Even the "stripped-down" version is awesome
Written: Dec 13 '00
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Pros: Design, speed, stability, included recovery disks
Cons: Price
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| bgbie's Full Review: Dell Inspiron 5000e Series |
Being a student, I was looking at the lower-end Dell laptops (Inspiron 3800 series). But because Dell plays so many pricing games, I was eventually able to get an Inspiron 5000e at a great price, with all of the features I wanted.
I shopped around on Dell for about 6 weeks -- continually looking to see what deals they had. Finally, one weekend, they had what I wanted: $100 off Inspiron laptops, a free DVD-rom drive, and free shipping. (And, this was on the home user side, which is good; if you order as a home user, Dell only charges sales tax on the extended warranty, and not on the entire machine--significant savings there.)
By the time I added all of the features I wanted to an Inspiron 3800 (128 MB Ram, at LEAST a 10 GB hard drive, 14" or greater screen), this "low-end" laptop ended up being pretty expensive. Since I'm somewhat technical, I don't generally ever buy extended warranties, but you need one with laptops. If it breaks after the one-year warranty, you can't just go buy a part to swap out the broken part with. You have to find someone that sells that specially-made part for this laptop, and pay at a premium for it. So adding an extended warranty to the 3800 added a significant cost, while the 5000e came with a 3 year warranty.
One nice thing I was able to do, to save money, was to drop the screen size from 15" to 14". (Apparently, only a week after I received my laptop, Dell no longer allows one to do this on the Web site. But check.) This saved a significant amount of money (about $300), and given that I am on a tight budget, I just couldn't spend the extra money on a slightly larger screen. I've seen the 15" and I can hardly tell a difference.
The 5000e is a big step up from the 3800, which a number of my friends have. The 5000e can hold its CD-ROM (or DVD) drive and floppy drive at the same time, with no need to switch. I also believe, though am not sure, that the graphics board in the 5000e is much better than the one in the 3800--at least as of this date.
For desktops, even though I love Dell, I would consider buying a more generic brand, as not needing much service or assistance, a generic will work fine for me, while saving a lot of money. (But you've got to be very careful that the generic has a quality motherboard--so as not to crash all the time. Every computer is not the same--that's why I recommend most people buy a Dell desktop.) But for laptops, I would never consider an off-brand, or much else than a Dell. Right now, Dell makes a phenomenal laptop, and this is one case where brand makes a big difference. Laptops are also, for a number of reasons, likely to break, and it sure doesn't hurt to have Dell's service behind you.
My machine: 700 MHz, 10 GB HDD, 128 MB RAM, 14" screen, DVD-Rom. NEVER buy a machine with less than 128 MB ram--you'll kill the speed of the machine, no matter how fast the processor is.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1996
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 601-700
Screen Size: 14"
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 9-12
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Epinions.com ID:
bgbie
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Location: Washington, D.C.
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 1 member
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