After much looking around for a new laptop a finally bought a Dell Inspiron, and it's great.

I paid 31,500 at Pantip (corner shop near the lift on the fourth floor. A very good guy who I'll buy from again) for my laptop that included vista and mCafee. It's got a 250G drive, 2.16Ghz processor and a couple of Mb ram (great screen and a fast graphics card too). I also paid 3,250 (different shop) for Microsoft office with three licenses.

I've now been using this Laptop for nearly a month and I'm delighted in every area.

Secondly, and to my great surprise, my true home wifi is very good too. I pay 1,000 baht per month for which I have permanent fixedline access on my home desktop (for the missus to fuddle around whilst I'm out working), as well as wifi when I bring my laptop home. They work at the same time. Included also is the True hotspots (unlimited access), so around town I log in (Starbucks for example) for no further fee.

The Dell wifi is great and very fast. In the three or four office locations I work my wifi is far quicker than the internet access on the desktops. I know this is largely due to the wifi server, but the Dell handles all of these sites, with their differing setups, effortlessly.

I'd highly recommend this laptop which can now be bought with a lower spec and higher price at Powerbuy...

is it the inspiron 1420 with the nvidia card and the 1440x900 14.1 inch display ?

Hate to burst your bubble about the great friend you have now, but if you bought it in BKK it is most likely a malaysian friend, and not american...

If the title to your post were an advert then you would most certainly be contravening the trade descriptions act

Intelligent, smart, quick witted, - UNDERSTATED AMERICAN!!!!!

Hate to burst your bubble about the great friend you have now, but if you bought it in BKK it is most likely a malaysian friend, and not american...

most likely it contains subsystem parts from Japan, Taiwan, China and Singapore. Many mfg's do the final assembly in less expensive asian countries. My Apple MBP for example was assembled in China but most of the parts come from elsewhere. Probably the key distinguishing feature of a product these days is where it was Designed.

It seems that these cheap ones (my friend bough as Sony for 31,00 baht) have a Pentium Dual Core instead of a Core 2 Duo processor.

is it the inspiron 1420 with the nvidia card and the 1440x900 14.1 inch display ?

NVIDIA GeForce 84000M GS

I'm not sure about the display, it's one of those soft to the touch numbers, but I can't find a description of it in my user manual or in the computer control panel (I'm sure I'm looking in the wrong place). It is 14.1 inch.

Hate to burst your bubble about the great friend you have now, but if you bought it in BKK it is most likely a malaysian friend, and not american...

True, it is Malaysian made, though American designed and branded. (Would have limited my title options.)

Incidentaly, last night I watched the England match by streaming (wifi) on TVUplayer and it was pretty watchable. On my desktop, which is a couple of years old, it was unwatchable.

When I bought this machine I tried to spend as little money as possible whilst having a strong multi functional performer. Everything on this little 'Malaysian' beauty is great. The one very small complaint is weight - I get three hours on battery life sometimes, thus I presume it contains the 9 celll battery which is quite heavy; more than 2.5kg I'd guess., for this laptop.

It seems that these cheap ones (my friend bough as Sony for 31,00 baht) have a Pentium Dual Core instead of a Core 2 Duo processor.

I hope your not trying to suggest that my Malaysian beauty is cheap! She has a powerful mind (Core 2 Duo T5850 2.16GHz). In retrospect I might have got the next one up with the 8100 processor and extra RAM (and plenty extra cash too), but to be fair this laptop has never appeared slow for what I've been doing - quite the contrary.

For an equivilent performer / quality you'd be looking at spending 5,000 baht more on an HP. I think this laptop has a great price compared to the competition (I spent six hours checking every shop in Pantip, after spending the previous weekend checking out a few other large department stores [MBK, Paragon, etc]).

I've seen many Sony's at discount prices, but you need to spend 50,000 on a Sony to match this Dell's performance. Sony's have good battery lives, but are outragously expensive considering their functionality levels.

Did you get 32 bit or 64bit version of Vista? I've found that if you have a Core 2 duo and more than 2 gigs of ram, the 64 bit versions of Vista really brings your notebook to life.

Did you get 32 bit or 64bit version of Vista? I've found that if you have a Core 2 duo and more than 2 gigs of ram, the 64 bit versions of Vista really brings your notebook to life.

It's just Vista Home Basic, so I presume that's the 32bit (?). I've been pleased with Vista, though I only know this version - what extras do other versions offer?

Is that the new one with 19 hours of battery life?

Is that the new one with 19 hours of battery life?

Closer to 19 minutes - ok, 2 hours 19 minutes.

I brought my Inspiron to Thailand 6 years ago and there was no local support. Much talk about it coming to Thailand, but I have no evidence of it. Do you"

Did you buy a laptop without inquiring about repairs at a Dell Authorized dealer?

I brought my Inspiron to Thailand 6 years ago and there was no local support. Much talk about it coming to Thailand, but I have no evidence of it. Do you"

Did you buy a laptop without inquiring about repairs at a Dell Authorized dealer?

Dell has upped it's game locally, with increased sales, channels and support (so I'm told). It has a waranty...

(I plan to leave very soon too)

Out of interest; how has your machine performed? What problems have you had with it?

Is that the new one with 19 hours of battery life?

Closer to 19 minutes - ok, 2 hours 19 minutes.

LMAO! you goof.