Dell Inspiron left me pretty uninspired! (Dell Inspiron 2200 Central DVD+/-RW)

Member Name: catherine21

Product:	Dell Inspiron 2200 Central DVD+/-RW
Date:	15/08/09 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sometimes you could look at the internet or get a bit of work done

Disadvantages: Most of the time you couldn't.

I got this computer around 4 years ago when I first started University. It seemed to work well, I connected it up to the internet in my student halls, and it seemed to do the job. All I needed in a computer was something I could access the internet on, type my essays and play some music, nothing to complicated or technical.

This review will be of my experiences with the computer, rather than it's technical specifications and features which can be found any where that is selling the computer.

It was once I had had this computer a few months that the problems began. It was just small, strange things that went wrong, for example, sometime I would try to move the cursor and it wouldn't react on the screen, or I'd click to open a program, and it just wouldn't open. Unfortunately when I tried to show anyone these problems, they didn't happen, as it was only from time to time that these things wouldn't work. The computer whizzes couldn't find anything to be techincally wrong with it, and it never did anything unusual when they tried it.

This continued for a while, and was just very annoying an frustrating as I continued on through uni. My the time I reached my final year (when of course the computer was past its manufacturer's garuantee) that it really gave me trouble. The computer had only come with Microsoft Works, instead of Microsoft Office. This meant that when I tried to send essays to tutors, and CVs out to graduate jobs, they couldn't open my documents as they all had Office. I decided to buy Microsoft Office to solve this problem, but the computer wouldn't register it, wouldn't accept the disc, wouldn't let any of the programs work once it was finally on there. As you can imagine, this frustrated me no end.

The ability to turn the computer off also failed. When I clicked the shut down button, the computer just ignored me! You had to hold down the power button to turn it off, which isn't very good for the computer. However, the plus side of not being able to turn the computer off was that I didn't have to turn it on! Turning it on and waiting for it to set up and be ready for action took at least 20 minutes. This was absolutely hopeless for when I wanted to have a quick look at my emails in between lectures. I resorted to just leaving the computer on almost 24/7. It was very fortunate I lived in University accommodation, so i didn't have to pay the electricity bill!

The computer struggled to open most programs, if it did open them, it took about 5 minutes to do so, but most of the time it just ignored my requests. As a result, if I opened internet explorer, I tended to just leave it open on the screen.

When I graduated and found a job after three long years of fighting with this computer, I bought a brand new Sony laptop, and have never looked back.

I don't know if this experience was just a one off, there aren't any other reviews on here to compare my experiences with. However, from my point of view, I would advise against buying this laptop.

Summary: I wouldn't recommend buying this,

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