Inspiron 5000 - Excellent Purchase
Nov 13 '00
I purchased my Dell Inspiron 5000 in May of 2000, and have had absolutely NO PROBLEMS with it whatsoever. I ordered it with a Pentium III 600 mHz processor, 128 MB of SDRAM, a 12 GB HD, 15" SXGA LCD, and a DVD-ROM drive. The unit was built far ahead of schedule, and I received it roughly 5 days after I placed the order. Two accessories were on back-order, but Dell got them to me within 2 weeks.
My buying experience, as well as the very few times I called technical support, went extremely well. Both before and after the sale, my calls were answered quickly, with courtesy and attentiveness. The issues I had were resolved on the first call in every case.
Back to the equipment itself. Aside from the seductive black exterior, there is incredible power hidden inside. The Pentium III chip, in combination with the video card, and the DVD drive, produce jitter-free, seamless playback of DVD movies and other full-motion video. The DVD drive does make a noticeable amount of noise when operating; however, upon investigation I discovered that this condition is normal in all varieties of drives, and is due to the fact that the disc is spinning at an extremely fast speed. Windows 98 SE loads fairly quickly, and I have very, very few hang-ups or crashes. I use an ethernet card in the PC slots to connect to my LAN; the computer recognized it easily, and my connection is virtually perfect. This machine is definitely networking-friendly. The overall performance of all of my software is very good on this machine.
Battery life for me is around 3 hours for one battery and about 6 with two. On the Inspiron 5000, you can very easily swap the DVD-ROM drive with a second battery, which came free with my system, but can be purchased separately. This computer is on the heavy side for those who are looking for an ultra-portable, but it is certainly manageable for moderate portability. I use it for school, and have no problems transporting it around. Remove the battery/DVD from the media bay, insert the plastic cover, and shave some weight off.
One final note: Dell offers a port-replicator for those of you who require one. I do not own one, so I can't offer any comment on it. The laptop has, built-in, a P/S 2 port, a parallel port, a monitor port, a serial port, a TV-out port, a docking port, line-in jack, microphone jack, headphone/speaker jack, modular plug if you have the built-in modem, a security slot, and two Type II PC Card slots. Because of this, most people probably wouldn't need a dock. However, it would certainly eliminate the need to disconnect and reconnect all the wires each time you move the machine.
Again, I absolutely love this machine. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a high quality notebook. This laptop definitely can serve as a desktop replacement. Not only will you get a top quality machine, but a first-rate company to back it up.
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Epinions.com ID:
logic4
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Location: Washington, DC
Reviews written: 3
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