i8500 review as promised

I have recently received my i8500 with the following spec

Inspiron i8500 Pentium 4-M 2.4 GHz
15.4" WUXGA
1024Mb 226MHz DDR (1*1024Mb)
60Gb IDE
64Mb NV28 Video
2 * 72Whr LI-ION Battery

I thought I would try and lay to rest some of the guessing with regards to what this machine actually looks like and performs like etc.

I have an i8000, 512 Mb , PIII 1Ghz, 15" LCD to compare to so many of my comments may reflect the differences.

15.4" WUXGA Screen
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This is a truly amazing component. I really wasn't sure at first because it is very different from the i8000 but after a few hours you realise that the loss of about one inch in height is not that

big a deal when you consider the native resolution means you get as much on the screen. In fact it is the extra real estate from the width that has already proved to be useful. The only issue I

have now with the widescreen is that some websites use tables that 'Fit to width' so sometimes you have an option to press on the left of the web page and then you have to move the mouse cursor

over to the extreme right (a long way) for another option!!

One obvious difference is the brightness. This screen now makes the i8000 look yellow and stained. The whites are very white. Viewing angles a far superior and you get a little Dell tool to adjust

the font sizes if the are too small.

Case Material/design
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Now to the case....

While the base is most definitely plastic it is painted with a metallic silver effect. The blue surrounds are done in a similar way to give a very 'brushed steel' kind of effect. I think it is

pretty nice. The screen front is the same. The top is very nice and seems to be metallic in construction. The top is lighter silver than the rest of the machine with the new Dell propeller across

it. Some people will definitely wish that the whole machine was made of the same material as the top, it looks pretty good.

Build quality in most cases is far superior. Anyone heard their i8000 'creak' when you pick it up as the casing flexes under the weight. This doesn't happen with the i8500. The base and the screen

are a lot more rigid and not made of a similar brittle plastic to the i8000. The screen doesn't flex and the hinges are more solid. I like the LEDs in the right hand hinge.

My biggest criticism is of the keyboard. It is very soft and flexible and tends to bounce a bit. In addition the buttons that you are supposed to use with the pointing stick I think will rarely be

used as the need to be pressed a long way. The blue surround does not look as bad as people think.

I ordered the Venice blue snap on cover with my machine and, whilst it makes the machine look very different from the outside, it doesn't look as good as the silver native colour. The covers also

add a little to the thickness of the machine.

The two spindles issue seems to have cropped up quite a bit but it definitely makes the machine lighter. I order a spare 72Wh battery rather than the modular 60WH battery that goes in the media 
bay. It is cheaper and means that you can use one battery after the other with the DVD player in place.

Machine General
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i8KFanGui 2.0 seems to work fine and reports that the heat of the cpu, HD and GPU run far cooler than the i8000 for similar apps. The bottom of the machine does get hot near the hard drive but

nothing like the 8000. One cooling vent is on the top of the machine so there may not be such an issue if you use the machine on your lap. The fans and the hard drive are not nearly as noisy as my

old machine. In fact you can barely hear the drive.

Another neat feature that I have really only just realised is that the RJ45 and RJ11 ports are at the back of the machine. This may seem trivial but I always use a mouse with my machine and am

right handed. On my i8000 these ports are inconveniently situated on the right side of the machine, towards the front edge. This means that I have a tangled mess of cables that get in the way of my

mouse.

All in all I think Dell have made a great job of the new Inspiron form.
I would have liked one more PCMCIA and 2 more USB slots (and maybe a DVD RW) but you can’t have everything in the first go.

I’m off to play but if anyone has specific questions then don’t hesitate to post and I’ll see what I can do. I will do a more accurate review of performance, heat etc. once I have used it a bit more.. I will post some pictures soon

Cheers

MAD