Powerful but let down by details (Dell Inspiron 8000)

Member Name: ooooooooo

Product:	Dell Inspiron 8000
Date:	07/02/01 (2251 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Powerful, small and light for its class, good support

Disadvantages: Dodgy displays, unreliable standby/hibernate, tacky case, poor pre-sales

The 8000 comes with a 850 MHz processor as standard I think (contrary to the description given). I got mine with 128Mb RAM and 20Gb HD, to use as a creative (video/graphics/music) tool. Also I got it with the DVD player so I could... watch DVDs.

Everything on the machine is as you'd expect it, it is very fast, the screen is very clear, the keyboard is excellent, you have both a touchpad and a nipple for pointer control (will very flexible driver software). The audio is excellent, with a good stereo separation and a good microphone.

The TV output will NOT output to your VCR when playing DVDs, but will at other times. You have to have a video/audio in on your TV to be able to watch DVDs on TV. This is a copy protection thing. There are workarounds (hacks) freely available on the web. You might want to do this so you can fit it in with your system better, or if you don't have a video in on your TV. Stupid copy protection which limits other uses too...

Mine had one dead pixel on the screen within 4 hours of use. Another dead pixel followed about 2 weeks later. I phoned Dell after the first one and they said they'd replace it once NINE had gone!!! I have the 1400xSomthing display. A friend got the same machine with the 1600xSomething display and he's had 3 go red-live (always red) in less than a week. Same replacement policy applies to this. I'd be interested to know if other laptop manufacturers have such a policy. I wonder if it is something which UK law covers over and above Dell's own policy...?

The case itself is a little plasticky, with lots of bits which might get caught. The DVD/CD-ROM drive tray will only go in with a bit of wobbling. I'm sure it is tought enough but they've gone for curved styling at the expense of practicality. The PCMCIA slot eject is quite tacky, requiring a lot of awkwardly-applied pressure compared to my lowly Toshiba Libretto.

Hibernation and Standby modes are fl
aky to say the least. It is hard to tell if it is an OS problem, software problem, BIOS problem or hardware problem, but about 20% of the time there is a problem coming out of Standby, and 50% of the time there is a problem coming out of hibernation. Would appreciate other people's experiences of this. I'm now always careful to save everything before Standby.

Finally, Dell were very slow in shipping this machine, I was waiting more than 5 weeks. And they sent it with the wrong OS (ME rather than 2000) and took 3 weeks to send a 2000 CD for me to upgrade. However the tech support line was very good, and helped me with the DVD playing problem mentioned above very efficiently. So: Dell sales are unresponsive (you won't get any replies to emails) and evasive and Dell support is good.

ADDENDUM - since I wrote this I have discovered that due to Dell's mess up with the OS, they will not support my system any more. The provided DVD player software will not work with WindowsNT and they haven't replaced it despite many requests in various places (they haven't refused to replace it, just failed to respond to my requests....) So now support is POOR.

Don't let the downsides discourage you, it is a fantastic computer, but these machines are so expensive that problems like these are frustrating - for 2.5 grand you want perfection, and the Inspiron 8000 isn't that.

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