To get this laptop to $1,299, though, Dell makes a couple of compromises that are like cramming a turbocharged motor into a car that doesn't have the suspension to match. The marginal amount of memory—128MB—screams "compromise to hit price point," and the display resolution of 1,024-by-768 (XGA) is vanilla. Our $1,777 test unit was better-balanced. The CPU was bumped from the entry-level 1.4-GHz P4-M to a 1.6-GHz CPU; DDR system memory was doubled to reach 256MB; graphics memory on the nVidia GeForce2 Go 100 was also doubled, to 16MB; and the CD-ROM drive was replaced by a more versatile 8X CD-R/W drive. But the system still had the entry-level 20GB hard drive and a 14.1-inch active matrix display, lithium rechargeable inspiron 2650 battery.
Dell inspiron 2650 Key Specs
Processor manufacturer: Intel
Processor model: Pentium 4 Processor-M
Clock speed: 1.6 GHz
RAM installed: 256 MB
Hard drive size: 30 GB
Graphics processor: nVidia GeForce2 Go 100
Graphics RAM: 16 MB
Display diagonal size: 15 in
Dimensions (W x H x D): 32.8x3.7x27.4 cm
Weight: 3.65 kg
Operating system: Windows XP Home
Aside from its combo drive, the 2650 is a plain, simply designed, all-in-one notebook with a monochromatic case. You get some connections, including a parallel port, a VGA port, and headphone and microphone jacks. But don't look for FireWire, built-in wireless, or even the now-common TV-out port. There's no serial port, either, and you get just one PC Card slot, which will stymie some peripherals junkies.
The Inspiron 2650 battery certainly performs well, thanks to the combination of its Mobile Pentium 4 processor and 256MB of DDR SDRAM. Its Business Winstone 2001 score of 32.8 means that it runs mainstream productivity applications like those in Microsoft’s Office 2000 very comfortably. It even handles high-end programs pretty well, too, delivering a Content Creation Winstone 2002 score of 20.3. Of course there are faster notebooks, but for practical purposes, the Inspiron does what it is designed to do quite well.
Performance was not the 2650's strong suit. Our test unit delivered scores that would have been dazzling for a desktop a year ago but that now lean toward the lower end of what might be considered normal. This P4-M–based notebook is fast—but plenty of others are faster.
On key measures such as Business Winstone 2002 and Content Creation Winstone 2002, the 2650 fell about 10 percent behind P4-M desktop replacement portables that cost more (but weigh the same). And it was roughly on a par with a mix of mainstream P4-M and upper-end PIII notebooks.
The life of the eight-cell, 50-watt-hour, 3,900-mAh lithium inspiron 2600 battery on BatteryMark 2001 was 2 hours 38 minutes, about average for such early P4-M systems. Naysayers worried that P4-M systems were going to have trouble bettering 2 hours with all the thermal draw, but that isn't the case with this model. Dell keeps the inspiron 2650 battery cool with vents on one side (taking up what might have been a second PC Card slot) and a cooling fan on the bottom.
