My main concern when buying a laptop is price. This time around, I waited for 6 months for that time when I actually had the funds, and Dell dropped a great coupon for laptops. The one I used was for $750 off any Inspiron over $1500, total shipped was $767. Config is Pentium M 1.6, 512 DDR2 in dual channel PC3200. Indeed it is running async @200 mhz fsb, with the Pentium M running @133 mhz fsb. 8x DVD+-RW drive, 40GB 5200 rpm 8MB cache hdd. Radeon X300 PCI-E video card for playing even the latest games. On board Intel wireless a/b/g included.
I wanted a laptop for the living room, in front of the couch on a caddy that did the following-
Be able to do distributed computing projects, since I'm a big fan, and do leave the laptop on all the time. The Centrino Inspiron 6000 with a Pentium M 1.6 cpu does the job admirably, while staying cool.
Large screen. Not particularly fond of widescreens, but this 15.4 is acceptable, giving me a wider screen, but loosing some height over my last 15" tft laptop. Just the standard WXGA screen, with res. of 1280X800. Fairly sharp display, somewhat limited viewing angle, I've found.
That's about it for my needs. I generally do all my surfing in the living room while slouched on the couch while the wife watches TV. Any serious work that needs to be done, typically is on the main rig.
On to the review. First impression was great. Solid feel, lid assembly has no flex, which over the years pays off in lid cracking. Keyboard is slightly firmer than the 4-5 older laptops I've used in the past year, refurbbing them, using for a month or two and selling. I like the firm keyboard.
Touchpad. Don't use it, as I have a short cord Logitech optical mouse on the caddy with it. It does have an extensive array of adjustments, however, for those that do.
System feel is sluggish compared to my main rig. Pretty much a given, as no laptop runs the higher fsb's today's desktop systems use, because of heat concerns. You loose that overall system snap and big memory benchmarks of say, a Prescott cpu. Also, hdd response seems rather slow, contributing to the sluggish feel compared to a desktop. Still, it's liveable for basic needs.
DVD Burner. Painfully slow compared to my desktop rig for DVD ripping. It does do the job, though. Movies played on the 6000D without a hitch.
Intel wireless a/b/g integrated NIC. Works perfectly with good range when linked to a USR 125mb/s AP.
Radeon X300 PCI-E graphics. Have yet to play any newer game on it, but is a lot of video card for a laptop.
Battery life for the standard 6 cell battery gave me 3 hours run time. Good enough, as I rarely run it on battery.
Dell included software. Can't say much about it, as I put up with it for a week, then wiped it with a clean install of XP. Dell no longer ships cdroms with OS and apps on it, you can burn one copy of the cdroms from an image on the hdd. You can also call Dell for the cdrom's, mine came in two days. I hear they are charging $10 for them now, but there was no charge at the time. Since the clean OS install, it's been up for 5 weeks, though!
Overall, happy with the laptop. Awesome price for a really nice machine!
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by paul  edited by fire100
last modified: 2005-08-14 08:56:56 |
