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[US] NewEgg, Dell Latitude 15 3540 (Refurbished) for 600USD

Aquinus

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Being the season of buying gift, my wife requested a new laptop (knowing it was a tall order and not expecting it) I'm going to surprise her. She's using my old Dell Studio 1735 which has a Core 2 Penryn 2.1Ghz, a broken CPU cooler (which somehow still works), and a missing key on the keyboard. Needless to say, she tortured my poor Dell laptop (which I didn't need anymore since work provided me a mac laptop.) In an attempt to give her something that will last her many years to come, I saw this deal for a Dell laptop on NewEgg for 600 USD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3TX2B23832

A little about it:
It's a Dell Latitude 15" 3540.
It has a dual-core i5 4210U @ 1.7Ghz (2.7Ghz turbo) @ 15-watt TDP
4GB of memory (expandable to 16GB).
500GB Hybrid HDD
Radeon HD 8850M
and a 1080p display

Clearly it's a refurbished laptop, but it still comes with Dell's full 1 year warranty.

My wife mostly watches video, read e-books, and play browser-based video games so nothing she does is truly CPU intensive and for 600 USD, it felt like a great deal as the only real requirement my wife asked for was to hold on to the 1080p display (the studio 1735 I have has a 1920x1200 display).

I just felt that I should share this, if anyone who is looking for a laptop for high-def video on the cheap, this felt like a pretty good bet. I'll check-in after Christmas after my wife starts using the laptop to let everyone know how it is.
 

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I would make sure on that warranty as it all so says 90 days.
 

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Being the season of buying gift, my wife requested a new laptop (knowing it was a tall order and not expecting it) I'm going to surprise her. She's using my old Dell Studio 1735 which has a Core 2 Penryn 2.1Ghz, a broken CPU cooler (which somehow still works), and a missing key on the keyboard. Needless to say, she tortured my poor Dell laptop (which I didn't need anymore since work provided me a mac laptop.) In an attempt to give her something that will last her many years to come, I saw this deal for a Dell laptop on NewEgg for 600 USD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3TX2B23832

A little about it:
It's a Dell Latitude 15" 3540.
It has a dual-core i5 4210U @ 1.7Ghz (2.7Ghz turbo) @ 15-watt TDP
4GB of memory (expandable to 16GB).
500GB Hybrid HDD
Radeon HD 8850M
and a 1080p display

Clearly it's a refurbished laptop, but it still comes with Dell's full 1 year warranty.

My wife mostly watches video, read e-books, and play browser-based video games so nothing she does is truly CPU intensive and for 600 USD, it felt like a great deal as the only real requirement my wife asked for was to hold on to the 1080p display (the studio 1735 I have has a 1920x1200 display).

I just felt that I should share this, if anyone who is looking for a laptop for high-def video on the cheap, this felt like a pretty good bet. I'll check-in after Christmas after my wife starts using the laptop to let everyone know how it is.
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...mq-quad-core-gtx-765m-650-shipping-us.207869/
Would buying this from @bpgt64 be worth your time? Maybe you can work something out with him. No Tax or Vat.
 

Aquinus

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I bought one from Dell direct refurbished with 1-year warranty in March 2014 with a slower 4200u processor for around the same price. Been a pretty solid unit, pretty good for gaming too. Dual core + HT that sips power is a huge plus!

The issues with it are the GPU drivers...Dell screwed the pooch with the Intel HD + AMD 8850. But I found using the newest Dell Intel drivers + hacked 14.4's (most recent I've tried) works beautifully. The only issue with those hacked drivers (I can link if you want) is that you lose the hibernation feature (which sleep mode goes into after 180 minutes by default).

Battery life is solid. The TN screen is actually pretty decent, anti-glare, 1080 resoloution. The keyboard works well. The temps are a little warm, but my CPU barely ever goes beyond 75C. The CPU and GPU share a single heatpipe and a small fan with one exhaust. I reseated mine and improved temps by 3-5C. The issue here is as-soon-as you hit 70C, the CPU throttles down to 1.6Ghz. It still works surprisingly well.

The touch pad works fine, but a Logitech M325 works better. The build feels pretty solid overall, it is very easy to service, the wifi card is under the keyboard which uses simple perimeter clips.

The 8850 is pretty damn potent for many games, I am able to play Elite Dangerous with high settings and fxaa at 1080 with overall smooth results. Games like Planetary Annihilation and SupCom 2 play buttery smooth. I've played quite a few different games on here, and the only one I've had to turn the resolution down on was Star Citizen to play it on medium and that was 1600x900.

Windows 8 works well. The stock HDD is slow...I replaced with an SSHD with good results. I also added another 4GB of RAM for 8GB total.

I used my laptop for virtualization projects for college this semester with amazing results. I had as many as 4 virtual machines running at once, a Win 7, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server Minecraft, Asterisk with FreePBX as a server for my telephony lap handling a dozen SIP phones and a SIP trunk, and a Windows 10 test. This little lappy had handled everything I've thrown at it and then some.

The charger works well, and can get pretty warm when gaming is happening. The laptop + charger is light enough to carry around pretty easily. I've used this laptop for school, work and personal use for almost a year and am pretty damn happy with it. The wifi works well, I've never used Bluetooth but was told there were driver issues.

I also dual boot Ubuntu 14.04.1 on my rig with 8.1 as well. I use this lappy every day, sometimes the kids use it, I've let my old lady borrow it. Everyone's happy with it. It handles movies, networking, and many tasks quite easily.

Overall a great little laptop! :toast:
 

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3rd party seller... I'd be cautious.

It's a good deal if it works out, but I've already had one bad experience with a 3rd party seller through newegg so I don't trust them.
 

Aquinus

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I said this is for my wife who watches video and reads E-books with a 1080p requirement. I would rather have slower tech that's newer that uses less power and she already thinks that the 17" she's using now is a bit on the heavy side. I've already ordered the laptop, so the ball is already set in motion.
3rd party seller... I'd be cautious.

It's a good deal if it works out, but I've already had one bad experience with a 3rd party seller through newegg so I don't trust them.
That's what I thought at first but most of the reviews for the vendor seem solid and the ones that weren't were dumb people who didn't update their shipping address before ordering their stuff. It seems to me that the only part of the specs that I wasn't able to verify was the hybrid HDD, which is fine.
I use this lappy every day, sometimes the kids use it, I've let my old lady borrow it. Everyone's happy with it. It handles movies, networking, and many tasks quite easily.
Thanks, that was the goal. There won't be a whole lot of gaming going on, but I wanted it to be ready in case.
 

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Moved to hot deals section.
 

Aquinus

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The laptop came in. So far it's faster than I expected, but that could just be the hybrid HDD. I haven't done much more than browse the internet on it and install updates, but if those two tasks are any indication it seems to me the laptop itself it pretty solid. It's nothing more memory or a pure SSD could fix in the long term. What surprised me is how small the battery is. Also even during updates when the CPU would sometimes hit 100% usage, the fan never became audible. It feels like a very solid laptop. In fact the build quality of this laptop feels like it is superior to the Dell Studio 1735 it's replacing. So far, I'm satisfied and so is the wife, so I think it turned out well.

@newtekie1 The laptop was practically new. It could have been sold new and not refurbished and I wouldn't have known the difference to be completely honest. The laptop even came in a Dell box, all the wrapping, trinkets, discs, everything my prior Dell laptops have came with. All the specs were as they said and it shipped overnight (my order) and it was delivered less than 24 hours after I ordered it and to add icing to the cake, it even arrived on a Saturday. I would say Notebook Avenue in NewEgg is solid if my order was any indication.
 

Aquinus

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So I finally got Windows 8 all updated (with some fighting I might add,) and got 8.1 installed without an issue. I updated both the Intel and AMD graphics drivers. Then suddenly there was a R9 M265X inside instead of a 8850M. :p
graphics.PNG

So far so good. Both QuickSync and AMD with DXVA decodes 1080p, but it appears that DXVA with the 8850M (M265X?) and audio quality is pretty good. The display is pretty smooth. It's no IPS panel but it's really not bad given the price. The Hybrid HDD is quick on the reads but writes are brutal. I'll be putting an SSD in it soon. The wi-fi card also only does 2.4Ghz. So I'll be getting an SDD, new wi-fi card, and more memory. The laptop came with a single 4GB SODIMM but it supports 16GB total. So I might start with a single 8GB DIMM that's compatible with the 4GB. I'll probably do this all in a couple months when the wife's birthday rolls around.

All in all, it was a great deal for 600 USD. It's basically a 1000 USD laptop for 600 USD.

Side note: I wrote this post on the laptop. The keyboard takes a little getting used to. The key spacing is a little weird (as in, I'm not used to it), but nothing you can't get used to. Also, while browsing, the stock battery in Windows claims to have 5-6 hours of life to it which isn't too bad either.
 
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