Over the 4th I found a Dell Inspiron refurb for dirt cheap with a i7-2670 QM, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA 525m video card, and now the downside....720p screen/5400 RPM hard drive like my current laptop. But after selling the Toshiba which is too slow to do much of anything I'm out under 200 bucks for a processor ~4 times faster, 5GB more RAM, and a stand alone video card so performance increase per dollar this would be pretty hard to bear.

This will occasionally be a really mobile computer but most of the time I'm expecting to bring it to places along with a USB 3.0 hard drive. So the question is with the internal 5,400 RPM hard drive will that mostly just slow me down during loading the programs like photoshop? Or will it also hurt it while editing files? I'll have all my photos on a the USB 3.0 7,200 RPM drive.

My laptop uses the Sandy Bridge I7-2630QM as well. That processor can kick some butt. 8gb of ram is plenty, if you're not working with 50+ layers in PS and/or doing video editing on Premier while watching Netflix, you should be fine. Well, I bet it even it can handle all of that haha. Some Dell websites will state that this processor can handle only up to 8gbs of RAM, but Intel's website says it can handle 16gb. I can confirm that it handles 16gb at 1600mhz (dual-channel), just in case you plan on upgrading it.

The harddrive is a simple fix, just replace it with a 7200rpm drive and use the 5400rpm drive as a 2nd hard drive (provided an enclosure for the Dell is available to replace the DVD-drive bay), or just use an external adapter so you can still use it for storage. MAting a 5400rpm drive to a quad-core processor defeats the purpose of having a fast machine. But if you can stand waiting, just use the drive that it comes with, but you will upgrade it sooner or later, and I've seen prices on hard drives go down recently, it may be a good time to buy one.

It's a good upgrade (the laptop) especially if its dirt cheap! With the Nvidia card, you can run dual or more monitors and play some games on the side (the 720p monitor might be out of date, but an external monitor fixes that easily). Try to make sure you retain some type of warranty though, you may never know, its Dell, they're not perfect. Cheers.

The issue is it's a Inspiron N5110 Dell decided to make it so you have to disassemble basically the whole thing to get at the hard drive otherwise that would a the no brainer. I have no idea why they would do that....it's the first time I've ever seen such crazy instructions for something that is usually needed during the lifetime of a computer:

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...m/hd-assem.htm



It has a 1 year standard one....I can add another year for ~50 bucks which I might do later but any of the good service plans cost close to as much as the computer. At this price all I need is 2 years out of it and hopefully then I'll upgrade to a mobile workstation.

Im sure you can find a local PC store that can install the HD for you if it proves to be more difficult for yourself. But honestly, I think you'll be fine with that slower HD, you'll probably use less power as well. My older Acer netbook (Acer ZG5) was somewhat of a hassle to break down but I was able to do it, changed the RAM stick on it. If the price is right, thats the only question :)

I might not have much to worry about, my workstation only has a 7,200 RPM drive and it just loaded photoshop in about 4-5 seconds

If you are not using it is as your primary photo processing machine, and only as a remote machine it should be fine.

Phil

Got it and it's able to start photoshop no problem loading it in all of 7 seconds so that's fine. And as for it being a "scratch and dent" it has a few minor things on the glossy front, aka less than I'll probably give it the first time I put it in a backpack with a bunch of other stuff. I can tell why it was returned after the fact though, there is a stuck pixel maybe 3 up and 20 over on the bottom left corner. Since it's in the Windows 7 menu I didn't even notice it at first and even watching video with a lot of blacks you don't pick it up since it's way out there so I have no complaints. If that's the only hiccup for a ~1,100 dollar laptop I got for well over 50% off I'm happy.

One thing I've been surprised with is Dell's basic service, I got someone within 30 seconds on 2 calls now (it was an Indian call center unlike the Workstation group) and they were pretty quick with helping out. The power supply they sent with it had a short or something causing a crackling sound, I told them this and in a minute they were taking my info down to send out the replacement. The only issue is their automated system doesn't seem to know whats going on, I got a call an hour ago saying due to weather my shipment will be delayed a day so I called and they gave me a tracking number.....it's already in MA and 2 towns over so instead of the 2-3 day shipping they overnighted it.

And a quick thing about quality, this isn't an ultrabook, a mobile workstation, or a macbook pro, BUT it's nice for a budget laptop and feels better than my ~2 year old Toshiba Satellite with a lot less flex and as an added bonus the screen is brighter and the speakers are much louder.