Great all around
Written: Aug 15 '01 (Updated Aug 15 '01)
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Pros: Power, weight, versatility, ergonomics
Cons: No Geforce2go video card available! Speakers substandard.
The Bottom Line: This laptop has everything I need and is not too heavy, plus the bays are easy to swap in and out.
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| clouseau2's Full Review: Dell Inspiron 4000 Series |
Before purchasing this Inspiron 4000, I bought an Inspiron 8000 (read my review). I ended up returning the Inspiron 8000, even though it was excellent, because I decided that I wanted a portable and not a desktop replacement.
I ordered an Inspiron 4000 with a 14" 1400x1050 screen, an 8X DVD-ROM drive, 2 56KWH batteries, a 20 Gb hard drive, 128 Mb of memory, a 900 Mhz Pentium 3 processor, a floppy drive and 2 different insertable panels.
My experience with ordering the Inspiron 8000 had taught me 2 valuable lessons. If you get nothing else from this review, learn the following from my experience. First, always order your Dell laptop with as little memory as possible (and only 1 DIMM unless you don't mind tossing out memory), and upgrade the memory yourself using Crucial memory, which costs 1/2 as much as Dell charges. I ordered the unit with 128 Mb and added 256 Mb of crucial memory in this fashion, saving approx $100 or so in the process. Second, toss Windows ME (a big step backwards from Win98SE IMHO), and spend the extra $80 that it takes to upgrade from Windows ME to Windows 2000 Professional. I had Windows ME on the Inspiron 8000 and I was not very happy with that OS. Windows 2000 is the first decent OS Microsoft has ever sold. You'll have to contact a salesperson directly to get Windows 2000 instead of Windows ME on your Inspiron laptop, since it is not one of the options available online. Trust me, it's worth it.
I've had this machine for about 3 or 4 months now and I have been very happy with it. I've played games while waiting in doctor's offices, watched DVDs on it, given demos at work on it, all without a single problem.
No, this laptop is not as slick and sexy as a Sony VIAO, or an Apple laptop, but with the versatile bays and low price I think it's a more practical system.
The 1400x1050 screen is absolutely beautiful. Everything is bright and readable, and it scales well to lower resolutions.
Performance-wise, you won't be playing any games at high resolutions on this system. The ATI rage 128 card is no good for any modern 3D shooters or simulations beyond 640x480 resolution (get the Inspiron 8000 if that is really important to you, it has incredible gaming performance). For regular applications and watching DVDs, it is very capable.
This machine is also pretty quiet, although the 2 sets of buttons around the touchpad click rather loudly, and when the DVD-ROM drive spins up it can be loud. I've had no problems playing any of my DVDs, except one, but that one is scratched up and doesn't play in many other DVD players either. This is in contrast with the Inspiron 8000 I had before which had problems playing DVDs.
Battery life has been pretty good. I estimate I get around 2 1/2 hours of life out of a battery if I am watching a DVD and probably a bit over 3 hours for other tasks.
The speakers are pretty bad and have limited volume. The speakers on the Inspiron 8000 had better sound quality. However, I rarely listen to the sound on the speakers, I almost exclusively use headphones so this is not that big of an issue (for me anyway).
I like the dual cursor controls (pointing stick and touchpad) although I usually end up using the pointing stick. It's nice to be able to switch back and forth when my fingers start getting cramped. I turn off the "hitting the touchpad selects something" feature since I find that goes off accidentally quite often.
So, if you are deciding between buying an Inspiron 4000 or an Inspiron 8000, stepping down from an 8000 to a 4000 gains you about $700 bucks but you lose excellent gaming performance (thanks to the Geforce2Go card in the 8000), a 15" screen (but the 4000 screen is available with the same 1400x1050 resolution), a firewire port (you can add a PCMCIA card on the 4000 for that), a second USB port (never needed that), and one fixed media bay (Not that big of a deal). I prefer the smaller dimensions and weight of the 4000.
Overall, I am extremely satisfied with the Inspiron 4000. I haven't had a chance to use Dell's customer support yet because I haven't had a single problem with the unit. I don't use it constantly and treat it pretty gingerly, so that probably helps. At 5.5 lbs or so, it's easy to carry around and it becomes a great portable theater for watching DVDs.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2300
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 801-900
Screen Size: 14
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
clouseau2
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Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 1 member
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