Mixed bag... (Dell Inspiron 6400 Extreme)

Member Name: philhaz

Product:	Dell Inspiron 6400 Extreme
Date:	20/05/09 (16 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice keyboard?

Disadvantages: It's a dell.

I bought this as a laptop to take away to uni for my studies. It is very bulky, but that doesn't really bother me as it sits on a desk 90% of the time anyway. The dual core processor gives it plenty of oomph, and the 100GB hard drive is sufficient, provided you have an external storage unit (and let's face it, who doesn't nowadays?)

Two areas let this laptop down for me. Firstly is reliability. This comes from the software, not the hardware. I turn it on every morning, fully expecting to see a blue screen, possibly accompanied by a small explosion. Fortunately I always have my data backed up, so I've not lost any serious amount of work. But really, is it that hard to make something that 'just works'? To be fair on Dell, it's hard to tell how much of this is Microsoft's fault. I'll soon find out when I upgrade to Ubuntu (yes, I said 'upgrade').

The other issue is the battery life. Having bought the extended battery, I would have expected it to give me good few hours mobility. Unfortunately, two years down the line, I can only manage about 10 minutes away from a socket before it goes into "PANIC PANIC PANIC DIE" mode. I appreciate that the life-time of batteries is limited, but I really don't think it's unreasonable to expect a little more.

Summary: Decent desktop replacement, but don't ever rely on it

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