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It’s definitely a matter of choice as well as need, because Dell has served us a great range of laptops which have great performance in both gaming field and normal work.

I am going to compare two of the most hyped laptops from Dell and see which one is better. However, I must tell you that it’s up to you to decide which one to buy in the end because I am here to give my own personal opinion like I gave to my friends.

Dell™ Inspiron 15R Laptop (T540611IN8)

Dell(TM) Studio 15 Laptop (S541036IN8)

I am talking particularly about these two laptops from the whole range of Inspiron 15R and Studio 15. This gives me the opportunity to compare two mid range laptops which are enough for a normal student who wants to work and play at the same time.

The chart below shows the hardware comparison between Inspiron 15R (above version) and Studio 15 (above version) respectively:

Dell Inspiron 15R and Studio 15 Specifications

It clearly shows you the main differences between both laptops in the first glance. There is slight change in processor’s model, RAM, Wireless Network Card and Optical Drive. Rest is same for both the laptops. Processor and RAM are defiantly the main components of a computer and can’t be ignored but you must look at what your needs are and will the processor and RAM suffice your daily work needs or not?

When I said that both of the laptops are great for mid range computing and normal student, I was talking about a student who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree (like my friend is doing B.E. and other one is pursuing B.D.S.), hence the use of laptop is still a lousy one for them.

They have to work on C++, Oracle, Java, .Net, Ajax, presentations, word processing, mastering Excel and much more. But none of these works are powerful enough to put the laptop at heavy load. As far as fun and entertainment is concerned. One would watch movies, video songs, listen to audio songs, play games, etc. So apart from games, none of these entertainment activities are powerful (again) enough to let your processor or RAM choke or hang.

My take on this is, that Intel has innovated Core I series keeping in mind that the applications should run the processor and not the processor should run applications. That’s what happening now, if your application wants some real power then it can tell the processor to turn on Turbo to use all of its available cores (I hope this makes sense). And RAM is something that speeds up your work and lets you enjoy what you do.

I am still running 1 GB of DDR2 RAM on my laptop (it’s really old, but I still like it) and everything is just fine as long as I stick to typing articles, blogging, making presentation, podcasts, video reviews and all that, my laptop helps me at every corner and never turns me down.

Now compare this with a laptop which has 3GB of DDR 3 RAM (like Inspiron 15R) or has 4GB of DDR 3 RAM (Studio 15). I hope you get the picture here, your work isn’t gonna stop just like that. Everything would run smooth and you’ll enjoy what you do, even if it’s just playing games.

However, I always wondered on how many people don’t know a thing about how these hardware configurations facilitates the laptop as a whole, but they still keep going on and on about asking about them. For example, they ask about the graphics card and if the seller says proudly that it contains a graphics card that has 1GB memory, then it happens to be the last thing they want to know about the graphics card. Not too bright, isn’t it?

So, let me talk about the graphics card which is present in these laptops, since it is same for only these two models of Inspiron 15R and Studio 15, I would only give a quick sneak peek on what you can do with this card in your hand.

It is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 with 1GB of graphical memory. This means that no matter what your game is, it won’t turn your card down just because it has less memory. Trust me; 1GB is a lot for nearly every game. And I am not talking about lousy games; I am talking about Crysis Warhead, Batman, GTA IV, Stalker: Call of Pripyat, Prototype, Dirt 2, etc. The list can go on and on, the point is that you can play nearly every game on any of these laptops.

I have added ‘nearly’ because I don’t want to arise your hopes too high. Games are getting better and better every year and sooner or later a new game would come and slow your laptop down or crash. When that time comes, don’t blame your laptop for not being powerful enough. In spite of that, blame yourself, for not buying a computer build especially for games.

Well, I hope you already know about ATI 5XXX series of mobile graphics card. They are just insane and can blow every game out of the way (not nearly). This card in particular, features Eyefinity (up to 4 monitors), Avivo HD (UVD2), Full Bitstream Audio (8-ch HD Audio over HDMI), DX 11 and everything that you can hope for.

You should definitely check this link from Notebookcheck.net which demonstrates the power and features of this really fine graphics card : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470.

Also, if you want to watch this card in action, then you shouldn’t read furthur before clicking this link: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 Capabilities.

By this time, you might be wondering and getting confused on which one of these must be in your ‘list of things to buy for graduation’. I do have something to say for this:

1GB of extra RAM (Studio 15) and slightly better processor (Core i3-370) can get you slightly better performance. But ask from yourself, is it that sane to invest Rs.5500/- for that little improvement. Your best bet would be to invest that sum of money to get 3-years of Warranty period, just to make sure that your laptop can be made anew if something ever goes wrong.

Currently Dell™ Inspiron 15R Laptop (T540611IN8) is available for Rs.38,900/- and Dell(TM) Studio 15 Laptop (S541036IN8) is available for Rs.44,400/-.

So there you have it, you can go for any of these laptops if it suits your budget, but even if you get Inspiron 15R, you will not regret it. After all, things have changed too much in just 1 year (just 2009 was enough to rule out other Intel Core processors). So when you pass your graduation and wonder why the hell did you buy a core i3 laptop when core i10 (or something) is ruling the market, then would be a nice time to blame me.

But right now, I can recommend you Inspiron 15R (above version) as much as Studio 15 (above version).

Update: I just submitted Dell Inspiron 15r to Dell’s shopping cart. Here’s the complete cost after tax. Click here.
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