A product that DELLivers
Written: Oct 07 '00 (Updated Oct 07 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Lightweight and fairly powerful
Cons: Expensive
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| KarsinTheHutt's Full Review: Dell Inspiron 4000 Series |
I recently had the opportunity to test Dell's latest notebook, the ultra-thin Inspiron 4000. Despite weighing only 5 lbs (2.4 kg or so) and being a mere 1.47 inches high, the test system packs quite a punch.
First, the specs:
600 MHz Intel Celeron
64 MB SDRAM
6 GB Hard Drive
14" XGA TFT Display
8 MB ATI Graphics
24x Max CD-ROM
Internal 56k Modem
Zircom Ethernet Adapter
53 Watt/hr battery
Carrying Case
Final Price - $1900.
It's not the fastest system out there, but it is more than adequate for business applications and light gaming.
Usage:
Like the older Inspiron 3000 of yester-year, the Inspiron 4000 comes equipped with a 14" LCD screen - but what a difference one year makes! The 14" XGA TFT on the 4000 blows away the 3000 LCD's image quality. The viewing angle is wide, and the display can render gorgeous 24-bit color!
I didn’t like the fact that there is only one slot for interchangeable disk drives. However, the fact that a user can easily hot-swap the drives mitigates this disadvantage.
Input devices consist of the standard pointing devices and keypad. There are 2 pointing devices: a touch pad and rubber keyboard pointer, which is nice if you like one but not the other. As far as keyboards go, this is one of the better mobile keyboards I've typed on. They keys are well spaced and typing is fairly painless.
Performance:
As I’ve stated earlier, the Inspiron 4000 provides more than enough performance for business usage. Gamers, however, probably don’t want this notebook (Or any notebook for that matter), because games such as Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament run relatively slowly. The included Rage128 Mobile graphics chipset is currently one of the best notebook graphics chips, but its performance can’t even hope to touch a GeForce. Also, the refresh rate of the LCD is somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 Hz, causing some “streaking” effects on fast moving objects.
Battery life was decent – 3.5 to 4 hours of continuous usage with a recharge time of about an hour.
What Else:
The Inspiron 4000 has swappable color panels that attach to the outer shell. While I thought the yellow panels on the test system were rather useless, some people may find them attractive. This feature added 20 $US to the total cost. The other nice feature was a built in TV-out.
Should you need a more powerful system, Dell offers the Inspiron 4000 with Pentium III processors up to 850 MHz. However, I think this is major overkill, since the only reason one would want such a powerful processor is gaming – and the video subsystem is the limiting factor in the 4000’s lackluster gaming performance. A DVD drive is also optional – I wish the system I tested had come with one. Based on the LCD’s image quality, I’m guessing that DVD playback is exceptional.
Overall, the Dell Inspiron 4000 is a pleasure to use. It is light, highly customizable, and delivers respectable performance in everyday tasks.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): ~1900
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: 501-600
RAM: 64
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 4-6
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Epinions.com ID:
KarsinTheHutt
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Member: Karsin Eng
Location: United States of America
Reviews written: 83
Trusted by: 19 members
About Me:
I am a part time computer hobbyist and moderator at forum.thinkpads.com
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