A Good Deal, Not a Great One
Written: Nov 14 '03
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Pros: Good performance, decent portability, good price point
Cons: Touchpad kind of sucks
The Bottom Line: On balance the 600M is a good deal.
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| jimbo92109's Full Review: Dell Inspiron 600M (600MSAP) PC Notebook |
I bought my 600M in mid July 2003, after intensive surfing on the subject. I opted for the low-end 1.3GHz model with 256 megs of RAM, 30-gig hard drive, a/b/g wi-fi, CDWR/DVD, and regular VGA, rather than the hi-rez video. Also added an extra modular battery.
Mostly I bought the unit for writing, but I found myself doing design work with Corel Draw, so I purchased a 512MB stick of RAM via PriceWatch, where I found a stick for $83 bucks. After removing one of the 128meg sticks, I was running 640MB. It mattered.
For my purposes the 600M works quite well, although at around 7 pounds it does seem a bit heavy. Looking back, I should have popped for the 40 gig HD, but with a bit of compression and self-discipline 30 gigs will suffice. I don't miss the higher-rez video at all.
1.3MHz is actually good enough for light design work, but I found myself using my 2.4MHz AMD desktop when a piece got complicated. The extra horsepower makes a big difference.
One odd bug: If you have a USB mouse connected, don't use the Standby feature--it might not wake up. Instead, I have it go straight to Hibernate, so my work gets stored. It boots up fast enough that the difference is minimal, anyway.
Keyboard is okay, but the touchpad is not comfortable. And I really wish Dell would get rid of the old serial and parallel ports. Replace them with six more USB 2.0 ports, to match all the new peripherals. Also, a single PC Card slot is not sufficient, since I use one slot for backing up files on an ATA card. It'd be nice to have a second one available for add-on's.
All-in-all, the 600M is a good deal, but there is definitely room for improvement. A better touchpad would be nice, and the 1.3GHz CPU seems to lag sometimes. An extra PC slot and a few more USB ports would help. A good first effort from Dell, but other makers are starting to catch up.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1500
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 14 inches
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
jimbo92109
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Location: San Diego, CA, USA
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
I write technical literature for high-tech companies.
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