My Inspiron 6000 Review!!!

I've now had my i6000 for a few days now. I did a fair bit of research on it - that was after I had ordered, received and sent back an i510m (I 'think' this is equivalent to an i600m in other regions). First of all I sent back the 510m because of its poor screen quality. I use a HP desktop and HP notebook (nx6000) at work and my previous home notebook was a I7000 (a big black old trusty brick)

I researched Toshiba (M45/M40) and some HP models (can't remember the models right now), and due to the excellent price for features and promise of a better screen than the i510 (plus higher resolution than competition offers) I went with an I6000.

The specs were (configured from New Zealand):
- 1.73MHz Pentium-M
- 2x512MB 533Mhz RAM (1GB total)
- WSXGA+ (1680x1050)
- 64MB ATI Radeon x300 video card
- 60GB (8MB cache, 7200 rpm) HD
- XP Professional
- 802.11 b/g

My first impression were... Well not as heavy and big as I thought it would be. And the white trim was not half as ugly. Actually I don't mind it and my wife thinks the overall look is good. The screen is really good (but not perfect) and I'm glad it went with WSXGA+ instead of WXGA (to be used mostly for software development). The wide viewing angle of the ultra sharp is much better and so is the brightness compared to the i510m. I can now compare this against the glossy screen of the Toshiba M45 and although that screen looked spectacular, I'm please with this screen and also prefer the non glossy look for everyday tasks. The machine seemed pretty snappy and runs the half life 2 demo well (albeit at a lowish resolution, but that’s all the game offered) - I just did this to see
what the video was like since I'm not a gamer. Battery life is excellent - I think it would go for about 5-6 hours doing everyday tasks (no games, etc),
and maybe about 3 hours playing DVD's. A little speculative since I haven't had it that long yet. The status LED's are neat. You can see power, HD and charge when lid is open or closed: quite cleaver. Media buttons are great. We watched a DVD and used the media buttons for volume etc which is very handy. BTW video quality (and sound for a notebook) was excellent. Noisy DVD +/-RW - but aren’t they all? Mouse is Ok (the buttons are a bit cheap), keyboard is great and overall build is good and robust.

Bad points - the biggest annoyance is the fan that always whooshes away. So DELL - if you are listening, I would like to have a BIOS option to have
fan on/off as needed - Please! Also the right hand side gets a little warm (I think the HD), but the CPU side (the left) stays ultra cold. You can still use it on your lap quite comfortably.

Overall, great system (and for the price). I would rate 8 to 9 (out of 10).

Recommendations:
1) Get two RAM chips instead of one twice as big. – this allows the dual access stuff (DDR2) to work.
2) The WSXGA+ is a good option for developers and everyday users.
3) The 7200RPM drive seems pretty snappy and quicker than the one in the 510m.
4) The Radeon option is good and allows for later video card upgrades, whereas the integrated option does not allow for future upgrades.

Jeremy
( www.theopensauce.com)

Message Edited by Jeremy NZ on 03-26-2005 02:41 AM