J.D. Hodges

This month I’ll be switching over from a Dell M4400 to a Dell M6500. Samantha is rocking it out with a Dell Vostro V130. They are all three excellent machines, but for my purposes the M6500 is nearly perfect.

Specifically, it is:

• bargain priced (since the M6600 is out now) especially if refurbished via Dell Outlet (w/3 year warranty)
• high-enough performance (dual core 4 threads HT is enough and should minimize heat compared to quad core 8 threads)
• up to four storage drives capable
  • (2) 2.5″ SATA
  • optical drive replaceable with 2.5″ SATA HD/SSD
  • (1) mSATA.
• I have the storage configured as follows:
  • 2.5″ SSD (for programs and OS)
  • Dual 750GB WD Black 2.5″ drives in RAID1 (for data)
• Easily replaced Vista with Windows 7 (I thought about VMWare ESXi but didn’t know how well occasional [Starcraft 2] gaming would work with it…)
• Gorgeous 17″ UltraSharp WUXGA (1920×1200) RGB LED Display
• Easily up to 16GB RAM (since there are four SODIMM slots) I will be starting with 8GB
• USB 3.0 (I was surprised since the outlet page didn’t list this as included on my model…)

Overall I am gaga over this machine and I cannot wait to use it for work and play!

Original factory specs:

Item Description: 

-- Precision Mobile Workstation M6500 Laptop Genuine Windows Vista Business
    Quantity: 1
-- Precision Mobile Workstation M6500 Laptop

-- Silver

-- Software

-- Operating System DVD

-- Certified Refurbished

-- Dell Control Point software

-- 8X DVD ± RW Drive

-- Software

-- Software

-- Genuine Windows Vista Business

-- Roxio Software CD

-- Documentation

-- Shipping

-- Power DVD Software

-- 500 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) with Free Fall Sensor

-- No Modem

-- Service Software

-- 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)

-- Label

-- 64BIT Operating System

-- Trend Micro 16.6 PC-cillin 30 Day

-- Power DVD Software

-- No Raid

-- 210W/240W switchable Slim 3P A/C Adapter

-- 125V Power Cord

-- Operating System Label

-- Base Assembly

-- 17 inch UltraSharp WUXGA (1920x1200) RGB LED Display

-- Intel WiFi Link 5300 802.11a/g/n Draft Mini Card

-- 1.0 GB NVIDIA Quadro FX 2800M Graphics

-- Processor: Intel Core i5-560M Dual Core (2.66GHz 3MB for M6500)

-- Label

-- Back-lit Keyboard

-- Windows Live

-- 9 Cell Primary Battery

-- No Camera

-- Documentation

-- No Fingerprint Reader

-- Palmrest W/O Smart Card Reader

-- Roxio Software CD

-- Prec M6500: 3Yr Basic Ltd Warranty and NBD On-site Service (Included In Price)