Dell 500m hits the spot with more RAM
Written: Jul 09 '03 (Updated Jul 16 '03)
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Pros: Very lightweight, great combo-bay, well built, good keyboard
Cons: a little pricey, slow with 128mb ram (shares 64mb video), get a RAM upgrade quick!
The Bottom Line: Great LIGHTWEIGHT value, well built & designed, just get more RAM
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| teterman2000's Full Review: Dell Inspiron 500M (500msap) PC Notebook |
Get MORE RAM when you buy this thing (actually, buy the ram from somewhere else, it's cheaper). Otherwise, a VERY GOOD PACKAGE: well-built and designed.
ME: Law student taking the bar, bought this to replace old faithful, a used Dell 166 Xpi. Only use for word-processing and the occasional web-surfing. My main goals: reliability, ethernet file transfer ease, decent bios (I get sick of dealing with a 5-year old bios that hardly recognizes the system it's dealing with), good screen for word-processing, and the occasional tinkering capabilities (home networks, harddrive partitioning, etc).
the DELL 500m: Fits my needs to a "t" so far. . .(bought it last month when I realized my 166 didn't have the battery power to get through a bar exam if the power went out!). Just happened onto the Dell website when they were offering this machine with an extra battery.
I don't abuse my laptops, nor do I use them for games, 3-D stuff, internet file serving, burning CDs, watching DVDs or any other oddball stuff I do on my desktop.
If you do any of these things a bunch (particularly the 3-D gaming), I might suggest looking at either the 600m or another machine, see below).
STATS
CPU: centrino 1.3
20gb HD
640mb ram (128 + 512 added, $120)
video: shared 64mb ram
standard TFT 14.1" (I believe, I didn't pay for the upgrade)
extra battery (each battery lasts about 3.5 hrs when running Word, uses up the 2nd battery first, good idea)
plain CD
floppy (costs $50 extra, but has nifty USB cord when bay has something else in it)
windows XP
2 USB, parallel ports, etc (no firewire or any other exotic stuff)
has place for mini-card (infared, supposed to be a pretty fast thing, have no idea, didn't buy the card)
PAID: $1050 (got the battery for free and free shipping)
CASE, KEYBOARD and PERIPHERALS
The case looks good, rounded on the edges, nothing sticks out of the sides, etc. The top clicks nicely (the button is 1/2" wide, so it has a good feel). The back sockets are exposed, which is good, I guess, because then you don't have some funky plastic panel getting in the way (although there is a funky plastic panel which covers the docking port which seems like it might break, who uses a docking port these days, anyway?)
I'm taking the bar exam this month, so I've been doing a ton of typing, and I can say that the keyboard is pretty darn good. I really liked the old one on my Dell 166 (XPi-CD) and I am picky about keyboards, but this one has a good-solid feel without feeling tinny, ticky, or squishy. Complaints? The darn delete button is kinda hidden at the top of the keyboard, and it's pretty small. You do need to get used to the keyboard at first, too, because the spacebar is a bit small and the keys are pretty flat. After a few hours of pounding away, though, and it's still pretty good. . .
The SUPER-BAY is pretty good. It feeds off to the right, so your disks (CD's especially) are kinda hanging out there, but a lot of machines are that way, I guess. The best thing is the design of the CLICK-IN button. You click it (it's right there) and a nifty little T-bar pops out. Pull the T-bar and there you go. The t-bar clicks right back in. I've read about other machines having lousy little push-button-break-off-things, so this is definitely slick. The peripherals themselves seem well-built, too (the interface slot doesn't seem like it's made of tin, a good thing if you tend to carry your extra peripherals with you).
I pulled the main battery to put in the extra memory and I was impressed with the details: smooth case, solid feel, interface slot sturdy, etc. Also, there is a REALLY NIFTY battery indicator light on both batteries (press the button and one-to-five lights come on, whether the machine is on or not).
The power button reminded me that this machine was built in taiwan. No problems yet, it is just a little tilted to one side. Seems a bit"clicky", too, like it might break if I were more ham-fisted with my computers (I am not, however, because I am paranoid about having to go through product support B.S.)
THE SCREEN
If you're into having the best "gaming" screen, go somewhere else, upgrade, or get the 600m with the separate video card. I would not be happy using this screen for 3D stuff. For what I need, however, it is perfect. It is bright (although the bottom backlight casts an eerie glow if you turn it up all the way) and fairly clear. If I split-screen two Word windows (full page of text on each), the clarity suffers, however. I've seen others do it on their machines with better results. I don't really word-process that way anyway, but I would have liked the option. It works, don't get me wrong, but the pixels aren't tight enough to see 12 point fonts all that clearly in the double window mode.
SPEED (remember what I use this machine for. . .)
With the original 128mb RAM, the screen would actually refresh itself and struggle to pull up windows quickly, struggle to switch between windows, etc. It was, shall I say, pretty darn disappointing! I mean, I shouldn't see that darn windows flashlight when I pull up the contents of the C drive. . .! Remember, my last machine was a well-trained 166 that could at least pull up the key windows I used and Word pretty quickly. At first, the 500m was barely faster. . .
With 640mb RAM, the machine is like LIGHTNING compared to what is was before. For a test run I'll just open every darn window I can and switch between them, run applications all at once, click on everything in sight, etc, and the machine can really keep up now. I knew the difference would be decent, but WOW, the machine is SLOW as MOLASSES with 128mb RAM (windows immediately started using 160mb RAM with the memory upgrade).
(I haven't a clue what the 2.4 pentiums run like).
SHIPPING, BUYING, ETC.
I liked my old DELL a lot, it was a reliable old thing. I hope this one will be, too. Like I said, though, I treat my laptops like they are precious flowers because I can't afford to lose a semester's worth of contracts or torts.
I bought the most stripped down version of the 500m I could get (had to pay $50 extra for the darn floppy, so that wasn't cool), so they shipped it really fast (like a week). You get an upgraded screen, CPU, etc, and you'll probably be waiting for a while.
Bought it online from the Dell website, no problems there, just click on a bunch of stuff and try not to buy every darn little thing they offer as an extra (although I should have bought that little mini-wireless card for the heck of it).
FINAL PROS and CONS
This machine is REALLY LIGHT. It feels like it weighs half of my old machine, and I carry the extra battery and floppy drives with me in the same case. It will fit in a backpack and you'll forget it's there (don't throw your pack down!). That is a big plus here, it is light and the peripheral stuff is very straightforward and user friendly.
The BIOS is very good, as far as I can tell. DELL knows how to match their BIOS with the machine (they also have a hidden harddrive partition way out at the end with diagnostic programs that match the machinery). This may not be all that important to some people, but if you've ever bought a GENERIC laptop you'll know what I mean. Dell's hardware and software match up pretty well so far, and this can be a BIG PLUS for people who work on their machines.
The ONLY thing I like about Windows XP (over 98) is the HIBERNATE feature, the rest is a lot of pain-in-the- stuff that just slows things down. . .
The screen could be better, they could just give you the darn floppy drive for the price they quote, and I could have paid less for a machine that would probably perform as well (with a CD-RW, better video card, etc). BUT, the other machine would weigh 9lbs, be 2" thick, and wouldn't have the same super-bay (or battery power) this one has.
In all, I would recommend this thing because it is much better than lugging around some 9lb monster! (just get the darn extra ram, though, you'll be glad you did. . .)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1000
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 14 inches
RAM: More than 256
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
teterman2000
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Reviews written: 1
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