Dell M6500 : am I stuck with the pricetag?

[DoofusOfDeath]

I'm looking for a laptop on which to do software development. The new Dell Mobile Precision M6500 laptop has exactly what I want: 17" LED matte screen, i7 820QM processor, business-class laptop build quality (I hope), and a Windows 7 installation CD that lacks crapware (afaik).

The problem: $3500 + tax.

If I need to I'll suck it up and pay that much for a laptop of that quality. But when I saw that they're asking many hundreds of dollars for even non-SSD hard drives, I knew I was getting fleeced.

Does anyone know if waiting a few months to make the purchase provide me decent alternatives from other reliable vendors?

 

[buwish]

Maybe take a look and see what Asus has to offer. Chances are you'll get a much better price and a better quality laptop with the same specs.

 

[DoofusOfDeath]

Maybe take a look and see what Asus has to offer. Chances are you'll get a much better price and a better quality laptop with the same specs.

Well, ASUS has this: http://www.superwarehouse.com/p.cfm?p=1570987&CMP=KAC-GoogleShopping&sourcecode=SW09W002. But the screen is smaller and much lower quality.

That the problem I face: I want something nicer than the Asus, but to get to a certain incremental improvement in quality, Dell charges a quantum leap in price. And I'm just not seeing anything else out there for competition.

What I really want is a notebook that's built like a 17" MacBook Pro, but with a quad-core processor. Dell's laptop pretty much fits that description, but it's insanely expensive.

 

[DoofusOfDeath]

Okay, so it's not that bad. I was able to leverage the (apparent) fact that Dell salespeople are incented on the # of units sold, not the profit margin. Here's what I was able to negotiate;

M6500, 128 GB SSD drive, 820QM processor, 17" RGB LED screen with microphone (no camera), 3 years Total Care support: $2800.

It took two rounds of negotiation, and saying that I was ready to buy immediately if they'd meet my offer. The list price for my configuration was about $4100.

 

[chedlin]

I want something similar, I wonder when I need to do it, I know Dell reps are willing to bend more at the end of the month, quarter, or fiscal year to meet their goals. Unfortunately their fiscal year ends at the end of January so I will have to wait.