Dell Inspiron 1525 (Dell Inspiron 1525)

Member Name: kersplatty

Product:	Dell Inspiron 1525
Date:	12/12/08 (241 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: HDMI port, Speedy pc, reliable, good value for money

Disadvantages: Battery life, DVD drive burning speed, no firewire port

Since i use this every day i have become used to it's speed, reliability and how it fares all round.
The Dell inspiron is a fairly average sized laptop, boasting 2gb RAM, 15.4" screen, dvd drive, 120GB Hard drive and of course a 2gb core duo processor.

Firstly bootup and speed. With full battery and windows vista i counted that it took me approximately 20 seconds from on to log on screen which is very impressive for vista or even a laptop. To log onto an account with widgets it takes a further 30seconds to a minute for the laptop to load all the start upitems on a laptop with apps such as iplayer, veoh, 4od and itunes. Surfing the web or browsing files is quick and responsive, with firefox loadsing almost straight away so you can click away at the internet. Browsing through files is average due to the restraints of the hard drive speed i wasn't expecting light speed loads but nevertheless its not bad providing you don 't clog your hard drive.
Overall for general browsing and file opening/closing its what you would expect from a dual core laptop and is fast enought to cope with your every day demands.

Finally media usage, burning media. I use itunes on my laptop and i find it is a bit laggy at times due to the lack of a graphics card but unless your in a rush to create a playlist it shouldn't bother you too much. In terms of video playback and music playback it will handle most video apart from true HD content (1080i/p) being played back on the laptop, which will crash the laptop due to its lack of a graphics chip. Music playback is fine and it handled all the music i threw at it. The HDMI port is a welcome adaption to the video out ports and even though there is only onboard graphics, i find that it can handle standard divx 640x480 or 720p content easily as it is output onto my tv. Burning DVDs isnt the fastest process, at 8x speedd for dvds i usually find myself leaving the laptop to burn the disc whilst i wait.
Overall excellent video and music playback considering it only has onboard graphics although DVD burning could have been faster if a better dvd burner was encorporated.

Overall the inspiron 1525 is a very good laptop for a home pc replacement/casual surfing or viewing videos/ business work and is totally worth the money i paid it is speedy, reliable and i would recommend this to students, families or businesses alike.

Summary: good value for money for a laptop that can act as a PC alternative and provides so many features

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Installation:
Battery life:
Features: