Dell Inspiron 2500 Review

We admit it: they're easy to make fun of, but we secretly like the $19 optional plastic palmrest inserts that turn the front corners of the Dell Inspiron 2500's keyboard from basic black to cheery yellow, blue, or purple. Not only are they a tiny touch of personality, but they get rid of the stock keyboard's (and most laptops') ugly "Intel Inside" and "Designed for Microsoft Windows" stickers.

We'd be happier, however, if Dell let you pick one color pair of snap-ins for free instead of charging $19 for several (and we're not even going to consider the $39 "iridescent jade" option), because the 2500 is the company's lowest-priced portable. In its most bare-bones configuration, it lets you get not some no-name import notebook but a Dell, with a bright active-matrix instead of squinty, streaky dual-scan display, for just $999.

Unfortunately, that model's compromises far outweigh its value: The processor is a tolerable 700MHz Celeron, but the screen is a humble 12.1-inch (diagonal), 800 by 600-pixel panel that leaves lots of blank plastic around the edges; the system comes with a lean 64MB of RAM, 5GB hard disk, and downsized battery pack; and it even chops Dell's usual three-year warranty down to one.

Happily, the Inspiron 2500 offers all the build-to-order flexibility that made Dell and other direct vendors great. To begin with, if you don't like the 12.1-inch screen, you can choose a 1,024 by 768-pixel, active-matrix LCD in either a 14.1-inch or spacious 15.0-inch size. If you yawn at Celeron/700 speed, opt for a Pentium III at either 700MHz or 850MHz.

Give the preinstalled Windows Millennium Edition room to maneuver with a 10GB or 20GB hard disk and at least 128MB of SDRAM (though the system hits its ceiling at 256MB, less than other Inspirons). Replace the standard CD-ROM with either a DVD-ROM or CD-RW drive. And before you know it, you've got a notebook that can compete with any desktop-replacement mobile on the market.

The Catch-22, of course, is that you've jacked up the price. The Inspiron 2500 we tested -- with a Pentium III/700 processor, 128MB of memory, 10GB hard disk, DVD, and 15-inch display -- is frankly one of the nicest notebooks we've tried, a bit bulky and heavy for frequent fliers but boasting three-hour battery life and first-class screen and keyboard comfort. It's also a decent deal at $2,019, but at that price hardly qualifies for the entry-level or value category. So as much as we like it, we'd find ourselves eyeing Dell's Inspiron 4000 (a slimmer system with a swappable optical bay) or Toshiba's Satellite 2805 (a similarly hefty, big-screened machine, but with superior gaming graphics and a combo DVD/CD-RW drive) instead.

Skip To Page • 1 Traveling Semi-Economy Class 2 Flunking the Pitney-Bowes Benchmark 3 Pros, Cons, and Conclusions

Tools:

Add hardwarecentral.com to your favorites Add hardwarecentral.com to your browser search box IE 7 | Firefox 2.0 | Firefox 1.5.x