Rate my Dell Laptop: Can I do better with another brand or deal?

[CheeseMoney]

Hi all-- I've always preferred Desktops to Laptops and my standard rig at home is 3 20" 204Bs with an aging sempron and crappy motherboard with XP that is fine for poker and quite a few games. Recently, girlfriend has been in and out of the hospital and I've been spending almost all of my time at her place, hence the need for a laptop.

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)

OPERATING SYSTEM FREE Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium with 1GB of memory
LCD PANEL 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™ (1900x1200)

MEMORY 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz

HARD DRIVE Size: 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

OPTICAL DRIVE 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability

VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS

SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Audio

This will be my mobile poker platform, and is easily overkill for poker only, but I anticipate I'll throw a few games on the system, hence the beefed up graphics card. Since I hardly every play games, this is probably a huge leak for me with this system, but I'd rather have it and not use it than want it later and not have it. I plan to install XP in addition to the preinstalled Vista because I hate DRM and such, and want options as well as compatibility for poker software. I'm using a 500$ off coupon (off their inflated price), which sucks becuase it kills the $250 instant savings--making it really only 250$ off of an inflated price. I also hate the lack of a number pad, but I guess I could always get a wireless one. Total price is:

$1,736

Does this make sense, and can I do better? Your advice is appreciated.

[CheeseMoney]

additionally-- futureproofing is about the only reason I've chosen to upgrade to the T7200 (2.00GHZ, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 Mhz FSB) and the ram (to match the faster FSB) from the T5300 Core 2 Duo (1.73GHZ, 2 MB L2 Cache, 533 FSB). The difference is about 200 bucks for the faster chip/ram. Any advice on whether i'll ever notice the difference, now or 2 years from now?

[whangarei]

[ QUOTE ]
additionally-- futureproofing is about the only reason I've chosen to upgrade to the T7200 (2.00GHZ, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 Mhz FSB) and the ram (to match the faster FSB) from the T5300 Core 2 Duo (1.73GHZ, 2 MB L2 Cache, 533 FSB). The difference is about 200 bucks for the faster chip/ram. Any advice on whether i'll ever notice the difference, now or 2 years from now?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm no expert but my sense is this is overkill for a mainly poker-only computer. I think you shoud at least consider saving a few hundred by going with the base processor, memory and hard drive. Also consider having it built with XP instead of Vista.

[Beavis68]

I think the extra 4mb of onboard cache will be with it RAM looks good to me

[funkyworms]

Is there an option for a 7200rpm hard drive? I know 2.5" 7200rpm drives are rare but that setup is too nice for such a slow HD.

[jumbojacks]

any Thinkpad with FlexView (IPS) panel + EPP discount (you can easily get this if you search the right places) + Tailormade discount >>>>>>>>> any other laptop on the market