Windows 7: Studio XPS i5 For CS Student?

Wow, you guys are all so helpful!

So I decided I'll stick with the cheaper Dell Studio 14 I ordered, which has more portability, too.



The full specs are, again:
Core i5 460M 2.53 Turbo 2.8
4GB PC 1066
500GB 7200 RPM HDD
14" 1366x768 (I did like the 1600x900 of the XPS 16, but the portability makes up for it, and 1600x900 is pushing it on a 14").
ATI 4530 w/512MB VRAM (I don't game).
Dell Wireless 1520 (might get an Intel card and pop it in later).

But all in all, this saves me a lot of money. I might pawn my iPad off to get a Dell Mini, does anyone know if the PM55 chipset is good graphically. I've used netbooks with GMA950 and GMA3150, both sucked at running IE9's video acceleration. I would just like something with enough gfx horsepower to do the web/email and PuTTY.

Scratch that. I went to the store and played with some 1366x768 laptops, and... well, I was not thrilled with the resolution.

I ordered a 7200 RPM Seagate Momentous, 500GB/16MB Cache HDD off of Newegg.

So I think it is best instead to go for the Studio XPS, even though the CPU is slightly slower, the GPU is better, and so is the resolution. Plus it has 6GB of faster RAM, and the SXPS is a higher quality machine.

So the specs will be:
Core i5 450M
6 GB PC3 1333
500GB 7200 RPM HDD
ATI 4670 w/512 MB VRAM
15.6" LED screen @ 1600x900 resolution

That sounds like a kick-ass machine to me. To complement it, I will get a 9-cell battery in the coming months, and if I can find a netbook that I really like (11"???), I will jump on one of those as well. Preferably one with an nVidia ION chipset.

When you order a 9-cell battery, get an off brand one. The Dell branded batteries that you order off of there websites are severely over priced. I wanted to get a new battery for my Dell laptop a few months ago. Dell want $140 for it. I found the exact some battery but with a different bradn name on it on amazon.com for $28 with free shipping, which works great btw.

None of that requires any gfx horsepower, especially PuTTY as it's just a terminal.

Yea, the PuTTY part was just mentioning that I needed to do that on the netbook as well.

But for the web, I disagree. a GPU that supports IE9/FF4 GPU acceleration, as well as h264 for Flash would go a long way in assisting a lightly-powered Atom.

Only if you actually use sites that support GPU acceleration often.

I'm not too sure what it is about netbooks, but on my old eeePC 1005HA, sites with graphics and whatnot (like politico.com) ran sluggishly.

And EVERYTHING has flash content on it, unfortunately.

Update:

So I went ahead and ordered the Studio XPS/Seagate HDD. I will send the Studio 14 back when it comes in, as I feel like I am making the right decision by not compromising.

Any other suggestions, namely in the netbook area.

Thanks again.