Dell Inspiron 15 Reviews by daily users?

I am finding the Inspiron 15 at reasonable pricing (from 429.99 to 489.99) so am thinking of buying an early Christmas present. I need information on its reliability. Will I need to purchase an extended warranty or should the owner be able to operate trouble free for at least three years? Are there any downsides to this laptop that I should be aware of?

 

Nobody is going to know if it will operate trouble free for three years - it hasn't been available for that long yet.

For me, it's been reliable enough. I use my laptop very heavily; 8+ hours a day in the office and then some in the evening, might just be 20 minutes checking forums + emails or could be another 3 or 4 hours.

I've had a display changed; but I think I was just unlucky with dead pixels as there hasn't been anyone else complaining of this. I also had my optical drive changed twice due to it not reading blu-ray discs. However, it still read DVDs, so I'd probably say if you want to use it for blu-ray, get the normal DVD drive and pay for an external blu-ray drive with it's own 12 month warranty.

I did go for the 2 year on site warranty; but then that's because there was a deal and I got that for the same price as standard one year warranty. You can always extend the warranty if you feel you need to.

 

One thing I noticed is the LCD, Dell is switching the LCD's to all LED back Lit, its a good thing because LED back lit last 2 to3x longer then the older ones

But the Inspiron 15's have not yet transition to the LED screens, if for Christmas, wait till Black friday deals from Dell, and by then I think the LED back lit screens will be mainstreamed (I hope) its worth it to upgrade to it if not.

Also look at things like this
Win 7 is great
Ram look for 3 gb at least
250gb HD is really a good amount to have at least
intel 4500mhd is good enough for most things but not great for the latest games you would need a better Video card for that.
Battery life is improved now
Processor: I do not like Celerons but they are 64bit now so that is good
Core Duo processors is what I recommend at least T4200 is a good start.

But Celeron will work for surfing and office without much trouble

Good Luck
If its for you check out the Dell outlet for 429 I snagged this Dell studio 15 with all I said above, its awesome for the price!

 

The Inspiron 15 has the option for LED displays, they're just not the default option; you have to pay extra.

 

Absolutely, I bought my Inspiron 6 months ago and they had the LED option even then.