Does the job ! (Dell Inspiron 1525)

Member Name: tallpete33

Product:	Dell Inspiron 1525
Date:	01/08/09 (129 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good value, relaible and stylish

Disadvantages: Quite heavy, battery life, noisy fan

Dell Inspiron 1525

I ordered my Dell from dixons.co.uk last December and it arrived within two days as promised. My trusty egg card was offering a 2.5% instant cashback at Dixons back then and coupled with a £10 voucher I found on hotukdeals, I saved over £20 on the online price and paid just over £400 in total. The reason I ordered from Dixons was that the price was slightly cheaper than Dell and as you are buying the exact model from them, you know it's in stock and will be delivered quickly. Ordering from Dell often means a long wait especially if you specify upgrades etc. (My Dell PC took over a month but was worth the wait to be honest). Another reviewer has specified the colours/designs are extra but Dixons had the blue in stock for the same price as the black so it's well worth a look at the site if you're after an Inspiron. You have to pick from what they have but they are fast and a bit cheaper :o) My unit came with 3Gb RAM, a 160Gb SATA hard disk (5400rpm) and a Intel dual Core 4200 CPU.

Anyway, the unit itself is quite attractive with a bright silver keyboard and blue lid. The lid feels strangely rubbery to the touch but after eight months almost daily (fairly careful) use in house and garden it is all scratch free and still looking good. The keyboard is comfortable to use with just the right amount of travel on the keys. The touchpad is accurate and works well, it's movement adjustable in control panel. It came installed with Windows Vista Premium which I have been very happy with and have had no crashes or freezes whatsoever. Initial installation and connection to my orange broadband was nice and easy. I added McAfee Security Suite 2009 (see my other review) for anti-virus and firewall. I also downloaded ccleaner.exe a freeware programme that is very useful to do a registry clean up and remove and other rubbish (including the annoying Dell programs!).

The 15.4 inch display is good but not great, colours look slightly washed out to be honest and there is a slight blurring in photos. If you're going to be using it for hours I would look for a better spec graphics card and screen. General purpose performance for surfing, using MS Office is fine though. The sound is a bit tinny, I would invest in some external speakers if you listen to a lot of music and watch movies on this. As well as VGA out, it has a HDMI port which could be useful for connecting to a big TV or monitor for presentations/movies. It also has a firewire port, 4 x USB, Ethernet, modem (remember them!) and of course wireless so connectivity is all you will need. An SD card slot sits in the front, complete with dust protecting blank so photographers are catered for too. Battery life is not brilliant; I usually get about an hour. The unit is slightly heavier than my friend's equivalent Sony Vaio (which was £200 more). When the fan comes on, you know about it too, trust me!

All in all, a decent reliable laptop that is fine for general purpose computing and good value at this price point.

Summary: A good quality laptop at this price

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