Laptop gurus, speak to me

[DeepIron]

So, is there a lot of performance diff between these two? Is the faster one worth the extra $200?

Hmm... the biggest diffs are in the CPU and bus speeds and L2 cache:

The T5750 is 2.0Ghz, 677Mhz bus and 2Gb cache.
The T2390 is 1.86Ghz, 533Mhz bus and 1Gb cache.

I'm using a T2390 in my Vaio and I'm completely happy with the performance. Seeing as you're not going to play graphics intensive games (Half-Life, Crysis, etc) due to the limitations of the X3100 video chip set, or doing any really intensive number crunching as in photo-processing, the extra $200 for the T5750 isn't going to show much performance improvement IMO.

Bottom line: I'd get the Inspiron with the T2390 (Walmart) and spend the $200 on something else...