The Dell SmartStep 200 is Performance for the Person on the Go!
Written: Oct 21 '02 (Updated Jan 17 '03)
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Pros: Fast, upgradeable on some features with a good clear colorful picture.
Cons: It misses a CDRW built in with the DVD ROM.
The Bottom Line: Overall the Dell SmartStep 200 is a fast Notebook with a nice looking colorful screen!
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| surferdude7's Full Review: Dell SmartStep 200 Series Notebook Computers |
The Dell SmartStep 200 gives you performance with an Intel Pentium 4 processor with 2.0 GHz, 256MB of DDR RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon Graphics card of 32MB of DDR memory. This laptop also includes a 30MB hard drive, 15-inch display, a built-in DVD ROM, a 56K modem, an integrated 10/100 Ethernet NIC, a SoundBlaster compatible sound and much more.
The modem is an internal 56K v.92 Fax modem and the DVD ROM is an 8X speed. The SmartStep 200 measures 12.8 inches wide x 1.8 inches thick and 10.8 inches in depth, weighing in at 7.85 pounds.
~~~The Processor~~~
The SmartStep 200 comes with the Intel Pentium 4 processor at 2GHz running on a 400 MHz processor side BUS with 8 KB Internal Cache (L1) and 512KB of On-die cache.
~~~The Memory~~~
Dell included the faster RAM of DDR with 256MB onboard and two slots for two more chips of 512MB (Optional) to give you an additional 1024MB of RAM.
~~~The Battery~~~
The SmartStep 200 comes with a 12 cell Lithium Ion battery rated at 3 hours to charge it and about 3.5 hours for usage, depending on your usage .
Well the charging time is about right for the 3 hours to fully charge the battery. Usage can depend on a lot of factors depending on how you use it, bottom line for me was the best I could get out of a fully charged battery was 3 hours and 14 minutes. The worst was playing graphic games for about 2 hours and 42 minutes.
~~~The Display~~~
The display is a 15-inch XGA TFT active-matrix display with 1024 x 768 of resolution. The display produces a nice rich colorful display that makes your digital photos and games look great.
~~~The Software~~~
Included with the SmartStep 200 is MS Windows XP Home Edition along with a WordPerfect Productivity Pack and Norton AntiVirus 2002.
The Windows XP is nice and works smoothly without any problems, the WordPerfect Productivity Pack I didn’t like and had to load on Microsoft Office but the Norton AntiVirus 2002 is nice when using the laptop on the Internet.
~~~Other Specifications~~~
IEEE 1394 4-pin serial connector
AC Adapter
Connectors: 2 Type I or II cards or 1 Type III card
A 9-pin serial connector
A 7-pin mini DIN S-Video connector
One 25-hole pin parallel connector
A 15-pin monitor connector
A 6-pin for a PS/2-style keyboard, mouse or keypad
A line out audio jack for headphones or a set of external speakers.
A line in and microphone in.
Two USB (Universal Serial Bus Ports)
One RJ-11 connector for a modem
One RJ-45 connector for a network card
~~~The Performance~~~
Well Dell has done a much better job on this Notebook than in the past. Booting up the first time still takes about a minute or so but opening up the software like Microsoft Word took only seconds.
Games did fairly well with good color and sound once I hooked on a pair of external speakers.
The built-in mouse was easy to operate over older Notebooks but when it comes to games using a mouse I had to connect an external one for best game performance.
DVD movies played alright, the video part was pretty good but I do miss my Digital Dolby 5.1 sound, overall not too bad for movies on the go.
~~~My Final Words~~~
At a retail price of $1249 Dell has put together an affordable Notebook with added features and performance. As far as looks the Notebook is rather plain and simple but it easy to understand, use and navigate with. I would have preferred a copy of Microsoft Office XP with it instead of the WordPerfect Productivity Pack but that would have made the Notebook cost more.
This is a great Notebook to take along if you are on the go and take a lot of digital photos for two reasons. Number one you can view your photos anywhere you go and number two you can load your photos onto the Notebook to give you more storage on your digital camera.
The big pluses for this Notebook is the 15 inch display, the DDR RAM in the system and the video card, plus two USB ports, before most only had one USB port. The size and weight of the SmartStep 200 is very comfortable for taking along almost anywhere.
The main down fall for me was not having a CDRW, for that you will have to go with the next model, the SmartStep 250, it has a DVD + CDRW Combination Drive with a 2.2 GHz processor.
Bottom line is the Dell SmartStep 200 is at an affordable price with plenty of power and storage for most people, I Highly Recommend it Dude!
Here are some of my other Computer reviews!
Dell Dimension 8250 Series
HP Omnibook XE3 PIII Notebook Computers
emachines T2080
The Parts for Building a Computer from Scratch!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1249
Operating System: Windows
Screen Size: 15 inches
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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