First Laptop and Very Nice
Written: Dec 17 '00
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Pros: Great Laptop for the money
Cons: Odd technical/financial support
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| vee4473's Full Review: Dell Inspiron 4000 Series |
First let me say that I am a 27 year old guy from new york and I own 2 desktop computers. The Inspiron 4000 is my first laptop.
To get a feel for what type of laptop I am reviewing, let me say that the configuration of my Inspiron 4000 is a Celeron 600MHz(advertised as being with a 100MHz front side bus, although hard to verify and Celerons come in 2 varieties, a 66MHz and 100MHz front side bus...), I KNOW THAT IF YOU GO TO DELL'S SITE NOW, THEY ADVERTISE THE CELERON AS A 66MHZ BUS, BUT WHEN I BOUGHT MINE IT WAS ADVERTISED AS 100MHZ FOR THE CELERON. It has a 1024X768 XGA display, 8MB rage mobility 128 chip, 64MB of RAM, I upgraded to a 53WHr battery, upgraded to an 8X DVD drive, chose the 6GB hard drive(which, curiously, is actually only a 5.5GB hard drive..., but I have noticed that it is the case that hard drives actually are approximately 500 or so megabytes less than the advertised capacity) and included the nylon carrying case.
OK!! I love this laptop. However, since I have never owned any other laptop, I have nothing to compare it to. But, nevertheless, I love it. The screen is beautifully sharp, except I might add that after a days use I noticed a pixel that was just "white" in the display...BUT...it disappeared after a few days use and there were no irregularities in the display..very curious.
The keyboard is a bit clackity, but not bad at all. It isn't a reason to NOT buy this laptop.
Let me also say that the online manual was incorrect, which is unacceptable to me...it said that when the battery is charging the battery light on the side blinks, and when it is fully charged it is on solidly. I emailed them after noticing the opposite and they said it was a mistake in the online manual. So, if anything seems out of place with the manual, dont hesitate to question Dell.
I have had problems with a couple of games. Namely, Alien Crossfire where the sound didn't work, and Star Wars Rogue Squadron where the video didn't work. But DVD movies play FLAWLESSLY AND BEAUTIFULLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May I add that there is NO port to connect a 15 pin standard gamepad. However, there is a USB port. (I was very disappointed when my current desktop gamepad had no place to plug into my laptop... I literally stared at the back of my laptop thinking "ok, where is the gameport..it must be here somewhere.." I quickly learned to NOT take anything for granted!! I ASSUMED it would have a gameport!!) But, i bought a new gamepad with USB connection and it works fine, but still..8-(
I can accept the gaming problems knowing how picky games can be with the hardware they decide they want to work with, but all other "business" applications work great!!
Word 2000 works great, msworks is fine, the encyclopedia is awesome.
I will say that the speakers are a bit disappointing. they are not as loud or filled with bass as you would like. However, when listening via headphones, it is GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the headphone audio has many options! Watching a DVD movie with headphones is a truly awesome experience!
Also, the battery time while running DVD movies is not good. I was watching "Men in Black" and the battery only lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes before I had to either change it or plug in my laptop. Although with normal usage like just surfing the web or light word processing, the battery lasted approximately 3 1/2 hours!
I have also noticed that installing a program will drain the battery FAST, so if you are installing something I would advise to be plugged in while doing so.
And the level to which you can program the touchpad also shocked me... you can scroll with it and program certain zones on the touchpad to do many many things.
It has a modular bay that accepts a DVD-ROM drive, a CD-RW, a floppy drive, a second battery, a CD-ROM...And the floppy drive I have swaps with the DVD-ROM beautifully. You don't have to shut down the computer. It has a utility that allows "hot" swapping. Very nice!!
I am very satisfied with this laptop. I will note that it is not quite as fast as my AMD athlon 700MHz desktop, but it is good.. I don't regret buying it at all.
Let me warn you that Dell's support can be hit and miss...I financed this laptop, so I had to call a few times just with financing questions, and some days it is good, others you better be prepared to wait HOURS!!!
When you are on hold, you are really on HOLD!!! and the service isn't very helpful when they do finally respond..but if you get an answer quickly, they seem to be more helpful. very odd..
Sometimes Dell doesn't seem to know what they are doing with support..
BOTTOM LINE...... I like this laptop VERY much, and I would buy it again.
It is fairly fast, runs movies great(even better with headphones!!!), runs most games great and runs business applications like Word, Money and Internet email and browsers flawlessly. For the money, Dell has a winner here with the Inspiron 4000! I love it!!!
By the way, never crashed once!!
Oh!!! (thought I was done with this long review, huh..)
One last thoght. I ordered the storm grey interchangeable inserts and they are GREAT!!! They install fairly easily and look great. The notebook is NOT flimsy at all.
ok ok, i'm done
Any questions, email me at vint@sprynet.com
;-)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1800
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: 501-600
Screen Size: 14"
RAM: 64
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 4-6
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Epinions.com ID:
vee4473
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 1 member
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