfortably. It even handles high-end programs pretty well, too, delivering a Content Creation Winstone 2002 score of 20.3. Of course there are faster notebooks, but for practical purposes, the Inspiron does what it is designed to do quite well.

Performance was not the 2650's strong suit. Our test unit delivered scores that would have been dazzling for a desktop a year ago but that now lean toward the lower end of what might be considered normal. This P4-M–based notebook is fast—but plenty of others are faster.

On key measures such as Business Winstone 2002 and Content Creation Winstone 2002, the 2650 fell about 10 percent behind P4-M desktop replacement portables that cost more (but weigh the same). And it was roughly on a par with a mix of mainstream P4-M and upper-end PIII notebooks.

The life of the eight-cell, 50-watt-hour, 3,900-mAh lithium inspiron 2600 battery on BatteryMark 2001 was 2 hours 38 minutes, about average for such early P4-M systems. Naysayers worried that P4-M systems were going to have trouble bettering 2 hours with all the thermal draw, but that isn't the case with this model. Dell keeps the inspiron 2650 battery cool with vents on one side (taking up what might have been a second PC Card slot) and a cooling fan on the bottom.

dell latitude c600 battery

Processor manufacturer: Intel

Processor model: Mobile Pentium III

Clock speed: 0.85 GHz

RAM installed: 128 MB

Wireless LAN: integrated antenna for wireless 802.11b networking via a Mini-PCI card

Hard drive size: 10 GB

Graphics processor: ATi Rage Mobility 128 AGP 2X

Graphics RAM: 8 MB

Display diagonal size: 14.1 in

Dimensions (W x H x D): 31.9x3.5x25.4 cm

Weight: 2.7 kg

Operating system: Windows 2000 Professional

The Dell Latitude C600 is a straightforward corporate laptop with excellent battery life and some special touches, it's oranginal battery code:dell 1691p.

One aspect that is unique among the machines we tested (and worth copying by others) is the inclusion of both a touch pad and pointing stick. Those who are comfortable with both features can switch back and forth, depending on the task (both are active concurrently), and those with a preference can choose between them, turning one or the other off.

The C600 has an internal antenna for wireless networking, and Dell offers, for an extra $199 (direct), an internal Mini-PCI 802.11b adapter. Unfortunately, that card needs to be plugged into the same slot as the wired Ethernet Mini-PCI adapter. So to toggle between wired and wireless networking, you'll have to use a PC Card for one of them. This is an unexpected omission, especially when the similarly priced Acer and Toshiba models include standard internal wireless network and Ethernet capability.

Hot-swapping modules to and from the single bay worked like a charm: We just clicked an icon on the System Tray, ejected one module, and popped in the new one. Another highlight is the high-resolution display. Although its 14.1-inch size is the same as most others, the screen's 1,400-by-1,050 native resolution lets you see more of a document or Web page without scrolling.

As for the audio capabilities, the speaker volume was very low: For presentations, you'll need an external pair of powered speakers. The keyboard layout, spacing,Dell latitude c600 battery and feel were all comfortable. One notable keyboard feature is the Dell AccessDirect button, which calls up the on-disk documentation. You can also program this button to launch a frequently used application or—even more useful for IT managers—to preconfigure each machine with a specific support resource.

Dell's Inspiron 4000, Inspiron 8000, and C-series Latitude notebooks now integrate wireless networking--a first for the company. The Pentium III-750/600-based Latitude C600 includes a TrueMobile wireless LAN mini-PCI card that connects to an antenna (which Dell has been building into the three notebook lines since last fall),dell 1691p. Add an access point and you have 802.11b-compliant wireless local-area networking. Dell offers the $899 TrueMobile 1150 Wireless Access Point for the office and the $299 Wireless Network Hub for the home. In addition to hassle-free wireless networking, the handsome, lightweight C600 has features designed to appeal to companies whose employees share notebooks. It boasts an easy-to-remove hard drive, eraserhead and touchpad pointing devices, and an internal bay that can hold one of seven different devices. Dropping a dummy module into the bay cuts the notebook's weight to a svelte 5.5 pounds. Rear connections sport color icons that allow you to hook up peripherals quickly but good as the dell 1691p

Unfortunately, you can't have built-in wireless networking and built-in standard networking, too. The TrueMobile wireless network interface mini-PCI card occupies the internal mini-PCI bay normally used by the combination modem and network adapter. To add standard connectivity, you'll have to add a PC Card, such as the Xircom RealPort modem/NIC combination that was bundled with our review unit. (You can also order your notebook with a modem/NIC mini-PCI card and add a TrueMobile PC Card for occasional wireless networking.) Dell's documentation could be better: The C600 ships with a thin printed manual, leaving you to fish for most information in a difficult-to-search HTML user's guide.

The C600 is a sedate-looking, dark-gray laptop with a keyboard that's designed well but is somewhat noisy. The single bay, located on the front, accommodates either the 10X-24X CD-ROM drive or the floppy drive you get for its as-tested price, or any one of five optional devices--an 8X DVD-ROM drive, an 8X/4X/24X CD-RW drive, a Zip drive, a second battery, or a second hard drive. You can use the floppy drive alongside other devices by attaching it to the parallel port with an included cable. Aside from an S-Video port, the C600 is short on multimedia features; the 1691p is well,its sound is only so-so and it has no extra audio buttons. The Latitude's PC WorldBench 2000 score of 164 is slightly above average for a Pentium III-750/600 notebook running Windows 2000.

The C600 offers almost everything a company would want in a portable, highly flexible business laptop: wireless networking, both eraserhead and touchpad pointing devices, and the ability to rotate a wide range of add-in devices, including a second battery. The $2486 price looks high for a Pentium III-750/600 laptop, but seems reasonable considering everything else you get.

Sony VAIO PCG-V505EX PC Notebook review

I got this laptop when it first came out and it has been great every since.

The first thing I noticed is the insane amount of garbage software that Sony gives you. Many free trials and internet providers. They also give NO RECOVERY CDs! It really made me mad that they could not include a few CDs in an almost $2000 laptop. You have to burn the CDs yourself once you get the system started for the first time and this takes about 1 hour.

Once I had all the drivers and Sony utilities I wanted, I reformatted the hard drive and did a clean install of Windows XP(using my own CD). The system is much faster once you remove all the garbage. Then I got around to using this wonderful machine.

Battery life (Original Sony PCGA-BP4V & PCGA-BP2V)is excellent at about 5 hours. The 1.5Ghz Centrino is very powerful and great for all processor intensive tasks. The system runs quite cold and I have not had problems with overheating even when running at full load for days.

The screen is very bright and sharp. It is adjustable with a few presses of the keyboard. The great thing about the screen is that it is a standard screen and NOT wide. This is better for all applications except for DVD movies. However, the standard screen makes the laptop quite deep and uncomfortable for cramped flights. The native resolution is just right.

The speakers are crisp and loud for their size. The sound retains quality even at top volume. The CD-RW/DVD drive is quick and does it all. The only problem is that the drive is fixed and impossible to upgrade.

The one thing that slows down the system is the awful 4200RPM Hard Drive. The size is decent at 60GB but the transfer speed is awfully slow. The processor is always starved for information and everything else is much too fast for this drive. A very nice 7200RPM drive can be picked up for $100-200. With a nice drive this system is as fast as most desktops.

sony pcg-v505ex battery


Battery Run Time:
2.5 Hours

Battery Technology: Lithium ion



Stylish mobility, serious power! The next generation of the award-wining VAIO 505 line, the 4.34 lb. V505 Series includes an integrated CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive in one of the lightest Mobile Intel Pentium 4 Processor-M based notebooks available. Plus, with the optional double-capacity Lithium Ion PCGA-BP4V battery get extended battery life up to 7 hours!