DELL Inspiron 1501

A perfect notebook computer, the Dell Inspiron 1501 ticks all of the boxes for mobile home computing as well as being a more than capable home office laptop.

Shipping with Windows Vista Premium preinstalled, this variation of the Inspiron is equipped with an AMD Turion 64 bit mobile CPU. This lends it a considerable improvement in performance over the slightly lower priced version of the notebook that ships with Windows Vista Basic and an AMD Sempron CPU. We’re talking a price difference of just £30 here, and with the Turion-equipped version unlikely to stay reduced for much longer, now is the time to buy.

The 15.4” TFT display is crystal clear, with excellent colour reproduction and resolution, while the 256mb display adaptor (the graphic card on a desktop machine) will allow the processing of all but the most intense video tasks, and doesn’t do badly with games, either.

With a 120gb hard disk drive (SATA, so it’s pretty quick), 1gb of memory and an 8-speed DVD+/-RW drive that allows the saving of data to re/writable CDs and DVDs, data storage and processing isn’t an issue. The machine will run Microsoft Office 2007 comfortably, as well as all of the current application versions we’ve tried so far. The Vista compatibility issues don’t seem to apply here either as the hardware is tailored for Microsoft’s new operating system.

Connecting to wireless networks is effortless, with the laptop coming with the usual built in network cards and 56k modem. What I really like about the current Dell machines, however, is the simplicity of their adoption of the new mobile storage options. The Inspiron has 4 USB ports – 2 placed at the back for additional hardware, and two on the right side for USB memory (such as the Crucial Gizmo). There’s also a nice, sturdy SD/SDIO/MMC slot for the vast range of flash memory that’s most of us store our photos on.

The current range of desktop computers from Dell has had a bit of flack for performance and low-grade hardware components, but that isn’t the case with the notebooks. Dell obviously know where the future lies in popular computing, and the Dell Inspiron 1501 is the perfect solution to living room browsing and home office computing.

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