Hi,

My new Dell Inspiron 8500 is on its way to my house. I used to have a
5000e but it was stolen so I still have that case but fear it will be
too small. I decided not buy a case (carring bag) from dell so now I
need to get a new one. Does anyone have any good ideas? I am
specifically looking for an 8500 owners opinion since the model has
the wide display but any info would be great.

I would prefer to get some sort of saddle bag but am open to anything.

Any thoughts, suggestions would be appreciated.

thanks

I got a bag from Tiger Direct, which they don't list now, for about 35
bucks. My 8500 fits great, although I did add a little padding inside
the bottom and along the sides for added protection as this bag isn't
great about that. It carries my 8500, rolled up keyboard, AC pack,
lots of discs, an external mouse, small digital camera, portable surge
protector, etc.. with no problems.

It's listed as-
U.S. Luggage K47 Black Leather Notebook Case U55-1002
on my tiger direct invoice.

I found it in a quick search for $25 at
http://www.tipsdr.com/3U55-1002.html

It might be what you are looking for.

I would highly recommend one with a good strap.

Musashi

On 23 Jul 2003 13:31:49 -0700, winderjj@hotmail.com (winderjj) wrote:

Thanks once again for the help.

Fedex says my machine is on the truck for delievery. With any luck
I'll have it some time this weekend.

Great.

If you are going to use it at a desktop a lot I would highly recommend
getting one of the $20 notebook cooling pads from tigerdirect.com

It keeps my HDD a minimum of 10 degrees(F) cooler and more like 20
degrees cooler when I'm running high end games and such.

Not sure how much it's helping keep the CPU cool because it's sensor
is not set up to be seen by any monitor programs or even in the bios.

Musashi

On 25 Jul 2003 07:25:25 -0700, winderjj@hotmail.com (winderjj) wrote:

Well I got it. Love Love Love the screen. I haven't had much time to
use the machine. Some apps seem to load up real slow but once they
are running it is fine. Still have to get used to some things that
are different from the 5000e I used to have. I don't really like the
touchpad either. The keyboard seems fine though. Either they fixed
it or I am not as anal as some people.



Musashi <drunk@home.com> wrote in message news:<ipm3ivk27ogl3kjkn2ig5mm0g3e58poa50@4ax.com>. ..

Glad to hear you like it. What is different about the touchpad
compared to the 5000e you had?

Same here regarding the keyboard.

Musashi

On 27 Jul 2003 09:17:01 -0700, winderjj@hotmail.com (winderjj) wrote:

The touchpad area seems to be a little smaller. With all of the
screen real estate it is hard to get around Now you got me
thinking. Maybe it just feels smaller because of the resolution. I
love the resolution because I am a programmer, My girlfriend on the
other hand hates it. I also would like it if dell raised the touchpad
a little.

The machine runs pretty hot too. The battery I can deal with but the
CPU really burns sometimes.

Musashi <drunk@home.com> wrote in message news:<m4p8ivkdn2aif78k8uppvu5eursanqk1hs@4ax.com>. ..

I think the touchpad just feels that way because of the wider screen.
I recall other laptop pads being such that one drag across the pad was
equal to half the screen. With the 8500 there is a little left to go
with the extra width.

Mine seemed to run quite warm in the beginning and then calmed down
after a few weeks. But now I mostly use it as a desktop and use that
cooling fan pad that I described earlier so it's not much of an issue
for me.

As for the resolution, you can go in and supersize the font and change
all those settings to make everything bigger, including the icons.
With the "clear type" turned on it all comes out looking good.

I don't actually recall where all those things are but maybe someone
can chime in about that. Otherwise, make a new post asking how to blow
up all those things.

Musashi


On 28 Jul 2003 05:48:22 -0700, winderjj@hotmail.com (winderjj) wrote: