Excellent performance to a low cost
Written: May 12 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Low price, excellent keyboard, high performance, many options
Cons: Plastic look, pretty large
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| svanteh's Full Review: Dell Inspiron 3800 R500GT |
Dell let's you configure your Inspiron 3800 laptop setup just the way you want. Personally I went for a 650MHz PIII processor, 128MB RAM, 12GB harddrive and an internal CD-RW drive. The price for this rather cutting edge setup was very reasonable, actually lower than everything else I've seen on the laptop scene comparable to my configuration.
The first impression was not such a good one as I'd hoped for. In the specifications, Dell claims the height of the computer to be only 25mm. As it turned out, this is true if you don't include the extra 15mm of the screen. When the screen is closed, my Inspiron has the height of 4cm rather than 2.5cm.
Apart from that fact, I am not very keen on the cover. It has a plastic look, with a structure comparable to that of my jeans. As I've heard, many people like it. But I don't.
Now, that was the first impression. Luckily, after booting up the computer and using it a while, I felt much happier. The keyboard is excellent, probably the best laptop keyboard I've ever tried. The combination of both a pointer stick and a touch pad is great. And the speed of the computer just blows you away, in regards of both the processor and the harddrive (for being a laptop harddrive). Adaptec's Easy CD Creator, which comes bundled with the CD-RW drive, reports that the harddrive delivers 7.5 MB/s at large files and an average of 1.8 MB/s on smaller ones. These are good figures.
The battery holds for a little more than 3 hours of "normal" use. If desired, the CD can be replaced with an extra battery for twice the battery time. In Windows 98 and NT one can switch the media bays without shutting down the computer. This is not possible in Windows 2000 yet, but will be as soon as Dell ports their Media Bay Manager suite.
Dell includes a CD with drivers for Windows 98, NT and 2000. Apart from that, all drivers can be downloaded from Dell's web site. This is comforting.
All devices, including the CD-RW drive and Easy CD Creator v3.5c, works flawlessly in Windows 2000, making a total migration to Windows 2000 possible.
I would really recommend this laptop. It has an excellent value/price and performs great. Too bad the design is not perfect, but most people can probably live with that.
/ Svante Hedin
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
svanteh
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Member: Svante Hedin
Reviews written: 1
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