The Dell Inspiron 2100 is Dell Computer’s first foray into the consumer ultra-portable market. At a mere 2.5 cm thick and a featherweight 1.54 kg (3.4 lbs), the Inspiron 2100 challenges both the Apple Powerbook G4 and the Sony Vaio for the title of most stylish and powerful ultra-portable.

Specifications:

- 700 MHz Intel Pentium III Processor with Speedstep technology (runs at 500 MHz in power conserving mode).
- 128 MB 100 MHz SDRAM
- 5 GB ATA hard drive
- 23 Watt/hr Lithium Ion battery
- 24x Max External CD-ROM Drive, Connects via media bay
- Single Spindle IDE External media bay (Houses 1 of the following at a time: Floppy Drive, CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM or additional hard drive).
- 12.1 inch TFT XGA Screen (1024x768 Max)
- 4 MB ATI AGP graphics
- PC LAN card
- Windows ME
- Price: Roughly $2100

Physical Attributes:

In the past, most, if not all Dell Inspiron notebooks used a steel chassis/plastic shell combination. While this saved weight, it also made these notebooks (especially the larger ones), prone to feeling creaky and flimsy. The Inspiron 2100, in contrast, uses magnesium alloy instead of plastic in its outer shell. This gives the notebook a more durable, solid feel without adding extra weight. The magnesium alloy shell also gives the Inspiron 2100 a slick silvery hue that sets it apart from all other Inspiron notebooks.

Use:

In a notebook the size of the Inspiron 2100, one might expect a sub-par, cramped keyboard and pointing device. However, I was pleased to find that the Inspiron 2100 retains a full sized keyboard and touch pad for effortless typing and surfing. Unfortunately, unlike other Dell Notebooks, the Inspiron 2100 does not feature a track stick in addition to the touch pad. While I did not find this annoying, users who prefer track sticks over touch pads should keep this in mind.

The 12” TFT LCD provided crisp, clean images and text. Although it’s not a huge screen, it certainly lives up to the quality of the screens on Inspiron 4000 and 8000 series notebooks.

I found only two mildly annoying flaws in the 2100’s design. First, both the CD-ROM and floppy drive must connect to the notebook through an external IDE “media bay.” As the Inspiron 2100 is a machine meant for on-the-go use, I think it would be a pain to have to disconnect the drive bay from the machine and reconnect it every time I needed to move from location to location in a short space of time. Personally, I prefer that all my peripherals be integrated into one package that can be transported without disassembly. The media bay can also house a DVD-ROM, CD-RW, or additional Hard Drive.

My other complaint was poor batter life. The model I tested lasted a mere 1.5 hours on a 23 watt-hour battery. Although this lack of endurance is somewhat typical of ultra-portables, I’d prefer a battery life of about 2.5 hours. Dell provides the option of upgrading to a 34 watt-hour battery for 75 $US and claims this battery will achieve 2.5 hours of use per charge.

Performance:

The Inspiron 2100 performs on par with its larger 3800 and 4000 in most applications – to be honest, I really couldn’t tell the difference between systems in everyday tasks. Mostly, I think this is due to the fact that all three systems use slow 4200RPM hard drives in order to conserve power. A considerably faster 5400RPM drive is available with the Inspiron 8000 for those users requiring a faster computer. For students who need a computer for office applications and web surfing, the Inspiron 2100 is as good a notebook as any other. However, I wouldn’t use it for video editing or games, as its 4 MB ATI video subsystem isn’t meant to take on such heavy tasks.

Conclusion:

The Inspiron 2100 has the advantages of durability and style. On the other hand, its external bay can be a pain, and its battery life is less than impressive. Although the 2100 certainly has good looks and decent applications performance, the Inspiron 4000 retains the upper edge with its astounding 4-hour battery life and internal media bay. Buy the 2100 if you don’t mind some slight inconveniences and high price tag… but the Inspiron 4000 is overall still the best Dell mobile system available.






Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 2100
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 601-700
Screen Size: 12
RAM: 64
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20