This laptop was handed to me when I started a new job, and in the 13 months I've owned it, I have put a lot of hours of wear and tear on it. First off, while I love that it accommodates both Trackpoint users and Touchpad users, Dell really needs to take a lesson or two from IBM on how to make Trackpoints. I've owned 2 previous IBM laptops, and moving to the Dell was horrid, as the Trackpoint is extremely unresponsive and nowhere near as accurate as the ones IBM has. However, I persevered with their inferior Trackpoint, up until the left click button broke on me. After maybe 5 months of using the Trackpoint, the left click button just broke off. If you examine the button, you can see that it is attached to the laptop by two this pieces of plastic. Apparently, every time you click, the plastic bends. If you use the Trackpoint as your primary pointing device, the left mouse button can break rather quickly. After getting mine replaced, it again broke after only 2-3 months. I don't think Dell ever expected anyone to use the Trackpoint for any period of time, or surely they would have noticed this defect. My next problem occurred when the laptop was about 9 months old. One day, the PCMCIA bus just died. No cards at all would work, and Dell had to replace the motherboard and processor to fix this one. Next, about 12 months into its life, its primary memory chip failed. I still have yet to get that fixed, I'm surviving on my secondary chip only.

I would also like to note that the video card in this laptop went without adequate driver support for 2 years, and only recently has a driver which is passable.

Aside from those major problems, the laptop has been very stable and suitable for most of my uses.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 3000
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 401-500
Screen Size: 12
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20