Dell Inspiron 8100 - A great lap top!
Written: Mar 20 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Lots of upgrades available, larger screen, fast processor
Cons: HEAVY!, Battery life
The Bottom Line: A great computer and well worth the money we spent!
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| LisaDo's Full Review: Dell Inspiron 8100 Series |
We recently purchased our first lap top. My husband is in the Navy and wanted a computer to take with him when he was away from home. He wanted something with good speed, a decent size screen, and a DVD Rom. He wanted to be able to dial up so we could use e-mail or IMs while he was out or at least be able to watch DVDs and listen to MP3s. So, we went online and did some research.
Matt checked out Gateway and Dell both online. He brought up the computer he was interested in and customized them both. He got a better deal, faster computer and better warranty with Dell, and it was over $400 cheaper. My mother also was having problems with Gateway's service, so we hadn't really planned on buying thru them, but checked them out for comparison. We had checked out other companies, too, but none could offer what Dell was for the price, so we went ahead and placed the call the Dell to place the order.
When we called, the gentleman on the other end was very helpful. He answered any and all of our questions without making us feel like we were stupid. My husband built our desktop, but have never messed with a lap top, so he wanted to go ahead and max everything out, for the most part. He had a few questions and the man was nice enough to take the time and answer all of our questions before we ordered. We also found out that some of the prices were a little less when you called the order in, rather than placing it online. The website isn't as up to date in it's pricing as the customer service people are. Just a thought if you decide to purchase one.
Matt opted for the Dell Inspiron 8100 because he could get the Pentium III 1.2 GHh processor. He also wanted to larger 15" screen. He also liked that the mouse was not only the touch pad, but there was a little joystick type mouse in between the G, H and B keys on the keyboard that is about the size of a pencil eraser.
Matt opted for the 40GB hard drive. He wanted extra room for his MP3s while he was away from home, so he wouldn't have to worry about carrying CDs with him. He wanted the 60GB hard drive, but he was told that they no longer offer this because it would get to hot. The Dell Inspiron 8100 also came loaded with Windows XP Home Edition.
We ended up getting 256MB SDRAM instead of the 512MB SDRAM we could have maxed it out to. We have that in our desktop and that has been more than enough. We were trying to watch our pennies but still get a good computer. After much debate we decided 256 would do.
For the video card we got 64 MB AGP ATI Mobility Radeon 7500. Do I know what all of that means exactly? No, but I do know that it was the top video card that they offered for the Dell Inspiron 8100 and the picture looks great! DVDs look great while being played on it. Colors are crisp and clear with no fuzziness.
We picked up a standard Inspiron floppy drive and also a 8X DVD internal drive and 16X CDRW modular drive. We thought about getting one of the combos drives that Dell offers, but for some reason my husband prefers the separate drives. He would rather pop the floppy drive out and put the CDRW drive in when he wants to use it, which won't be very often. He basically wanted it just so he could back up his files in case something happens so he won't lose everything.
For a modem we got the MiniPCI 56K+10/100. This is a modem that doubles as an Ethernet card. Since we also have a desktop and we wanted to network them, this was what we wanted and needed. Covered two bases with one part.
I had never really messed with a lap top, so I didn't know much about this, but my husband said that usually the speakers have horrible sound, so we ordered the optional midnight gray Harmon Kardon speakers. They weren't much extra, so we figured it would be worth it in the long run. We have yet to take them out of the box and try them out. The sound from the lap top was actually a lot better than we had figured, considering the size of them. He actually has to watch the volume sometimes because it can get to loud. There isn't a lot of base, but for general use that is ok. Mostly he wanted the extra speakers for listening to MP3s.
For an extra $19 we could have added a colored palm rest, but we opted for the standard midnight gray. The other colors, in our opinions, looked stupid. Some people might like that kind of thing, but having a "Royal Purple" palm rest was not something my husband was cracked on. The "Tahoe Blue" wasn't bad, but we decided the gray looked best and it didn't cost any extra. You could also opt to pay $29-$39 extra for a "premium" palm rest, but we weren't interested.
We also opted to go ahead and pick up the nylon backpack carrying case. It was another $79, but we were being lazy. We figured we would rather go ahead and pick it up at the same time rather than hunt one down after our lap top showed up. It was actually very nice, and you almost can't tell it from a regular backpack, which is nice so people don't know that is what you are carrying. It has pockets for cables and such as well.
As we got to the end of ordering, we were checking out the offered warranties. We decided to go with the 4 year limited warranty and we purchased the "CompleteCare" as well in case of accidents. It wasn't much more to go with the 4 year warranty, it was their longest, and with the money we were about to spend, I would rather be safe than sorry. Others might not agree, but our luck stinks. If it can go wrong, for us it will. If you doubt this, check out my Epinion on our IBM desktop.
Our computer also came with a bunch of other software. Some that were included were Music Match 6.0 for XP, Norton Anitvirus 2002 (we went ahead and upgraded this for the subscription as well and not just the 90 introductory we were offered), Quicken Tax Suite 2002 and MS Worksuite 2002. We also received AOL 7.0 free for 6 months, which we haven't and won't use. They also offered 6 months of DellNet by MSN, but because we got the MiniPCI 56K+10/100 they wouldn't let us get the DellNet. I have no idea why exactly.
My husband has being using his computer daily with no real problems. The mouse takes some getting used to, but that is just part of having a lap top. He said that it does get hot after a while when he is using it, so he makes sure to place it on a table when he uses it for long periods of time. The speakers don't have much base, like I mentioned before, but we don't notice to much unless listening to music files. For regular surfing they work just fine.
One of our major gripes is the weight. The Dell Inspiron 8100 weights almost 7 lbs. May not sound like a lot, but with something that is only 1.6" thick, it is quite a bit.
Also, the battery life stinks. My husband was using it the other night for maybe 1 1/2 hours and it was getting low, so he had to plug it in. When he asked about battery life he was told it would last roughly 4 hours as long as he wasn't running a lot of taxing programs at once. Well, all he was doing was checking email and some mild surfing, no more than two windows up at a time. This is not our idea of heavy usage, but I guess it must have been because the battery had been charged, but still died in what seemed like no time at all.
We have been very happy with our Dell Inspiron 8100 so far. It has great speed and has a sharp picture. The sound is just ok, but like I said, it will do for surfing. If you want to do more, I suggest purchasing speakers. Swapping out the drives is a piece of cake.
To help out with some of the cost, make sure you ask what specials they have. Sometimes they have extra offers besides what is listed on the site, and those offers change at random. When we bought ours it had free shipping (ground only) and $100 mail in rebate. They also had several free upgrades that they were offering, or if not free at a discounted price.
I am no computer guru, by any means. I know some of the basics, and that is about it, but I am very impressed with what we received. We got a great computer for a good price (compared to what the same would cost from other manufacturers). If you need a sturdy lap top that will get the job done, this could be the one for you!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 3200
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 15
RAM: 256
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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Epinions.com ID:
LisaDo
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Member: Lisa D
Location: Back home in Indiana!
Reviews written: 552
Trusted by: 274 members
About Me:
Proud SAHM, Navy wife and member of SHLEPS!
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