LF a <17" laptop that takes 2 IDE HDDs & has great speakers

[pianowizard]

The title says it all. All the stated criteria must be met.

I have a 320GB and a 250GB IDE hard drives. I want to store all my MP3 files on them, put both into the same machine, and play the music on this laptop using its internal speakers. My Inspiron 7500 does allow for a second hard drive, by replacing the CD-ROM module with a 2nd HDD module, but its speakers aren't good enough. They are probably above average for laptop speakers, but I want GREAT speakers. Also, this 13-year-old Inspiron has been freezing occasionally, so it may not last much longer and I would rather not invest any more on it, not even a $10 HDD module.

Again, all the stated criteria must be met. If there aren't "great" laptop speakers, then I am willing to settle for the "best" that are available. Oh, I do not want to put the 2nd HDD in a dock. Both drives must be inside the laptop itself.

[600X]

So let me get this straight. You want a laptop that is smaller than 17" (?), has the ability to mount 2 hard drives, and here comes the hard part, has excellent speaker? Well first off, criteria one and two are easily met. Pretty much any 15" ThinkPad can mount 2 HDD's. (one internally and one instead of the DVD drive)

However, good speakers will be a problem. The T500 has got decent speakers, but that's pretty much about it. The best ThinkPad speakers (lenovo era) can be found in the X300/X301 (which is not an option because it can't mount both HDD's) and W700/W701. Now the latter may have good speakers, but it's not what I would call good enough to really listen to music. I am not sure what your expectations are, perhaps the W700 might even be sufficient, but if you really want speakers that can replace desktop speakers, you have two choices.

Either you stay with ThinkPads, then your only option is the A30 series, which has exceptionally good speakers, or, you switch to Dell and get an XPS 15, which has one of THE BEST notebook speakers. It even has a subwoofer! Probably your best bet IMO.

However, since you HDD's are IDE as I just noticed, you might want to consider the A30 which, being over a decade old, naturally has IDE hard drives. If I'm correct you can even mount 3 of them or just two and keep the CD/DVD drive.

[pianowizard]

Thanks for the input. I went with the Dell Latitude D810, whose speakers are loud enough for what I need (listening to music up to 20 feet away). I also bought a Dell Inspiron 8600 parts machine as a backup.

[RealBlackStuff]

Just wondering why you are still on the Thinkpad Forum, what with all your Dell-stuff...

[pianowizard]

Just wondering why you are still on the Thinkpad Forum, what with all your Dell-stuff...

To piss you off...just kidding! I am still interested in learning about new Thinkpads and discussing Thinkpads that I used to own. Actually, I do have an X31 in my lab but don't list it in my signature because it's strictly for data acquisition and it's used extremely infrequently. I also have a non-functional X32 in a drawer. And just because I now own all these Dells doesn't necessarily mean I consider them better than Thinkpads. Had Aurora posted sooner, I might now have an A30 rather than a Latitude D810 and Inspiron 8600. I bought these Dells for their features, low prices, and the fact that they were new to me (since I always like to try new things). As far as quality is concerned, this Inspiron 8600 is the quintessential "craptop". Crappy products like this may partly explain why Dell's reputation and market share started to go south in around 2005. The Latitude D810 is much nicer quality-wise and was probably the best that Dell had at that time, though it's still only on par with the R5* Thinkpads, not the T4* or X4*.

My migration from Thinkpads to non-Thinkpads was partly because of my migration from laptops to desktops. When I used laptops as my main computers, I needed the best in the industry and so I had mostly Thinkpads, ~45 of them. After the switch to desktops, the quality of my laptops has become much less important since I now use them only 5 - 10 % of the time and thus they no longer need to be very durable.

[Saucey]

I have to say the speakers from a A31P are amazing! Not super loud, but tuned up all the way still had a crisp sound without that nasty "blown up" sound some speakers do.
I am somewhat interested cracking open a x6 ultrabase just to see whats inside there. Seems like there is alot of room in that thing and I was dissapointed in the speakers that it had came with.