Member Avatar for swissknife007

I am about to place my order for the Dell Inspiron 14-R.

Processor	2nd generation Intel® Core™ i5-2450M processor 2.50 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.10 GHz
Operating System	Genuine Windows® 7 Home Basic SP1 64bit (English)
Display	14.0" HD WLED True-Life Display (1366x768) with LCD Bezel
Memory3	4GB4 DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz
Hard Drive	500GB3 hard drive (5400RPM)
Video Card	AMD Radeon™ HD 6470M - 1GB (For ICC)
Warranty	1 Year Complete Cover Accidental Damage Protection
Advertised System Weight	2.38kg

1)I would like to know whether I should have AMD Radeon or Intel HD3000 GPU?
I am going to use the laptop mainly for programming work .However I would like to avoid facing any possible problems. However I would also not like to waste money on fulfilling
fantasies. I would like to save the cost if it is needless/
2)Should I Go for Win 7 Home Basic or Premium ?
I already have a pirated copy Win 7 Ultimate
Does it void the software warranty of Dell if you install a pirated copy of windows 7.
Should I go for basic if I can work on the virtual box?
3)Should I purchase 14 or 15 inch?
I am not going to travel a lot maybe like twice a week with it.
Is there a problem with viewing in 14 inch screen?
Is there significant improvement in 15 inch screen?
It is going to cost me 60 dollars more for 15 inches.Is 15 worth the money?
4)How much warranty cover should I purchase first up?
And is there any fineprint that I need to safeguard against?
Please answer in points with detailed explanation if possible.

Thanks.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by rubberman

Dani AI

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Short summary and practical advice tied to the thread (notes for and building on ):

For programming work the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 on the i5-2450M is usually sufficient — it handles desktop compositing, video playback and most IDEs comfortably while saving cost, battery and heat compared with a discrete card. The Radeon HD 6470M gives noticeably better 3D/gaming and GPU-accelerated performance (useful only for gaming, heavier OpenCL workloads or GPU-accelerated video tasks), but it raises power draw and thermal output. Benchmarks show the 6470M ahead in most 3D tests, while the HD3000 is fine for development work and offers Intel Quick Sync for fast transcoding tasks. (notebookcheck.net)

Windows edition and virtualization: Home Premium includes Media Center/Aero and is the usual consumer choice; Professional/Ultimate add business features (XP Mode, domain join, BitLocker) that matter only for specific use-cases. If the plan is to run Windows inside a VM (VirtualBox snapshots make safe rollback easy, as suggested), a Home edition will work fine for development; VirtualBox is a robust free option and its snapshot feature is convenient for testing. (pcworld.com)

Pirated OS and warranty: Dell’s limited hardware warranty explicitly excludes software and notes that installing third‑party products can, at Dell’s discretion, affect warranty support. Installing an unlicensed Windows image eliminates any vendor software support and risks complications with warranty handling — use a properly licensed copy to avoid those problems and legal risks. Read the warranty/service terms closely before changing OS. (dell.com)

Screen and warranty choices: 14" at 1366x768 gives higher pixel density than the same resolution on a larger panel and is more portable; 15" buys more on-screen area but usually the same resolution on budget models. For coding, higher resolution (or an external monitor at the desk) improves productivity — the external-monitor + smaller laptop pattern that mentioned is a sensible, cost-effective workflow. Consider at least a multi-year hardware warranty (many buyers prefer 3 years) and, if accidental damage is a concern, check the exact exclusions and claim process on the service add-on before purchase.

Member Avatar for rubberman

The integrated Intel GPU is not bad these days, and can handle normal videos quite well, but if you are going to do any serious graphics work, then the Radeon is a good choice. If mostly you are going to do software development, then either will do you well, unless of course you are interested in GPU programming.

As for OS, my preference is to run Linux as the base OS, and then run Windows in a virtual machine under Linux. I user VirtualBox as a virtual machine manager - open source, free, and very reliable. The ability to snapshot your virtual machine means that if your Windows VM gets a virus, you can instantly fix it by reverting to the last snapshot. Ipso-presto! No more virus! I do both Linux and Windows C, C++, and Java programming, mostly cross-platform stuff that has to run on both Linux and Windows. This setup works well for me.

Screens. Well, I have a Lenovo at work w/ 17" HD display. I still use an external 24" display for daily work. My other laptop is a Dell D630 w/ 15" display, which is ok for travel, but I have it connected to ... a 24" external monitor when I am working at home on it, unless I happen to be sitting in my living room easy chair with it in my lap. So, save the money on the screen and get a good external monitor that gives you better resolution and bigger display.

Warranty? I prefer 3 years. My experience is that everything that is going to break does so either right away, or somewhere around 1.5 to 2 years. I've had drives, motherboards, and other cruft break (overheating problems mostly) around the 2 year mark on just about every laptop I've had. Why do you think all these manufacturers are going to 1 year standard warranties? Dell used to give a 3 year one on their business systems (Latitude), but have recently ratcheted that back to 1 year standard. Now you have to pay for the extra years, but it's worth it. A drive will set you back about $100, and a motherboard a lot more than that!

Anyway, back to screen: a high-res 14" screen is preferable to a lower-res 15" one. The more pixels the better, IMO. That way, you can increase the font size easily enough and still have crisp images.

Edited by rubberman because: n/a
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