Dell Inspiron 1520

Hi Everybody

If you are planning to buy a notebook and that too a DELL notwbook,this review is worth reading.Go ahead read this review and find out if its useful to you:-

If you're looking for a notebook for essential computing tasks, such as Internet access and e-mail, then the Dell Inspiron 1100 is for you. It comes with an Intel® Celeron® processor1, integrated Intel Extreme graphics, and a variety of peripherals to provide practical features at an affordable price.

If you're a looking for a notebook for digital media and office productivity applications in a wireless network or small networked environment, then the Dell Inspiron 5100 is for you. The Inspiron 5100 combines the power of Intel® Pentium® 4 processors in a notebook design to perform everyday computing tasks when and where you like. Features like a standard 56K2 modem, standard network adapter for network and broadband access, and an optional internal wireless solution, the Inspiron 5100 can keep you connected.

If you're a power hungry notebook user or gamer looking for fast, high-performance features, a big screen and great graphics, then the Dell Inspiron 8500 is for you. With a high-speed processor and high-performance features, the Inspiron 8500 delivers versatility and style for on-the-go users who still demand power-packed technology. The Inspiron 8500 pumps up your personal style, too, by allowing you to change your notebook's colors as often as you change your mood with available QuickSnapTM interchangeable color kits.

If you're searching for a lightweight, long battery life notebook, then you can travel in style with the new Inspiron 600m notebook. The Inspiron 600m is powered by the new Intel® Pentium® M processor and features Intel CentrinoTM Mobile Technology ? which enables long battery life and integrated wireless connectivity. The Inspiron 600m also offers optional QuickSnapTM LCD covers.

If you are a student or small business professional, then the Inspiron 500m notebook is for you. This notebook provides a lightweight, thin alternative with the power needed to run standard applications, watch DVDs, burn CDs, manage digital pictures or play games.

Courtesy:- One of my friends working with DELL.

The Inspiron 8000 series represents usually represents the latest technology available for laptops. It is always the best available notebook in the market. And it also stood out on the brand name of DELL. An must buy for geeks becoz DELL also has excellent customer support so no problems if something goes out of order although it never will. This is usually Dell's most expensive laptop model as well as it's heaviest model. Overall, the Inspiron 8000 series is meant as a better than the best laptop and a must buy for anyone who can afford it.Overall, the Inspiron 8000 series is meant as a better than the best laptop and a must buy for anyone who can afford it.Overall, the Inspiron 8000 series is meant as a better than the best laptop and a must buy for anyone who can afford it.

Desktop or any computer buying is tricky. Problem is the amount needed to invest and then after a few months you feel , I want this in addition or I left this in my purchase. Dell has been given different views by different people I talked. But I say its a good choice. Computer may trouble, no matter which company they are, but an overall view can be deduced. IBM, SONY are too expensive, HP & compaq are not reliable. Notbook is a little too much investment so you need something affordable and also which do not trouble you later. Dell fulfil this demand. Inspiron 4000, is light compact but still with enough to full fil the demands of day to day life. dell has given me good performance with good mobility, a price which is reasonable and great support from the company. Quality of component is good.(I am based in USA, so check out in India). A good configuration like I have (see below) is around 1500 US $.Its a compatible price. The quality of the things is good. I had problem with my DVD Rom drive and they changed it immidiately. There tech support is also great. You can reach them by net also, wherever in world you are and they respond always quickly and do there best, a thing which is really helpful in maintaining your computer

I'll tell you what, I've used a good many laptop in my day, being a programmer as well as a law student, and I think this one has been the best yet. I must give DELL kudos first of all. No company has ever given me better, more prompt service than DELL, and the best part is, I've hardly ever needed it. I have certainly enjoyed this little laptop (it's what I'm writing on now). Another good feature of DELL computers id that they don't come with all the useless 'bell and whistle' software that Compaqs or Hewlett-Packards and such do. Most of the install software companies send out as background apps only serve to use up valuable system resources, and I'm glad DELL gives a good, sensible software package where the user can decide what to put on their own machine. Yeah, this laptop has been good to me.

The Inspiron 8000 series represents usually represents the latest technology available for laptops. This is usually Dell's most expensive laptop model as well as it's heaviest model. Overall, the Inspiron 8000 series is meant as a ''desktop replacement'' model.

The Inspiron 8100 model I'm looking at has the following bells and whistles:

Pentium III-M 866 GHz

128 MB of RAM (buy extra RAM from Crucial... high quality and cheaper)

GeForce2Go 32 MB

DVD/CD-RW Combo drive

Extra Battery

56K built-in PCI modem with 10/100 network

Leather Notebook Case

Additional color face plates

15 inch UXGA Screen

20 GB HD

Running Windows 2000 with XP coupon upgrade

Office XP SBE

The prices have really dropped since the model was released about a half year ago. The basic 8100 package can run under $1500! But regardless, you know what... this notebook isn't for everyone... there are still some shortcomings on this notebook!

Performance

The Inspiron lives up to legacy of the 8000 model series. It is truly meant to be a Desktop replacement. The new Pentium III-M (I will call it the PIII-M for now on) chips are smaller and run on less electricity. The advances on this processor over the older PIII mobile series means that the PIII-M processor and motherboard is significantly faster than a comparable Pentium III chip. A 866MHz PIII-M chip outpaced my PIII 1 GHz Inspiron 8000 with the exact same hardware configurations running Windows 2000 (using various standard benchmarking tests).

The screen is stunning with the crisp details of the GeForce2Go 32MB card (which may no longer be the top of the heap with the ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 chipset being released)... if you're a big spender you can go for the gusto with the 15.1 inch screen with UGA graphics. The keyboard had an excellent feel and key spacing was not cramped. No burnproof on the DVD/CD-RW though. One battery lasted only 2 1/2 hours still... huh?! What the heck?! I'll get into this a little later...

The notebook is still slower than many comparable desktops however. Likely due to things like a slower hard drive and less powerful video card than you can put into a desktop. The video card in this 8100 was a GeForce2Go 32 MB 4x AGP card. In fact, you can only choose the 16MB or 32MB version of the chipset. This is about the equivalent of a GeForce 2 MX/MX400 card with 32 MB of memory. You are not getting desktop cutting edge graphics... but it's an excellent performer even though the ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 graphics chips have much better specs.

Sound from the speakers is a bit weak... but this is common to most notebooks with the exception of the Toshiba 2805-S402 notebook and others in the 2805 line. The Toshiba model has a built-in subwoofer... the sound of that Toshiba notebook is plain awesome!

An oddity in DVD playback on the GeForce equipped Inspirion 8000/8100 laptops was that close up viewing of the screen showed a kind of filmly layer to the picture. Colors separated with skin tones especially. This odd coloring with the GeForce2Go detracted from the overall DVD viewing on my Inspiron 8100. Again, like the 8000, running Quake III and other computer games did not exhibit this quality on the notebook screen to any notable degree. I tried The Matrix, Jet Li's Fist of Legend, My Dog Skip, and Dark City with similar results. Funny though, The Simpsons came through in vivid color!

The Inspiron 8100 is still a heavy notebook! It weighs almost 7 lbs if you remove the two optical drives from the unit... however, with this setup of having one optical drive with two batteries, I was looking at more than 8 lbs of computer hardware. The extra battery and DVD/CD-RW drive really add some weight to the computer. This is a hard notebook to carry around. Bring the AC adapter with you and a few other trinkets, you're approaching 9 to 10 lbs.

Battery issues (somewhat technical...)

Major problem here! Dell is not using the latest Intel chipsets with the PIII-M in the Inspiron 8100 series and sacrificing the Enhanced Speedstep function of the PIII-M. You sacrifice a chance at enhancing the battery life. There was only a few minutes of difference in running the PIII-M 8100 versus my PIII 8000 notebook. Without chipsets like the i830 in the 8100, the notebook utilizes the PIII-M like a regular mobile PIII. The notebook is using many of the same chips in the original 8000 notebook. So the 8100 is running regular Speedstep instead of the enhanced version on the PIII-M because the Inspiron 8100 doesn't recognize Enhanced Speedstep yet. I'm sure that Dell will correct this sometime in the future, but right now... I feel it's a major problem. Other notebook maker with the PIII-M chips and i830 chipsets are running 3-4 hours with their mid-range and high-range notebooks... a far cry to what the Inspiron 8100 is currently running at. Even the new Inspiron 4100 runs a significantly higher battery time, so far, I've seen up to 3 1/2 hours on that notebook!

The short of it is... you don't get the vaunted long battery life that the processor is capable of!

Options... and more options

The Inspiron 8000 series has many options for it... especially since the line is extremely popular. You can customize and upgrade the notebook quite a bit. All the additional accessories like port replicators and the such. A general rule is that the majority of Inspiron 8000 accessories fit the 8100 with a few minor exceptions... like memory boards.

Conclusions...

All in all, the Inspiron is a solid performer and great desktop replacement... but it lacks some features that should have been included into the notebook. The lack of an upgraded controller chipset like the i830 in almost unforgivable because it sacrifices that precious battery life! Like many computers these days, it possesses more power than the majority of consumer users will need... gamers, engineers, and graphics specialists will love this notebook. The Inspiron 8100 easily competes with the mid-range desktop segment and even some high-priced/ranged desktop segment. It is powerful enough for games and medium to high-end graphical solutions. You also have a 5 hour portable solution in your hands as well. It's hard to complain with that...

There are other downsides to the Inspiron 8100 from a notebook standpoint. It's bleeding heavy! A fully loaded Inspiron 8100 will weigh more than 8lbs! This is not the easiest of laptops to bring around with you. Customer service is a mixed bag... sometimes excellent service and other times poor service. Not unlike other vendors' customer service however.

If you are buying a notebook to replace a desktop system, this may be a good answer. If you're looking for a supplement for a desktop system, maybe you should think again... the size and weight of the notebook are major factors here. If you are using the notebook for more menial tasks like basic word processing and web surfing... then look at cheaper notebooks like the Inspiron 2100, 2500, and 4000. The new Inspiron 4100 will also suit many tasks especially with the improved battery life with the latest controller chipsets... it may only sport a Radeon Mobility M6 graphics chip but the system definitely packs a wallop! Don't forget those other notebook makers like IBM, Sony, Toshiba, and Compaq... and even the lesser known names like KDS and Sager and WinBook.

We have Del Inspirion 5000e Laptop purchased from the USA in March 2000. This product is working good but not as good as Compaq series or IBM notebook.

Input Power:

Most of the laptops are designed to operate with 110V supply, but can work for 230V supply also.

Here is the catch, the power adaptor gets hot too much, it is risky to operate or use the laptop in Non-AC Environment.

Display:

The Active Display screen does not have good clarity. When Resolution of display is set to 1024 x 768, one cannot get the satisfaction of the hues and colors available with the display settings.

Inspirion series has Windows Me preloaded while purchase. Many times laptop just hangs for no reason. We need to press the reset button for restart.

Support:

DELL in India provides free support via a toll free number 1-600-338045. As our laptop covers International 3 year warranty. We asked for the support - to add one ZIP Drive to our laptop. We also fired couple of Email and had a telephonic conversation with the concerned sales / Account persons.

The DELL Engineer seems to be not very experienced saying

that external ZIP Drives or CD-RW of other series cannot be supplied as they do not have any part nos. for the DELL Inspirion 5000e Laptops.

All the time we received common prerecorded reply '' This laptop as it is purchased from US, DELL-India does not have any spares for Inspirion 5000e in India.''

Another Incident, we had problem with our Windows Word not getting opened with the error ''Insufficient Memory'' As we were under International warranty, we asked for telephonic support. The DELL-Engineer provided the hints, which never worked at all. We wasted one week after the DELL support. Finally we used the website to get our problem solved.

International = Inside the nation only

As we have purchased the laptop from US with International warranty, we paid the price for supporting extended warranty on paper + crime for no service as it is outside the limits of US.

Is it the International warranty supports only and all the county's within US ????

Incompatible with upgrades

We have few incidents with the DELL PC's range. Our good friend has purchased 30 DELL PC's for his office. He wanted to upgrade memory from 64MB to 128MB. He tried with the genuine memory of additional 64MB SIMM from the local market in Bombay. The other brands of memory is not acceptable by DELL PC's. He has no option other than DELL.

Other Brand's

This is not found in IBM PC's. We have IBM PC's Netvista A-20 model. We are working with these PC's having additional local memory installed in addition to IBM memory.

Hi friends, I am discussing about Dell inspiron 15 7560. Everyone knows about the dell, its a brand and milestone company that sell genuine products. This product is very useful with awesome feature. I had used it before 1year ago. Its battery backup is too good, fast work without hanging problem, no heating, fast charging and all these cool feature gives this 5 star rating. So I suggest that buy this product.