Inspiron 13 First Impressions

Just picked up one of these from Walmart.

Appears to me like a Studio 15, shrunk down with a black case. No scale, estimate just under 5 pounds though. Lighter than my old 1405.

Overall design seems an 8/10. The edges of the case are not rounded, so that may offend some users, especially when typing.

Screen is 7/16" thick, with pretty minimal screen flex. I am not super picky with screens. This one seems a little nicer than my 1420, not quite as much glare. Screen bezel is glossy black and shows fingerprints quickly

Keyboard has very little flex and is quiet. I give the keyboard an 8/10.

Trackpad is small like the XPS1330, with small glossy black buttons that are quiet as well. Seems very responsive and more than adequate. Texture is really nice.

Speakers are typical notebook speakers, with fairly decent volume. No disappointments here really.

Ports. One usb on each side. Card reader up front along with mic and headphone jack. Nothing exciting here. Slot loading DVD is a little loud when inserting or ejecting...

Been surfing the net for almost an hour now off 99% battery and still show 84% and 4 hours remaining off the Vista meter. On battery power and balanced mode CPU temps are between 49C and 52C.

Unfortunately heat may be an issue for this machine, at least for me. I do not have a IR thermometer, but the front left palmrest and trackpad are fairly warm, especially underneath. This is with the above core temps. Reminds me of the Toshiba U405 Intel machine heat wise. Edit: Coming from a 1420 which runs much cooler, so my perspective may be skewed.

WEI of 3.1

Will include some Pics and more battery data later tonight.

Battery update: 4 hours with 13% remaining (39 min).
Played two dvd's back to back. Computer shutdown at 2:51.
Also battery sits somewhat loose in its bay. Design flaw.
This was just light web browsing and a restart after turning off all the unnecessary background processes and screen brightness at 3 steps down from full.

 

Thanks. Rep.

 

I saw this in the Wal Mart ad of today's paper. Looks really nice, glad to see some people already picked this notebook up.

 

How about the specs of that lil beast?

 

Lets see: T2390, 2 GB DDR2 667 Mhz, 160GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive. 56Whr 6 cell battery.

Processor is pretty dated, was hoping this would keep the machine cooler, and improve the battery life.

 

Thanks a lot for the impressions. Sounds great for such a low price 13 inch notebook. The only bad thing is the heat, but I'm hoping they'll put Montevina in there quickly, which might take care of that.

Still interested in your pics. On Walmart I did find some already, but they're marketing pics of course:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10151262

 

wow, that battery seems to last long , i'm interested in this laptop, want to see your pics first before actually buyign and I was wondering how much does it weight?

 

That's really nice looking for an Inspiron. I'd personally wait for a customizable one though.

Can we see pics from the outside?

 

I'm kinda interested in this laptop. However, I'm a bit concerned about the heat and the loose battery . I wonder when it'll be up on their website.

 

End of August.

 

Not a bad direction for Dell. I wonder if they'll refresh the XPS line with a new design, too.

 

Supposedly they will. Just the matter of when is the problem. At least for me it is.

 

Very nice And, congrat's on your purchase!

Any more pics???? Please. :yes:


Cin

 

is it true that this computer weights 4.9 lbs? :X thats what the walmart site says.. lol kind of heavy for a 13 inch isn't it?

 

yea it is. but it's only a 1/2 pound heavier than the m1330 without the led screen and there's no other 13" lappie out there for this price.

 

I got both the XPS m1330 (my wife's Christmas gift from me) and Insprion 13 (my).

To me, I did not noticed the heat issue on Inspiron 13. In tern of heat, it is better than XPS m1330. I believe the reason is that instead of the alumni palmrest (in the XPS), Inspirion 13 got plastic palmrest, which make the heat transfer less an issue. Also, the base of Inspiron has increased to allow it more room and better thermal solution.

For the loss battery, it actually is not that bad. You have to apply force to it before you notice the small movement. I noticed it got only one latch. I think many laptop got this issue. It is the trade off between having a very tight battery (using 2 latch), which make it hard to remove. Vs. the design with 1 latch, which make it easier to remove, but might be just a little bite loss.

Overall, Inspiron 13 is well build, and at $300 cheaper than XPS m1330, and $400 cheaper than Apple MacBook, it is a great value box.

 

Thanks for your first impressions!

So, how does the T2390 perform? Are you (any of the owners) experiencing delays/lag/sluggishness during 'normal' use and/or where do things start to get slow?

I would expect the Inspiron 13 Walmart config should be capable of office work, extensive web surfing (dozen of tabs in firefox, music in background, streaming video etc) without a problem.

4 hours of battery life seems to be very nice! Can anyone confirm such nice results? Would make for a great university laptop I think..

 

What is the maximum RAM this laptop can hold?
and also what kind of ram does it use?

 

I bought the Inspiron 13 today and took it back already.

The heat from that laptop was over the top. I thought that the XPS 1330 was hot. This thing is far hotter to me.

I think those little laptops need an ultra low voltage CPU.

 

how is the memory set up out-of-the-box?
does it come with 1-2GB stick
or 2-1GB sticks?

 

Can you share where you are finding the heat issue. To me, Inspiron 13 is cooler than the XPS 1330.

Regarding the ultra low voltage CPU, it is a hard choice. I know few years ago, Latitude line (D420 and D430) was using ultra low voltage with a 4200 rmp hard drive, but the problem is, they are slow...

 

Yeah, I'm interested in more findings. I wonder when NBR will put an official review up.

 

My guess is that official review won't be out until Inspiron 13 start to be offered on Dell website, which should be later this month.

 

Bump - Any more impressions?

 

I have had my Inpiron 1318 for 3 days. I got it from Walmart.com and was expecting it to take a little while to get here. I had to call to approve the purchase, I think because that is a lot of money to disappear from a high school checking account. It had said the estimated ship date would be August 22 before that problem was the little incident with having to approve the purchase which took me 2 days to realize and actually do :-D. I ordered Monday, approved on Wednesday, received the computer on Thursday...

Anyway, the review. As far as I have seen, this computer is amazing. I previously had a Inspiron 1521. This computer is by far superior. Vista works very nicely on this computer. I am glad that I have 2GB of RAM now (1GB in old Inspiron). I haven't done any gaming at all, so cannot speak on the integrated graphics, but it's integrated graphics so we know what to expect. The processor and RAM run fast and I just wanted to say this because I just looked to the Sidebar and remembered my gadget.

When I opened the box, it was stunning. I really love the blue color (though I can see how some might wait until the customization comes out if blue is definitely not your thing). The magnetically-held-closed lid was the first thing that made me realize this was well designed and seriously after the Macbook. The beautiful blue status lights above the computer and the touch-responsive media buttons are fun and the black keyboard is much prettier and hides uncleanliness better than my old 1521's gray keyboard, too. I plugged it in and went to soccer and when I booted up for the first time it was quick and smooth. Vista sailed through the registering junk at the beginning and I got all of my files compied easily. The touchpad seems different from the 1521 for some reason, but I like it more, so whatever it is (slight texture change or difference in responsiveness?) it is a plus.

It sleeps and wakes like a champ, keeping all of my programs ready to use and internet connectivity is not "hang-y". Office runs very quickly; connecting to my home network and getting on the internet was a breeze and surfing is very fast.

I haven't tried the built-in webcam yet...

Battery life is a lot longer than I expected. Once it was fully charged, I used it straight (surfing the web and listening to music) for easily 2.5 hours and it wasn't dead yet (nearing the end though). Sorry that measurement isn't very exact. I know it was at least 2.5 hours but honestly, it could have been quite a bit more.

Other design changes that are subtle but very impressive include the front side headphone jack (switching up from the left side jack design that Dell used to use on laptops), the hinge design that Dell has used on the XPS and Studio lines, the awesome slot-loading CD/DVD drive (I see how people can complain about the noise, but it's not any worse that the ejection of former sliding drives, and the new power cord design (the power cord is now 3-pronged, much smaller, the side that plugs into the computer is no longer circular, but polygonal so that it is much harder for it to wear down and slide out easily, and it now plugs into the side rather than the back.

All-in-all, it's too bad that this laptop didn't hit out earlier and had more widespread availability because this is a real winner in the student area, just the group it was targetted towards. I find it very impressive and am very happy with the buy.

 

Hey, Congrat's, and nice *mini-review* Are you going to post some pics of it??? That would awesome if you did!


Cin