I purchased this laptop for my own use, paid for it myself so I made sure I did my homework before plunking down $2,000 for it. I was looking for a laptop to run the standard Excel, Word, Tax programs, movies and maybe a game or two sometimes. I looked at many and considered the IBM T20, Compaq 1700Xl series and the Sony Vaio series. All had the features I was looking for in a slim package.

Compaq 1700XL360
My friend recently bought a Compaq a few weeks before I shopped for mine so I had a chance to really play around with it. First of all, I'm really not a big fan of Compaqs, all I hear are people complaining about them, but I was impressed with this laptop. It looked much better than what I have seen in stores in the past and it had all the features I was looking for.
There are good and bad things about the Compaq, the hard drive is partitioned. The smaller part of the drive is used for restoring the computer; it contains programs and backed up file on it. The remainder is yours to do as you wish. I would've considered the Compaq, I'd just reformat the drive and blow out the small partition but a Compaq rep said that was needed and should not be erased. The computer itself is nicely designed, slim and compact case with a sturdy and solid feel to it. It's Silver colored case with black rubberized accents; the part where your wrist would rest is rubberized. I like the directional arrows under the mouse (glidepoint type); it comes in handy. Features JBL speakers, which are fairly loud, compared to my Inspiron. Battery life is good, I got about 2 hours with normal use (Turbotax, Word, Excel…not games!) One thing that you may want to know, it does not have any serial ports and does have 2 USB ports. So PalmPilot users would either have to get the Palm USB kit or upgrade to a Palm with USB connection. One feature that I was looking for, an infrared device, is not available on the Compaq. An infrared "port" allows you to beam to certain devices, such as printers. I happen to have a printer that is infrared capable, I can print to the device by simply aiming the 2 devices at each other and pressing print. Now that i've used this method of printing, it's not as good as I thought it would be. The two devices have to be relatively close to each other, 5-7 feet seems to be my max, and it's relatively slow. Many printers these days has the infrared port, especially the mobile printers (Canon BJC-85, HP makes one also) so you may want to make sure your laptop has the port.

IBM T20
This is a nice laptop, I looked at it a few times in the store and it had everything I wanted, thin, powerful, 14.1 inch screen, metal case. But the price was more than what I wanted to spend, at approximately $3,500-$4,000 this was out of my range. I considered getting a refurbished one, which are plentiful on the internet (eBay, egghead.com auctions) but figured I would be paying more for the brand name than. Also I'm not too comfortable with the little eraser head mouse.

Dell Inspiron 4000
The Decision
Dell was one of the first laptops I looked at, I use a Dell Latitude at work and we've had no problems with it. Anyway, I decided on the Dell Inspiron 4000, it is advertised as the thin and light laptop. It had all the features I was looking for: 14.1 inch screen, DVD for the long bus commute to work, PIII, 128mb and thin.
**On a side note, beware of employee "discounts". The company I work for, a major brokerage firm, uses Dell throughout the firm so we receive e-mails about a Dell employee site that supposedly offers Dell products at a "special low price". Well after comparing the specs closely, the choices to choose from are limited and the prices are close and sometimes more than the public site.**

The Purchase
Looking around the Dell site, I wandered into the Refurbished section just to browse. According to the Dell rep, refurbished items are not broken or defective products, they usually are items returned by companies or customers (within 30 day period). That's what the salesperson said anyway. I decided to save a few hundred dollars and go for a refurbished unit, I figured it came with the same Dell warranty so if anything were to go wrong, I'm still covered. But just for peace of mind, I also purchased an extended warranty. So I still saved a few hundred dollars on the laptop, the only thing was I couldn't choose are the color inserts, mine came with Tahoe blue, you can purchase different colors separately for $20. Which leads me to wonder how long they will sell these kits for after this model is discontinued. I should buy the color I want now while it's still available!

It arrives!
I received the unit in a reasonable amount of time; free ground shipping was part of the promotion. Be sure to check the Dell site from time to time, the deals always change. When I ordered mine, they took off $100 the refurbished price, free ground shipping and threw in a nylon carrying case. Unlike the other systems I looked at, Dell is direct from the manufacturer so I wasn't able to see what I was getting except pictures from Dell's site. I expected a laptop that was slimmer, like the Compaq. The package came very well packed, also included a small soft case for the floppy or DVD drive that is not in use as well as a cable to attach the device so you can be using both devices at the same time. The cable came in handy when I re-installed the Operating system and need the floppy to boot off of. They screwed up my order; they did not include the free carrying case the site mentioned. It took about 3 phone calls to get this resolved. The laptop is nice, as I said before, a bit thicker than I had hoped. The insert panel on top of the lid makes it seem thicker since it puffs out a little.

First Impressions and features
The case is made of plastic, very high quality and very sturdy. Only includes 1 USB port but that doesn't bother me much, I don't need to plug in much except for a Visor sync cable. It does have a serial port, which came in handy recently for my Scuba diving computer interface, there still are serial devices out there. I believe Belkin makes a serial to USB converter, a bit pricey though. The computer is fairly quiet, it gets a bit warm after extended period of use. I like the one touch button on top next to the power switch, you can program it to open any application you want, it comes setup to open Dell Help. I reformatted the drive and installed Windows 2000. It recognizes most of the devices and for those it didn't, Dell provided a couple of CD-ROMs that included Win 2000 drivers. One feature I like about Win 2000 for the laptop is the auto power down feature, I can just hit the power button on the laptop and it automatically shuts down the laptop properly. The Inspiron features both a glidepoint type mouse as well as the pointing stick type. There are 4 mouse buttons, 2 for each type of mouse (pointing stick or glidepoint). Unfortunately you cannot re-program the 2 buttons individually that you won't be using, it changes both buttons for both "mice". I thought it would be good if I can use those 2 buttons to open programs.

Performance
I opted for the modem/NIC combo; I can't get a good connection speed on it at home but works fine in my friend's house. It could be a combination of a cheap modem and maybe the wiring in my house, although my desktop computer connects at a decent speed, go figure. One way you can see what types of problems you may come across on a Dell computer is to log onto their support web site. I noticed a lot of modem questions! Battery life is disappointing, I will probably wind up buying another battery, there's a better battery offered by Dell that should last longer and the floppy port can be used to hold another battery. The battery itself has this neat LED battery power indicator on it, you press a little button and LED's light up, useful feature. Oh yes, I must say this, the speakers' suck, that was the other BIG disappointment. I was picturing taking the laptop on ski trips and watching movies while my wife drives; the speakers are not loud enough to be heard above the road noise in the car (and no, I don't drive a Yugo). I called customer service thinking the speakers were defective but he said if I want louder speakers, I should've bought the Inspiron 8000 and the 4000 was not made for multimedia! If the car has a tape deck, you can use one of those "tapes" with a wire attached for CD players and plug that wire into the output jack on laptop to use the car's speakers instead. Plugged in or not (processor features Speedstep technology to save power), the speed wasn't too impressive, boot up time was ok, not the greatest. I was comparing this to a homemade desktop system (600mhz, 512 cache, 128mb RAM), I thought I would notice more of a difference in speed.

Overall
I was a bit bummed by the size, it's a big bigger and heavier than I had expected, but I was comparing this to Sony and IBM's, both with comparable models that are much more expensive. I was more disappointed with the battery life (or lack of) and volume level of the speakers. But all in all, I'm comfortable with my purchase I know I got a good laptop from a reputable company that will last me for years to come. Make sure you have a good speakerphone if you plan on calling customer support, the wait time can be long! Oh yes, one last thing, if you plan to change the operating system the laptop came with, be ready to support yourself, Dell only provides support for the computer the way it was shipped to you.

Specs for my Dell Inspiron 4000:
PIII 800mhz
14.1" screen
128 mb RAM
10GB harddrive
8mb ATI Rage Video card
DVD
27whr batter
56k/NIC card combo
thin/lightweight

Purchased this in early 2001

*One other important thing to look for if you're looking for a laptop, it's preferred to have the memory on one SDRAM module since this laptop can only accomodate 2 modules. This way, if you plan to upgrade, you won't have to remove memory to add more.



Recommended: Yes