New Laptop

This is the laptop I think I'm going to buy.. Am I missing something here? Comes to $999 cnd, which is a lot cheaper than anything similar I've found. It's a Dell Inspiron 15, and I'm buying it for use at school and FFXI.

Components
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600 (2.40GHz/1066Mhz FSB/3MB cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1
4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 800MHz
320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD4330
2X Blu-ray (BD) Combo Drive (BD Read Only)
Integrated 1.3 MP Webcam
Dell Wireless 1515 802.11 Wireless-N Mini-card
6-cell battery

Essentials
McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 30-Days

Accessories
Also Includes
Glossy, widescreen 15.6 inch display (1366x768)
Integrated 10/100 Network Card
High Definition Audio 2.0

doesnt look to bad

if your going for gaming, i would go for the xps honestly. yea you wanna use it for school to. just my two cents. xps is a bit more pricey tho. actually, i could email the specs to my hubby and he'd be able to give you a better idea of what you want.

Not bad specs for the price.
Are you planning on making this your main system for FFXI?

A couple notes.
I hate McAfee. I don't use any virus protection on my gaming PC, but at work I use AVG which I definitely recommend over McAfee/Norton/etc. You can get it free at free.avg.com.

Vista and FFXI... I run Vista personally, but you will see better performance and stability on XP.

Processor is good. FFXI is more reliant on CPU than GPU, so you should be fine there.

Specs on this are a little better than a couple of the xps machines I was looking at, which were also in my price range. I noticed there's a bit of overlap in the specs of xps and inspiron models, and from what I was looking at, where they overlap and are pretty-much the same, the biggest difference is that inspirons are cheaper.

I'll be using AVG, not McAfee. As for the Vista issue, I'm going to see how it works out, and might end up upgrading to XP anyway, as long as everything is compatible, which I would imagine should be. This will not be my main machine for FFXI. I'll be using it for FFXI on breaks at school, and occasionally boring nights at work. I don't see myself using it much for FFXI while I'm at home, unless maybe for easier dual-boxing. My desktop has 2 monitors, and working with one makes me feel claustrophobic.

Good stuff.
I've been thinking about buying a monitor to use with my laptop... with the amount of dualboxing I do, it'd probably be worth it.

I'd rather have 2 seperate computers running DB characters if possible, as you can only control one per computer at once, and dual-boxing makes your gamepad only work on the window with focus, which annoys the hell out of me when I'm trying to use Firefox or spreadsheet software, or whatever else while I play.

If I were a bit more serious about dualboxing I'd set up a key broadcasting app to control both windows at the same time from one keyboard.
http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Software

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009157

mine lol. dual screen laptop will be ftw

i have an xps and i regret it. its not worth 3grand. complete use of junk and it ways a ton. cant really carry it around lol.

hubby suggests
"Here's a comparibly priced 17" HP that has a much better setup for your friend, and the price is 1100CAD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834147918

I'll look for a better option in the 600-800USD area which is I believe where he's looking. "

Already ordered the Dell in my OP, but thanks for the suggestion