Dell Inspiron 1501

bullzi

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I got this laptop for christmas of 2006 so ive had it for about 4 months. I purchased it for a little over 700 usd, and it has the following specs...

AMD TL-50 X2 1.6ghz
ATI Xpress 1150 256mb Integrated (thats what kills it, although it is better than intel integrated)
DVD/RW, CD/RW Drive
9-Cell LI-ION Battery (gets me about 5.5hrs, 6 if i really tone down performance and screen brightness, this is the upgrade from 6cell)
15.4" Widescreen Glossy LCD Display @ 1280x800
3in1 Card Reader

This laptop has seen some tough situations, its been "thrown" around (just tossed onto my bed over and over, and left on for days on end), been to high altitudes and the fan kept up, ran till the battery died and its still running very strong. At first i was skeptical about integrated graphics, and i still am, im not a fan and will never become one, sure i get better battery life, but one gaming pc is not enough, something i can take to a friends house would be great, but with this i cant. Originally i was going for an e1505 or hp dv6000z or t, those have dedicated gpu's and i think would have been a better choice, however there was a major sale on 1501's, and i now see why. Dont get me wrong, for the average everyday computing tasks of checking email, downloading music, working on school work this laptop is more than enough power to plow right through all of that at once and have no slips whatsoever, but for the gamers out there you certainly wont be playing the newest games, this does play older games very well (from 2000-2001) it plays america's army maxed out with 60fps, so in that respect if your a casual gamer and play roller coaster tycoon, and just want an all around fast laptop with great battery life this is the one for you.

As far as portability goes, this laptop more than exceeded my expectations for this category, with the upgrade to 9-cell battery i can squeeze 6hrs of internet time out of this laptop after 3 months of use, and while watching a movie roughly 5:30 out of it, so its not bad at all. The screen when at maximum brightness displays very nice sharp vivid colors for your viewing pleasure, and is great for working on office documents.

Build quality on this laptop is suprisingly good, all of the buttons on the keyboard, the mouse buttons and just overall quality is rather good. If you begin to twist the monitor slightly, it creaks but isnt that expected? This laptop is very efficient when disipating heat, it is very quiet when accomplishing simple tasks like internet, listening to music and watching movies, but when you begin to play a game it really kicks in to keep the dual core amd nice and cool. The bottom of the case stays pretty cool except around the chipset area, i dont think they put a heatsink on the chipset for whatever reason, and you can certainly feel it.

Overall, this laptop is definately a great choice for the average user, its portability and battery life is very acceptable for this new age of portability, its looks arent the best they could certainly be better, but for a college student this is one of the best. As for dells customer service, IT SUCKS! as most of you know. It did get a corrupted bios due to a "recommended" bios update, and it froze, so i sent it in and they sent it back pretty darn fast. Anyhow, this is a recommended buy, even though its dell. I havent had any problems with it so far except the bios issue, hope this helps!! P.S. if your a gamer, or someone who plays FPS, DO NOT BUY THIS LAPTOP! go for the x1300 in the e1505, or 7400 in dv6000t.
 
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