Losing faith
Written: Jan 23 '00 (Updated Mar 20 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Big screen, fast CPU, dual mouse controls
Cons: Poor build quality, Win NT incompatibilities
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| barry_kaplan's Full Review: Dell Inspiron 3700 R450GT |
I have been a loyal Dell supporter since I first used their Pentium line of Latitude Notebooks. Their Latitude machines may still be a great buy, but the Inspirons are another story altogether. I had a 3500 for two months. It crashed on me 3 or 4 times a day with a standard Dell Win 98 installation. So, I upgraded recently to the 3700 and had my IT department install Win NT with the latest service release.
I am a power user, and I test this machine to its limits, but the overall build quality and reliability is just not what I'm used to from Dell. I understand that the Inspiron does not utilize tried and tested technology, but instead puts the latest and greatest into the newest laptops. That is no excuse for having sound control buttons on the laptop that crash the machine when you try to use them. The machine also has major problems with its power-down, often freezing-up and preventing me from switching it off in any way despite all attempts.
There are some notably cool features, including a dual joystick and touchpad (and the joystick even has its own buttons). The strange coloring is also attractive and I do get a solid 5 hours from the battery (although my officemate only gets 2 hours from a similar machine).
Its a good machine at the price, but I would swap it for an IBM any day!
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 2200
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 401-500
Screen Size: 14"
RAM: 128
Hard Drive (GB): 4-6
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Epinions.com ID:
barry_kaplan
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Member: Barry Kaplan
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 7 members
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