Dell's Inspiron e1405 is a portable, powerful multimedia notebook
Written: Jun 21 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: True-Life Screen, battery life, powerful components
Cons: Graphics chip is not powerful, light-bleeding display
The Bottom Line: For the user desiring power and portability coupled with a great looking widescreen aspect ratio screen, the e1405 is the one.
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| ivplay's Full Review: Dell Inspiron™ E1405 (E1405S1) PC Notebook |
Dell’s release of the XPS 140 was met with a mixed bag of criticism; while the notebook was very nice, it didn't seem to fit the mold of XPS for top-of-the-line performance and gaming. Recognizing this error, Dell re-released the model in the Inspiron line as the E1405 with the new upgrades to Duo Core processor models. While this model was somewhat out of place in the XPS line, it fits right into the overall scheme alongside other Inspiron favorites such as the 1505 and 1705. Much of the styling is duplicated, and the size makes the E1405 just right for the traveler on the go looking for a full-featured notebook. A quick summary of the machine I purchased:
●Intel Core Processor Duo T2500 running 2GHz with 667MHz FSB
●14.1" True-Life Wide-Screen WXGA+ screen (1440 X 900 resolution)
●1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM running 533MHz
●Intel Integrated Graphics Accelerator 950GM chip
●40GB 5400RPM SATA hard drive
●Microsoft Windows XP Home with SP2
●24X CD Burner/DVD combo drive
●Dell wireless 1390 802.11g minicard; b and g network compliant
●85 WHr 9 cell Li-ion expanded battery
When thinking of purchasing a Dell computer, be sure to check the internet for coupons and discounted specials. No one should ever pay full price for one of these babies as the specials are good and frequent. I have seen specials which essentially cut the price in half for many of the models Dell offers, although I haven't seen them lately. If you are not pressed for time and can wait and watch, you will be sure to get a computer for a great price. In the case of this E1405, I was able to take $400 off the price of a machine configured to $1399 or more, dropping my final price to slightly over $1000. This purchase included a nylon backpack-style carrying case as well, and I recommend purchasing one if you are in the market.
Out of the Box
The box arrived in less than the anticipated 3 to 5 day waiting period, which was very nice. The first item of note was the relative light weight of the box, as the computer this replaced was the Inspiron 9300, now the E1705. Opening the box revealed the notebook itself, a quickstart guide, application CD's and the power cable/transformer. The quick-start guide is a nice full color job which will get you through the initial startup should you need it. The power adapter for this notebook (identical in design to the adapter for the 9300) is the best I have personally used. The large brick is rounded for ease of cable wrapping, and a large elastic strap will keep the cables stored nicely while in transit.
Physical appearances/layout
Much of the physical design for the e1405 is a copy of the Inspiron 9300, and being that I liked that design quite well you can guess what my reaction to the 1405 is. The unit itself is approximately 1.5" x 13" x 9.5" for the standard unit, and mine is slightly wider than this due to the extended battery that projects out the back of the 1405. Typical weight is in the 4.5-5.5 lb range, making this a very portable notebook. Mine is on the higher end of this weight class due again to the extended battery I purchased, yet it is still very portable; much more so than the 9300 it replaced. The outer shell is a silver metallic plastic which feels very sturdy, and in the center of the lid Dell has emblazoned their easy-to-recognize logo. The bottom of the notebook contains the hatches to access upgrading the RAM or wireless as well as the screw for securing the DVD/CD bay. The battery is also located on the bottom of the computer, and this can be customized to either the 6 cell unit or upgraded to the 9 cell, longer life battery.
There is a multitude of ports on the e1405 with a Firewire 1394 mini connection, 4 USB ports, a 5 in 1 memory card reader, VGA and S-Video out as well as the standard modem, Ethernet and headphone/microphone connections. Noticeably lacking is the PC card slot, as this has been replaced in the Dell line with the new ExpressCard slot. While Dell will assure you that this is the 'new standard' in notebook slots, don't be so gullible. This is Dell's way of forcing their new standard on the user while offering nothing in return, at this time. Any PC cards you might have used in the past (GPS, Modem, etc. will be rendered useless on your new 1405, and I have yet to find any available cards to use with an ExpressCard slot to date. That isn't to say that this will not be useful in the future, but for those upgrading with mission-critical PC cards, beware.
The keyboard/trackpad for the e1405 is very well laid out and easy to use. The keys are responsive yet sturdy, and the trackpad is placed just right for my use. While typing I have no problems with accidentally moving the cursor or tapping the mouse buttons as the pad is situated perfectly, at least for me. The scrolling ability of the 9300 was by far my favorite to date, and in using the 1405 I don't believe that anything has changed. There are zones along the bottom and right side of the trackpad for scrolling left-right and up-down, and this works much better than the feeble attempt of scrolling on my wife's Compaq 2010US.
As the e1405 is designed with the multimedia user in mind, there are multimedia buttons along the front panel of the notebook. Volume Up, Down and Mute are present along with Play, FFwd, Rwd, and Stop. Additionally there is a 'new' button on the 1405 that the 9300 didn't have; this button starts the Dell Media Experience, either from within Windows or bypassing Windows altogether for playback without booting. Pressing this button will launch the proprietary Dell application which is based around Cyberlink's PowerDVD player. Overall this works pretty well, although I typically simply use the application called from Windows. Old habits are hard to break, I suppose…
The speakers for this notebook are located to either side of these media buttons on the front panel, and overall the quality is fairly good if the user takes into consideration that the comparison is other tinny notebook speakers. The speakers are biased to the higher frequencies, although the listening experience isn't terrible. The 9300 had much better sound, in large part due to the 'subwoofer' that was present on the bottom of the unit.
Performance/Use
While the 1405 is not quite the desktop replacement that the 9300 was, it is still a very decent purchase for the price. For the user looking for a multimedia/office experience this is more than sufficient, and the dual core processor coupled with 1GB of ram is powerful enough to run middle-tier development software and the like. The only target audience that isn't going to be happy with this notebook would be gamers, as the onboard video options are limited in power and selection.
Screen
As the screen is required for the user interface to work with any notebook, it is by far one of the most important physical aspects of the PC. Understanding this, I purchased the top of the line screen which is a 14.1" WXGA widescreen display with True-Life technology included. I have to say that anyone looking at the 1405 should definitely consider upgrading to the true-life screen, as the glossy, high resolution screen is perfect for watching movies and other multimedia action. While the 9300 I purchased a year ago reportedly had the True-Life screen as well, the difference in quality and clarity between the two is noticeable. The LCD is responsive to the point that I have noticed no ghosting while watching DVD's that move from light to dark backdrops with fast action. The widescreen display is really meant for media applications, and it excels at this. One problem with the display on my 1405 is light leakage, much more so than was noticed with the 9300. When the computer is displaying a completely black (or mostly dark) screen, you will notice slight amounts of white light emanating from the sides and bottom of the screen with the worst areas at the bottom. This is especially noticeable when the typical Windows XP screensaver kicks in, but not too bad when playing back video files. This is a detriment that I am willing to accept in light of the beauty of the display, but nevertheless this knocks the overall rating down a star for me. The screen is connected to the base solidly with some wide, sturdy hinges and the hinging action is smooth with enough tension to keep the screen in any position.
I am not sure if it is a Dell thing or a widescreen aspect ratio thing, but both my 9300 and this 1405 have viewing angles that leave something to be desired. In comparison to several desktop LCD screens I have used at work and at home, the viewing angles on these two laptops are somewhat degraded. I estimate that between 60 and 65 degrees off of center in the horizontal plane is when the screen starts to look less than optimal, while most desktop screens I have used will look good out to 70-80 degrees out. Similarly, in the vertical plane I see distortion and discoloring between 20 and 30 degrees from center, which is again not quite as good as that found in the desktop varieties. The good news is that the screen is mobile, so there should be no problem with the single user. Only when a few folks are crowded around your notebook will the experience be downgraded for some.
Internals
Processor
The processor that came with my e1405 deserves a section all to itself. I paid additional money for the premium processor configuration as I wanted to have the highest power available at the time. The reason for this is that I often use my computer for encoding video files, and the single processor running at 1.6GHz that was shipped with my 9300 was less than stellar for this application. The Dual Core processor running at 2.0GHz is much faster for encoding, and the time required for each task is greatly reduced. Some of this might be attributed to the fact that the 9300 had only 512MB of RAM where the 1405 has a full Gigabyte, but either way the tasks are much speedier. I will say that unless you will be performing processor intensive applications frequently you shouldn't worry about the additional cash for the upgraded processor. For the typical office applications, email and web browsing the base processor will fit the bill perfectly.
Graphics Chip
One area where the 1405 falls flat is the graphics chip. This computer is not designed for those who wish to run recently released games, as the only option is the Intel 950 shared memory chipset. This performs woefully slow in comparison to even the X1400 available on the e1505, and anything newer than about three years in gaming is not going to run sufficiently well. For the multimedia user (which this computer seems to be aimed at) it will work great. Watching DVD's and playing older games is fine, and the true-life display makes videos jump out of the screen. The previous version of the 1405 (the XPS 140) also had the low-end graphics chip, which is why many questioned the XPS moniker. In the Inspiron line it is more palatable, although a few other options would be much appreciated.
RAM
I was able to get the computer with a 'free' (read: built into the price) upgrade from 512MB to 1GB of RAM. This is nice, although I am not quite sure why Dell didn't match the Front Side Bus speed. The T2500 processor has a FSB of 667MHz, and to match this ideally the RAM would also run 667MHz. However, the GB of RAM that was installed in the e1405 is running with a frequency of 533MHz, meaning that the chipset must use a ratio to get the RAM and Processor on the same page. This is a built-in bottleneck that I really don't understand, as the higher frequency DDR2 RAM running 667MHz FSB is available. In any case, this RAM coupled with the T2500 is quite speedy, but matching the speeds exactly would allow for more bandwidth and thus faster applications.
Hard Drive
You might have noticed that I went with the smallest hard drive available at 40GB. This is a deviation from my past purchases where I would upgrade the hard drive for more space, and there is a reason for this. I have installed quite a few Networked hard drives for storage and backup, totaling well over a terabyte in my house alone. This allows me to keep most of my application data on server-type memory in the house, free from any failures of the disk in the portable laptops. I have a sync-ing system in place for traveling where I can move files I need before I go, so the need for the vast space on the notebook is much reduced.
That being said, the drive that I received is SATA in connection type and spins with a spindle speed of 5400RPM. Many folks would point to the 7200RPM application for 'best' performance, but in tests I have run on past systems the performance gains from 7200 to 5400 are negligible. I would save the money you would otherwise spend on upgrading the drive and spend it where it is much more noticeable, such as the True-Life display screen. The 40GB SATA 5400RPM drive is more than sufficient for my needs.
Battery
Ah, the battery. This is one component of the e1405 that I am extremely thrilled with. I paid the additional money for the upgraded battery (9 cell versus 6 cell) knowing that doing so would give me extended life with the 1405. I didn't have any idea the extended life would be so long, though! If I am running the computer with the WiFi enabled, the screen on full brightness and several applications running in the background I can easily get 4 hours, and up to almost 5 hours from the battery. If I turn off the WiFi, reduce the screen brightness and play a single application such as a DVD, I have taken this up to just a tad over 7 hours. That's right, over 7 hours on a notebook battery.
The previous 9300 also had the extended life battery, but had a much larger screen as well as a juiced up graphics chip. With that notebook running a 9-cell battery I was lucky to get over 3 hours, which is acceptable time but not exceptional. Based on this experience I was hoping to get longer life from the smaller screen, but again I had no idea how long the battery would give. This is by far the longest battery life I have seen on a notebook, and it should be noted that this may not be typical to all users.
Heat/noise
I was pleasantly surprised with the 9300 in the areas of heat and noise management. Previous laptops I had used all exhausted the hot air through a vent in the bottom of the unit, and this coupled with power-hungry processors often made these unbearable for actual lap usage. The 9300 had the vents in the side and rear of the unit, and thus only heat that was transferred through the casing locally would heat up the legs. This was/is by far the best heat dissipation design I have seen.
The 1405 is actually better than the 9300 for comfort while on the legs. This is partially due the same design for exhausting the heat but mostly due to the lesser powered graphics chip, I would assume. The heat is noticeable when using the 1405 on your lap, but even less so than the 9300. I can sit with this in use on my lap for extended periods of time with no discomfort whatsoever.
As for noise, the 1405 is a very quiet machine. The hard drive doesn't have much for audible noise even when spinning up, and the fans do not kick in all that often unless encoding video. Even when the fans do kick in it certainly is not loud, and in the living room with my HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer) it contributes no noise compared to the PC.
Software package
Of little importance to me is the software that comes packaged with a notebook. The software is most often an annoyance that is immediately wiped off the unit and replaced with my own pre-owned copies, and this is no exception. Dell packages several trial package software applications on the PC to begin with, and these include Roxio Creator Basic, Sonic Cineplayer, Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security and NetZero dial-up service. AOL for broadband, Netscape ISP, Corel WordPerfect 12 Trial and Paint Shop Pro Standard round out the useless applications that have been deleted from this machine. The Dell Media Center Application is something that I do use along with the PC Restore Recovery System by Symantec. Other than this, the software that is loaded on the 1405 is all something that I previously owned or downloaded. I would highly recommend downloading and trialing the free ZoneAlarm firewall and AVG antivirus applications, as I have had good luck with these and they are easy on resources compared to Norton or McAfee.
Support
I stuck with the base warranty that is included in the price of the notebook which is a one year limited warranty. I would recommend this route for anyone who is somewhat proficient in computers, as the warranty/on-site service is somewhat difficult to obtain. I have had to use Dell service in the past, and while it can be an agonizing experience it has always led to a satisfying experience in that my problems have been solved or addressed. There is a fairly active forum for user support on the dell website, and I have had good luck solving a few minor issues via this route.
Overall
For the user that desires a portable, powerful notebook I highly recommend the e1405. Four to seven hours of battery time is great, and the T2500 coupled with 1GB of RAM places this well above the entry-level computers you can buy at the big-box stores. If you only desire web surfing and email with a peppering of tame office applications, I would probably look to a cheaper model, but for multimedia applications the 1405 with True-Life display simply cannot be beat.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1086
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 14 inches
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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