Posted by Sir Four at 10:23am Mar 4 '11
I had been leaning toward the 15R (15" screen) on Newegg, but was concerned the keyboard quality after seeing an AMD-chip Dell that looked *identical* to the 15R (model M501R) in Best Buy and noticing it had the worst keyboard in the store: ridiculous flex and cheap-feeling, rattling keys. So I tried to find other stores where they sell the exact model I was looking for. Staples hooked me up.
So, the 15R at Staples had a fine keyboard. No issue there. Their 15R was $580, compared to Newegg's $780 (currently $850, actually), but it offered 4GB of memory instead of 6, and integrated graphics instead of a dedicated card. Then I noticed the 17R, which is the same machine except with a 17" screen. It was marked "clearance" @ $600. So I started thinking, "do I want to spend $780 at Newegg for a few upgrades on that 15-inch, or do I want to save some money and go with this larger-screen model?"
15" always seemed like the right compromise between size and portability. But I rarely travel with the thing, and I really appreciate screen real estate, so I figured I'd go for the larger one. Also, all the 15" screens are zomg widescreen which means they've actually reduced vertical height and added width. My old laptop has 800px of vertical resolution, whereas new 15" models have 768px. The 17R gives me 900px. Vertical resolution is important! When you've got windows open with menus and toolbars sucking away precious vertical space, it's nice to have some decent room left over.
Once I got my annoying internet problem fixed, I've really been enjoying this machine. For $600, it was a great buy. Core i5 @ 2.53 GHz, 4 GB memory, 500 GB hard drive. Battery life is > 3 hours. Sucks that the screen is glossy, but whattayagonnado?