The Dell Inspiron 4000 notebook computer is a medium size machine with a lot of computing power. The color is black, but you can get four different color panels to put on the palm rests and the back of the LCD. It weighs about 6 pounds and is 1.47 inches thick. Here are the specs for the one that is reviewed:

Intel Pentium 3 at 850 MHz with SpeedStep
128 MB Ram
14.1 inch XGA LCD screen
10 GB Hard Drive
8x DVD drive
Floppy drive
3com Internal Mini-PCI 56k modem and 10/100 NIC
Serial, Parallel, Infrarad, VGA, PS/2, Audio (Mic and Headphones), USB,
S-Video, RJ-11, and RJ-45 port(s)
26.5 WHr (4-cell) Lithium Ion Battery (approx 2 hours w/SpeedStep)
2 PCMCIA type 2 slots

The Inspiron 4000's screen looked fine, for about a week. However, one day, I turned it on, and there were around 20 washed out pixels in the shape of a circle in one area of my screen. So I had the screen replaced with a refurbished one, which was a mistake, since about a month later, it started flashing white/blue at random times. More on this later.

The DVD drive seems to be very fast. While it has software decoding instead of hardware, all DVDs that were tested played flawlessly. And it is hot swapable, so you can switch it with your floppy drive using the installed software with Windows Millennium. However, one day, it just stopped working. I called Dell, and the next day, a brand new DVD drive came to my door that actually worked.

It plays games pretty well. While very serious gamers might not want it, this laptop will work fine for an average gamer or those who only plays games occasionally. Quake 3 Arena worked pretty well, but only after the maximum install. Half Life worked very well.

The Mini-PCI network card/modem combo works great as well. Getting on the network was as simple as plugging it in and setting the settings. However, the plastic in the network jack that holds the cable in was very cheap and broke, so I had them replace my motherboard (it was built on), only to find it broken again a few days later. Maybe it was just my network cable, but I've used many, and they wouldn't click in the network jack. More on that later. The modem worked fine, but the DellNet software that comes with the laptop doesn’t always. (You get 1 free year of DellNet by MSN Internet access.) You can not use Internet Explorer (in Windows Millennium at least, that’s what it came with) until you sign up for your 1 year of DellNet. Even if you uninstall it, it still will not go into IE. After I signed up, I could change it so it wouldn’t. DellNet worked fine after that hitch, is a great dial-up ISP to have when your on the road, and hey, its free for a year. (This DellNet problem did not happen on my new one.)

The battery life is around 2 hours with my battery. However, I have a low capacity (4-cell, 26.5 WHr) battery. Dell claims the high capacity (8-cell, 53 WHr) battery to last between 3.5 and 4 hours. These times are when SpeedStep is activated. When SpeedStep is on, your computer goes 150 MHz slower (down to 700 MHz from 850 MHz in this case) to save battery life. On maximum performance mode using the battery (which means SpeedStep is off), it only lasts about 1 hour and 20 min. The battery life is good considering it is a low capacity battery and the high capacity battery is supposed to be twice as powerful. You can even take out the DVD or Floppy (depending on which one you have in at the time) and put a second battery for double the time.

The computer in general works pretty fast, but there are some problems in using it in Windows Millennium. The computer crashes more than normal in Windows Millennium. Even before installing any software (that didn’t come with it), it crashed a few times. Installing 3rd party software didn’t affect it one way or the other that much. However, later, I installed Windows 2000 Professional. I had one problem while installing it, and I had to repair the installation, but after that, it has crashed very rarely. While Windows 2000 didn’t crash much, it does have a hot-swapping problem. If you start the laptop with the DVD drive in the computer, and then while its on, you take it out, and later put it back in again (if you need to use the floppy drive internally), it will not work. You have to restart the computer. This seems to be a Windows 2000 problem, however, since it happens with anything else (except the floppy) that goes in the drive bay (e.g. my friend's cd burner).

Also, the speaker volume was mediocre. It wasn’t as low as some people claim it is, but it wasn’t that loud either. If you are watching a DVD in a somewhat noisy area, plug headphones into it, since they work great.

Another con is the laptop feels flimsy. The chassis is made of plastic, and some of the plastic seems to easily bend. The right side of the keyboard sinks in a little bit, so the keys sometimes make a louder than normal clattering noise. (However, it is relatively easy to touch type on.) Eventually, no matter how well I took care of it, parts of the plastic became detached. Also, the mouse buttons are loud when you click them, but you can tap the pointing stick or the touchpad (it comes with both) instead of clicking either of the left buttons, and it is silent.

You may be wondering, why would I give it a positive review, if the screen kept flashing different colors, the plastic was coming off, and my network card jack kept breaking? I ended up calling dell and asking for a system exchange. The first tech support agent wouldn't give me one, and wanted me to re-install the os. The second one continued where the first one left off, but eventually I finally got someone to give me an exchange. They said it would come in 10-14 days, but it actually came in 3. It was identical to my old one, except it was a 900 P3 (when it is plugged in), as opposed to my old 850 P3 (not that big a difference). I have not had any problems with it, not even cosmetic, and I've had my new one over a month. Way to go Dell, at least for now.

If you have multiple problems, be prepared to demand a system exchange, and specify you want a NEW system, not a refurbished one. Also, get on-site service, mail-in service is a horror according to people I know.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 1743
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 801-900
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: DVD