26 out of 26 people found this review helpful.
Nice big screen & performs Great, but a little heavy
Date of Review: May 28, 2006
The Bottom Line: The performance is excellent on benchmark tests, the LCD screen is outstanding. All this performance at Dell's low prices, it just might be your BESTBUY.
DELL Inspiron E1505:
Inspiron Series:
The Inspiron series was designed for the hip, new generation users as well as for the high-end power users. It showcases stylish design and a great price, unlike the Latitudes which are usually dull/uninspiring to look at but very robust business laptops. Unlike the Latitudes, the inspirons are designed with physical attractiveness and feature richness, while maintaining the good balance between reliability and ruggedness. Both the Inspiron & Latitude target different markets, and these markets are overlapping of late. The Inspiron has become one of the most sold laptops because of its design, functions, customizable options, performance and reliability.
E-Series of Dell Inspiron:
There are 3 models in the Inspiron E-series - E1405, E1505 & E1705. All of them share the same design & styling, chipset, layout and features. The body has the the same silver & white color. Though they seem the same to look at, there are some subtle changes between the models like screen size, weight, number/type of I/O ports, targeted users etc.
Out of the Box:
Unlike its competitors like Toshiba, Sony, HP etc, the box itself looks dull without the graphics and color pictures of the laptop and tech specifications…….. but then what really counts is what's inside the box. The box contains:
1. The E1505 Laptop,
2. Driver CD & OS re-install CD (option), and software CDs (DVD player, DVD burner etc.)
3. Power adapter & cables
4. S-video cable (to connect the laptop to the TV)
5. User manual & quick setup guide
Design:
Laptop body:
The E1505 looks absolutely the same as the older Inspiron 6000 I have, it body is Silver with a while edges, looks very attractive, looks like an MAC. I was concerned the white edges of the older Inspiron 6000 would turn yellow with time and dirty after using for a long time, but it has remained clean & pure white after 1 ? years of using it, and this should be the same with the E1505.
Keyboard & Touchpad:
The Keyboard is well laid out, the key placement is in the right places and are easy to reach. The keys are very responsive and make soft clicks. The touch pad is neat and is silver in color. It has the up-down & left-right scroll built into it. The touchpad too is very responsive and better than the one on the Latitude.
I/O ports:
This Laptop is loaded with I/O ports, it has
1 x mini Firewire
4 x USB 2.0 (4 pin connectors)
RJ45 (Ethernet) and RJ11 (modem port)
Video – 15 pin and S-video – 7 pin connectors
5-in-1 removable memory card reader
Audio jacks for speakers and microphone mini-connectors.
Multimedia controls:
The multimedia controls are placed in the front of the laptop and can be accessed while the laptop cover is closed. New to the Inspiron series is the fact that you can watch pictures from the inbuilt memory card or listen to music and watch DVDs while the laptp is powered off. This is a convenient feature, sincethe lsptop need not be ON to listen to the music & also it saves on the valuable battery charge.
Battery:
The 9 cell battery is supposed to give 5 hours of power to the laptop, but you can expect 4 hours. The 4 hour battery life for a 15.4 in screen is very good, especially the screen is so brilliant and bright.
LCD Screen:
The LCD screen is a beauty. At 15.4 inches, it is widescreen, making the laptop look very cool. There are 3 choices while choosing the LCD screen, Active Matrix WXGA (1280 x 800 max screen resolution, 1 mega pixel rating) and the Active Matrix WXGA with TrueLife (1280 x 800 max screen resolution and 1 mega pixel rating) and WSXGA with TrueLife (1680 x 1050 max screen resolution and 1.76 mega pixels) The second option, WXGA with TrueLife is brilliant, this is a must have. It offers acres of desktop space.
Audio Quality:
Here again there are 2 options, the integrated stereo sound and the Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy Advanced HD audio. The HD audio is much better and sounds more crisper. For just $30 more it is a good upgrade. The built-in speakers are louder than most laptops I used. The speakers are loud and the sound quality is clear. But if you use your laptop for listening to music, I would suggest getting external laptop speakers. The built-in speakers are good, but they can only be so good.
Hard disk & DVD/CD driver:
Dell offers tons of options for laptop hard disks. I did not see so much choice on anyother brand. You can choose from 40, 60, 80 and 100 GB hard disks in 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm. The hard drive is the slowest part in a computer and choosing the fastest hard drive (7200 rpm) is always good. The 7200 rpm hard drive performs better on my performance tests on SIS Sandra utility showed considerable improvement. The DVD/CD ROM drive is fixed and cannot be removed unlike the Latitudes. There is an option of a CD RW/DVD ROM drive and DVD RW/CD RW drive. Both drives offer 24x/10x/24x for CD and 8x for DVD read & write.
Performance and Usage:
The E1505 is on the bigger side, especially if you are used to smaller laptops, though it is only 1.44 inches thick and starting weight is 6.18 lbs. The weight quickly increases by adding the options like 9 cell battery, DVD drive etc. My laptop weighs 8.6 lbs and I don't prefer using it as a business laptop since it is too heavy to carry it on an everyday basis. The Wide-screen is a beauty, looks very good and it is very bright. The E1405 performance is based on the processor, there are 3 choices of processors, 1.66 Mhz/1.86 Mhz/2.0 Mhz Dual core processors. Needless to say the higher processor speed the better the performance. The RAM memory too makes a lot of difference. It supports max 2GB memory, and I find the 1 GB to be sufficient for now. The laptop is very fast, especially with the dual core processor. The laptop came with a lot of junk software installed (might be useful to some), I uninstalled most of them and the memory utilization has dropped from 620MB to 430MB. And the performance has only been better. The installed DELL's multimedia software is good, it is feature rich and comprehensive.
The many ports are very convenient. Connecting the E1405 to the TV via the S-video is very simple. The mini-Firewire is very useful too, I was able to get the save the video off my Panasonic miniDV camcorder to the laptop. I connect external speakers when using the laptop as a media player, there is a world of a difference. The multimedia buttons are accessible when the laptop cover is closed, that's a nice touch and the fact that you can play DVDs,CDs and memory card media while the laptop is OFF, is really cool.
Some Issues:
1. The white edges of the laptop body tend to crack on the front left & right side.
2. Laptop is loaded with junk software that hogs up the memory and bringing down the laptop's performance.
3. Hard disk is rated at 100 GB, but the effective space is only 86 GB, because DELL has some space hidden for the OS restore. But loosing 14 GB for that is way too much. Also we are not told about this before buying it.
4. Not as modular as the latitude – the Inspiron has a fixed CD/DVD bay, meaning it cannot be easily replaced with a Floppy drive or external hard disk like in a Latitude.
Some things to note:
1. When buying any DELL search for dell coupons online before buying it. There are coupons upto $750 off.
2. Find a dell store around you, usually they are in malls. Look at the product and use it before you buy it online. Never buy in the store, they offer no discounts. Buying online can save you tons of money
3. Laptop being a fairly long term investment, always buy the best configuration you can afford. With technology changing so fast, your laptop could get out-dated in as little as 8 months. So get the highest configuration you can afford.
4. Always choose the laptop size based on what you use it for, if you need to carry it around, you might want to choose a smaller/lighter one like the Inspiron 1405. If you use it primarily at home to watch movies, it is ok to get a large screen maybe a 15.4 or a 17 inch screen like the E1505 & E1705.
