dell inspiron 700m laptop review

The Dell Inspiron 700m sits on the borderline of being an ultraportable (usually determined as a notebook weighing 3 – 4 lbs) notebook and a thin-and-light style notebook (defined as a notebook weighing 4 – 6 lbs). With a gorgeous 12.1” widescreen, 4.1 lbs of weight and 1.5 inches of thickness this notebook is certainly small and highly mobile, yet still big enough that is very usable given the widescreen viewing and decent, though not full, sized keyboard it has. Let's get on with a full review of the good and the bad of this Inspiron 700m laptop.

Specs:

The review unit Inspiron 700m ( dell 700m battery) has the following specs:

• Intel Pentium M 725 (Dothan 1.6GHz Pentium M Processor)


• 512MB RAM


• 12.1” WXGA Widesceen


• Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 (802.11 b/g) Internal Wireless


• 40GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive, 4200 RPM


• 32 WHr 4-cell Lithium-Ion Battery


• Windows XP Home, Service Pack 1


• 24x Combo DVD/CD-RW Optical Drive


• 1-year warranty

The price for all of this came to $1,446.70 after a coupon code was applied for 10% off. I ordered the notebook on 8/14/2004 soon after it was announced by Dell and it took almost 3 weeks for it to arrive with the receiving date being 9/7/2004. Usually a notebook from Dell will ship quicker, but when it’s a new release you can expect a longer time on delivery.

Design

The Inspiron 700m (dell inspiron 700m battery) is unlike any other Inspiron in it’s look and design. First of all the 700m’s lid is a very pale silver and almost white in color. There are some white trimmings on this notebook so it has a clean look and does borrow a bit from the styling of Apple’s PowerBook. The quality of the casing and overall finish of the 700m is not as good as an Apple PowerBook, but the inspiration was most definitely borrowed from that line of notebooks.

Overall I like the design of the 700m, it actually reminds me a lot of the Sony VAIO TR series, except kind of pumped up a bit so that it’s larger (the Sony TR has a 10.6” screen and weighs 3.1lbs). It’s got enough style to turn some heads, but it’s by no means loud in it’s design as the Acer Ferrari notebook is. A friend of mine called the dell inspiron 700m battery“cute”. I guess I would agree with that, so if you’re looking for a notebook that screams “get out of my way” or you want to present an attitude, then don’t look here.

Build

I separate the build from the design as it is entirely possible for the design of a notebook to look nice, but the build to feel a little cheap. The build of the 700m is not cheap by any means; it feels relatively sturdy and even looks slightly rugged from the side. However, this notebook was not made to be tossed around. The casing is plastic and gives the impression that if it were dropped from 3ft. or more there could be some damage registered. I didn’t try this, I’ll leave it to an accidental drop to determine this estimation I make. Where the build does feel a little cheap though is with the touchpad and mouse buttons. The mouse buttons are just plain clunky and make a lot of noise. On my 700m the left mouse button depresses in a lot further than the right one.

The good news is that the keyboard has no flex, it is sturdy, and the rest of the notebook build feels solid too. The lid hinge feels solid and is still easy to open, the CD tray is not overly wobbly and there are not buttons or ports that look like they’re begging to fall off or cause problems after a few months of use.

As you can see, an ample number of ports are provided for such a small notebook. A modular optical drive is a big bonus, this makes it easy to upgrade your 700m ( dell 700m battery) to a DVD burner if you want. The S-Video out, VGA out and, FireWire and SD card reader are all nice extras to have on this sized laptop too. Not putting any ports on the back ensures that all of the ports are easily accessible.

Screen

The screen is where the 700m shines. And I do mean shine, as this is the brightest shiniest notebook screen I’ve come across. I’ve used the Sony VAIO TR5 with it’s XBrite technology and the HP zt3000 with it’s BrightView screen, but the Dell Inspiron 700m is just slightly brighter and better than these. Watching DVDs or viewing images is a treat, as colors are vibrant and gorgeous and the contrast amazing. The screen brightness is truly amazing and the angle at which you can view the screen from is great. The widescreen is extra good for DVD viewing and, although the resolution is quite high and you can’t fit a ton on the screen, the widescreen allows you to view two windows at the same time with relative comfort.

Sound & Audio

The Inspiron 700m has two speakers that are actually built into the screen and project sound forward towards the user. The soundcard does provide stereo sound, as you would expect given the fact there are two speakers! However, as is almost always the caveat with laptop speakers, the sound is somewhat tinny and if you turn up the volume a lot it starts to sound bad. Plug in headphones to the front-side port to achieve better sound and get some bass, as the built-in speakers provide almost no bass.

Heat & Fan

I’m happy to report that the Inspiron 700m is both quiet and cool. You won’t have papers blown off of your desk as a giant sized fan kicks in to blow out hot air when using the 700m. Rather, the Inspiron 700m (dell 700m battery )is whisper quiet and you won’t be hearing any noisy fan.

The Inspiron 700m is also cool running and does not generate too much heat. It is comfortable to use on your lap, you won’t burn yourself or feel uncomfortable. The only thing that does make it slightly awkward to have this notebook on your lap are the rubber feet on the bottom, they tend to stick into your legs and don’t let the notebook rest flat on your legs. But at least the fact the notebook doesn’t get too hot means it won’t cause any discomfort to the, umm, crotch area shall we say. The fact heat is not an issue is a kudos to the design of this notebook and the Pentium M processor, often times I find with smaller notebooks that the heat builds up quite a bit due to the fact all of the components are smashed together and it’s hard for the heat to exhaust out. This is true with the Sony VAIO TR5 I last used, the Inspiron 700m is much cooler than it.

OS and Software

I selected Windows XP Home as the operating system for the Inspiron 700m. I wasn’t going to use it for code development or as a web server so it’s all I needed. Unfortunately the XP Home I got did not have the latest Service Pack installed. All Inspiron 700m machines that now ship will have this though. The included software is standard fair, you do get recovery CDs so that’s nice. Here’s a list of included software:

• Image restore disks

• Dell Resource CD with Application Backup

• CyberLink PowerDVD v5.1 Decoding Software for DVD

• Norton Internet Security 2004, 90-day trial

• Dell Jukebox powered by Music Match

• AOL 9.0 (Yuck)

• Word Perfect Productivity Pack 12

• Microsoft Encyclopedia 2004

• Dell Media Experience version 2.1

• Dell Photo Album

• Jasc Software Paint Shop Trial Edition

You’ll want to buy Office XP if you don’t already have a copy, the Word Perfect Suite just doesn’t cut it when compared to MS Office. If you despise all the bundled promotional applications such as AOL 9.0 and Norton AntiVirus that come installed by default on the 700m and you are a power user then you might want to format the hard drive and then reinstall the Operating System (not using the Recovery CD, that’ll just reinstall all the garbage applications such as AOL and other trial software, use the Windows XP Home CD that comes with the 700m). If the word “format” and “hard drive” put together scares you, then don’t pay attention to what I just said.

Battery Life

This is the part of the review where I hang my head in disappointment. Everything was pretty good up to this point, but there’s no beating around the bush, battery life , not like the digital camera battery is below mediocre for a laptop that claims to be a “traveler”. Travel with this on a plane ride that lasts more than 2 hours and you’ll be calling it a lot of words, but not a “traveler” when the battery dies at precisely 2 hours of usage. Yes, 2 hours of use is what I got in my experience with the provided 4-cell battery. This is unacceptable for a notebook that is designed to be taken and used easily for travel. You’re literally forced to buy an extended life battery or carry an extra battery. So much for travelling lightly and without bulk. Check out this quote about the 700m from the Dell website:

Weighing in at 4.1 pounds and 1.5" thin, the stylish InspironTM 700m is the “go anywhere” notebook perfect for students and frequent travelers. Full-featured with a two spindle device design, a fast Intel Pentium M processor, and a 12.1” wide Crystal-Clear LCD screen, the Inspiron 700m offers a complete mobile, computing solution.

Well, go anywhere as long as it’s not for over 2 hours and away from an electric plug outlet. The extended life 8-cell battery is a $130 add-on option that should extend your battery life to over 4 hours. It will stick out of the back of the Inspiron 700m quite a bit though and add weight. Plus I think $130 is overpriced for a battery – I guarantee Dell gets these for around $30/$40 from a Taiwanese supplier so the markup is rather huge. Oh well, it’s how these computer companies make there money.