Dell Inspiron 5150 UK US business Review Review
Dell Inspiron 5150 UK US business Review
It would be impossible to pick the Inspiron 5150 out of a lineup alongside the Inspiron 5100 and the Inspiron 1100 because all three systems share the same 13.1-by-10.8-by-1.7-inch, 8.1-pound case. The AC adapter pushes the total weight past the 9.4-pound mark.The case falls on the heavy side, largely due to its considerable 14.8V, 6,450mAh battery. On the plus side, the system's large battery lasted an exceptionally long 254 minutes in battery-life tests. The included mobile Pentium 4 processor, which consumes less juice than the desktop chips used by the Inspiron 5100 and Insprion 1100 do, also helped extend the notebook's battery life.
The touchpad and the mouse buttons are a new design.
The Inspiron 5150 offers an unexciting, straightforward design, but it gets the job done nevertheless. The no-frills keyboard, the touchpad (no pointing stick is available), and the two mouse buttons are large enough to work comfortably into the wee hours. A programmable button above the keyboard launches your designated application in one convenient touch. The system includes just one fixed bay that you can configure with a DVD-ROM, a combo DVD/CD-RW, or the cool, new DVD+R/+RW drive.
Dell leaves off outdated serial and PS/2 ports and includes just the ports and slots you'll use most. FireWire, S-Video-out, VGA, Ethernet, and two USB 2.0 ports are located on the rear edge, with a 56Kbps-modem jack on the right side. Finally, one Type II PC Card slot and two jacks for headphones and a microphone sit on the left edge.
The Inspirons 5150, 5100, and 1100 may look identical, but they contain some distinct internal differences. While both the Inspiron 5100 and the Inspiron 1100 feature cost-conscious components, such as desktop Pentium and Celeron processors, the Inspiron 5150 offers more cutting-edge parts. The system includes Intel's latest mobile CPU, the 3.06GHz mobile Pentium 4. All main memory runs at a superspeedy 333MHz and comes in amounts ranging from 256MB to 2GB. The Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics chip is ATI's top-of-the-line offering, available with either 32MB or 64MB of dedicated 266MHz video RAM.
The notebook's 15-inch display sports one of two native resolutions: 1,400x1,050 or the extrafine 1,600x1,200, which lets you see graphics and games down to the smallest detail. You can then use the integrated DVD+R/+RW drive to burn huge multimedia files or other important data to disc. Or you can save some bucks and fill that fixed bay with a DVD or DVD/CD-RW combo drive when you order. You can also get the fastest-possible wireless transmission speeds with the notebook's built-in 802.11a/b/g mini-PCI wireless card or save a few bucks by choosing an 802.11b/g card instead.
Dell makes sure that the Inspiron 5150's software speaks to both home and business users. The system ships with either Windows XP Home or XP Professional. Corel WordPerfect Office 11.0, with Quicken New User Edition, is the standard software suite, but you can also upgrade to Microsoft Works, Office XP, or Office Small Business Edition.