The Dell Inspiron (Dell Inspiron 1525)

Member Name: Stephoohla

Product:	Dell Inspiron 1525
Date:	29/08/09 (157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Scroll-wheel touchad, wide screen, LOADS of memory

Disadvantages: Overheating is a problem

I got hold of this laptop last year, after my boyfriend spilt coke over his previous laptop and then claimed on his insurance for a new one. The company sent him a certain amount of Curry's/Comet vouchers so he could select his own, and we picked this one.

I'm not a computer expert, and he knows a lot more than me and I know he would've have pick one with rubbish specifications. It had lots of internal memory, which is what I think initially attracted him to it. I won't go into many more of the specs because I don't really understand, and they can be found easily on any website anyway.

The reason why I selected this laptop however, was because it looked nice. It's a wide screen laptop, and as the bottom half with the keyboard obviously is the same length of the screen, it means that the keyboard itself is a lot bigger than most other laptops I've seen. The screen is also very easy on the eye, and when watching videos/films on it, is very impressive. One think I did find though, bearing in mind I'm a photographer so I'm constantly editing photos, this laptop screen has a much lower contrast than other computer screens. This was a big problem for me, as when editing a photo on the laptop, I'd find I'd have to make it a lot darker so it looks good on the laptop, but when I uploaded it onto my webpage and then viewed it from a normal computer, it was spectacularly dark! So I was very disappointed at having to do this all again, and now when I edit photos, I have to connect my laptop to the HDTV in the lounge so I can view the screen on there! Unfortunately this is a bit inconvenient.

The way the laptop works is very smooth. It came with Vista, which took a bit of getting used to as I only had Windows 98 on my old computer, but once I got the hang of it, I realised how nice it is to use.

Back to the keys - I think this is one of the top features, as they are generally a bit bigger than most other laptops. It's a standard QWERTY keyboard, and below that is a touchpad mouse. This is sometimes difficult to use, and I find that occasionally when typing I'll accidentally touch the pad and it'll move the mouse so I end up typing somewhere else. This is annoying, so you have to consciously keep you hands away from the touchpad when typing. But this only happens rarely.

The touchpad is actually really nice to use, and at the bottom and right-hand side is a scroll bar, and if you find the right place on the pad, you can scroll up and down, or left to right, of the page, as if you would on a scroll-wheel mouse! So this feature is a bit more fancy than most laptops, I'd say!

The touchpad mouse can be difficult to use, and shortly after buying the laptop I invested in an external wireless mouse, and just use spare space next to the laptop's touchpad as a mouse mat! I find this works very well and is a lot less frustrating as the touchpad can sometimes be very sensitive so it can go a bit haywire if you accidentally use two fingers on it rather than one, or sometimes it won't be sensitive at all so you'll be pressing really hard to try and move it.

As I said, I've had the laptop for about a year now. There are visible signs of wear and tear, food collecting in the keys, etc, but that's because I'm always using the laptop, and it's situated in the lounge rather than at a desk, so I'm always eating/drinking by it. I even do my make up by it in the morning, so I've got a few blobs of make up on the screen before too!

Workability... well it worked very well. Up until a month ago. It started crashing, getting really slow, etc, then, and when I asked my boyfriend what happened, he said it must be that it's heating up too much. I'm on my laptop a lot. From when I get home from work, about 6pm, I turn it on and it's left on until I go to bed, about 11:30pm. Sometimes I leave it on during the day too if I'm downloading something. At weekends, if I'm about, it'll easily get left on all day, from 10 in the morning until 11 in the evening. So yeah, I can see that I probably leave it on too much and it does overheat. Laptops don't have as big fans as computers do, so it does get very warm, and I can feel how hot it is if I ever have it on my lap.

So, apparently because of it, it's started crashing. I'm really disappointed that this has started happening so soon after purchasing it, and to be honest, with the amount computer expert's charge, it'd probably be cheaper to just buy a new laptop, as they are really cheap nowadays!

We brought this from PC World for, if I recall correctly, £550. The price has come down a lot since then, and I have seen this on Amazon and eBay for £350.

Overall, it is a nice little laptop, nice to look at, most of the time works very well. There are a few bad things about it, but I don't know a laptop that doesn't have a few disappointments. The main problem I have had is it overheating which has now had a very bad effect on it. But if you're not going to be using the laptop as much as I do, maybe only a few hours a day, then I think this would be absolutely fine.

Summary: If you're not going to use it a lot, then it'd be a great addition to your home

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