Dell Inspiron 8600c > Reviews (5)

I bought this laptop to replace my previous dell, an inspiron 2500. What an improvement it was too. After using my inspiron 2500 for some time, I became disappointed with its ageing appearance and comparatively poor performance, so the search for a replacement began.

I looked at a fair few laptops, but this one just seemed to catch my eye more than the others did, offering in some cases better than desktop performance for a reasonable price.

----------Look & Design----------
Though it may not be the smallest laptop, the overall design is good. The laptop is finished in a grey/silver colour, with an aluminum dell logo and design on the lid. Open it up, and the laptops colour is complemented by a blue surround around the keyboard, of which the layout is good, making it easy to touch type. The power button is situated centrally above the keyboard accompanied by volume controls and LEDs to show num, scroll and caps lock status. On the right hand side you will find media buttons, Play/Pause, Stop and Skip buttons.

On the right hand side lid hinge, you will find four further LEDs showing Power, HDD, Battery and Bluetooth status. All LEDs are green, except for Bluetooth which lights blue when turned on, a nice touch.

The laptop overall looks professional but wouldn't look out of place in the home either, if it were to be used as a desktop replacement, as I believe this laptop is intended.

It has a reasonably feel to it, and when closed it feels quite expensive (which in some respects it is). The keyboard feels good and is sprung quite well. The touchpad also feels good to use, though sometimes suffers from under sensitivity. The mouse buttons however are a little clicky. The plastics around the keyboard also show wear, and creak when being used. Its a small issues, but one that can get annoying.

----------FEATURES--------
Dell have cleverly incorporated features as standard to cater for both business and home use. Of course to qualify for the Centrino branding as this laptop does, the laptop must include an Pentium M processor, and an Intel Wireless card. Specifications of my laptop are as follows:

Intel Pentium M 1.7ghz
2GB Ram (512mb Ram Standard)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro Turbo
120GB Hard Drive (Was 60GB Standard - more about this later)
Intel Pro Wireless 2100
10/100 Broadcom LAN
Broadcom 56k Modem
Dell Truemobile 300 Bluetooth
CD-RW/DVD

In order to discuss the components properly, will split them into further subheadings.

---Processor---
You may be thinking that older laptops had Processor speeds of anything up to 3.2 GHz, but don't be fooled. The lower clock speed of the Pentium m doesn't mean its less powerful than these Pentium 4 laptops. Instead, it is designed to be more powerful clock for clock and a lot more efficient. Typically, a Pentium M processor is about 1.6 x more powerful than a Pentium 4 but still manages to run cooler and save battery life. In this case, this processor is equivalent to around a 2.7ghz Pentium 4.

Though not the fastest Pentium M available, the processor is more than capable at performing, and performs well in gaming, video encoding and office tasks.

I've not run into problems at all with this, in all the time I've had it... in fact, I still use this laptop now, as it can still compete with newer laptops.

---Memory---
The laptop supports up to a maximum of 2GB of memory, but came shipped with 512mb as standard. This of course means that its not as fast as it could be. You do indeed see a huge performance increase when you fill the maximum memory. It takes PC2700 SODIMM, you can buy 2GB of this for around £70 now, and its well worth doing to further future proof the laptop. It's very straight forward to fit and even a novice user shouldn't have a problem. The laptop with 512mb isnt exactly slow however.

---Graphics----
This is probably one of the better features of this laptop. It's quite difficult to find a laptop with graphics performance like this, even today (if you do its costly). This is probably the factor that allows this laptop to qualify as a desktop replacement. Its more than capable playing games, for those of you who care, I have tested "Transformers - The Game" a game released a few months ago, and it runs it perfectly on around medium quality. at 1280x800 resolution. It can manage high at lower resolutions, but either way it looks good and runs smoothly. It managed slightly above 10,000 in 3Dmark 2001 (with the 512mb ram), which means its capable.

This is the best graphics card available for this laptop, but it could also be bought with a Nvidia Geforce Fx 5200 Go {i think) for those on a budget, or a Nvidia Geforce 5650 GO which offers near the same performance as the Ati 9600 PRO.

----Hard Disk---
This again, came with a 60GB hard disk as standard which is adequate for a a fair few files and programs for the average user. It was pretty quiet and reasonably fast with a 5,200RPM spin speed. Unfortunately, mine broke within a first few months of owning it, needless to say I was a little disappointed. Rather than going to dell, and having to box the laptop up and send it off... I replaced it myself with a 120GB model.

---Wi-Fi---
The Wi-Fi, is unfortunately a b rather than a g, which means instead of supporting speeds of 54mbps + it only supports a maximum of 11mpbs. This shouldn't be a problem for most , as those without a network wont need to transfer files between computers, and you can still receive full internet speeds of connections up to 11mb, by that i mean... if for example you can download at 800kbps, you will still get that full 800kbps download speed. The laptop also has the facility to share the internet connection, which means people can connect to your wireless internet; through your laptop should you allow them too. Signal strength, I have to say is a bit unusual, sometimes its finds your network, sometimes it doesnt.. .and this happens when you are even sat quite near to the router (say the next room) which is a bit unusual. I also ran into driver issues when I installed a driver from the Dell website for this adapter... resulting in the laptop crashing. To solve it, be sure to install the driver from the Intel website.

---Broadcom 10/100 LAN---
For those who have both a wireless and wired network, the Lan will allow you to plug in and transfer files to a network drive up to a maximum of 100mbps.. a large improvement from the 11mbps of the wireless. This makes the laptop ideal for business and home use.

---56k Modem---
This is another useful feature, giving you an extra connection possibility on the move, if you are out of a wifi hotspot. Simply connect your phone to it and you've got internet on the move - slow internet, but internet.

---Dell Truemobile 300 Bluetooth---
I'm not entirely sure, but I think this is an option extra. This allows you to connect your laptop to your phone or supported Bluetooth device, allowing you to transfer files and sync your device. This is another feature that makes the laptop ideal for business use. Signal strength is very good, and the laptop stays connected to quite a considerable difference. Again, I came into driver issues with this, it was small, but still a little annoying. Basically, with some drivers when you activate the Bluetooth, the light doesn't come on. The Bluetooth still works but when you know something is supposed to happen but it doesn't its quite annoying. To fix it i installed the driver that said "Dell Truemobile 300 Stack Driver" and that seemed to work, luckily.

As you can see, the laptop is fitted with extras quite well, catering for the majority of your needs.

----------Cooling---------
The location of air vents and fans on laptops can make it difficult to use laptops on your lap without covering the vents, which could lead to overheating. Luckily, the main fan is located on the far left underside, meaning it there is ample space for your legs without covering it. Other vents are also situated far left at the back, far left near the keyboard and centrally above the keyboard. Meaning the laptop shouldn't have a problem keeping cool.

The laptop seems to use its power management features well as the fan rarely comes on under normal use. Even during DVD playback, the fan rarely comes on which is great. Obviously under intense load or during games the fan(s) do come on, both the CPU fan, and Graphics fan come on.

A nice feature is the fact that the CPU fan is user replaceable, just by removing a few screws and replacing the complete unit. This means that when the fan does become noisy with age or clogged you can take it out to clean or replace it all together quite cheaply.

----------Connections----------
The laptop has a PC card slot on the left hand side, allowing you to add extra cards for devices like Wireless (though its not compulsory) or extra USB Devices. It also has two usb ports at the back, and a firewire port at the left hand side. Allowing your camcorder to be connected should you wish.

The laptop also has S-video, which would allow you to connect your laptop to the Tv, and us that as a second screen. I haven't managed to get this to work though. Unfortunately.

---------Screen----------
The laptop has a 15.4" widescreen, available in three screen resolutions.

I chose the one with a maximum of 1280x800, simply for affordability, and it is more than adequate. It looks impressive when watching movies and has a reasonable range of viewing angles. At its brightest, it looks good, and for night use even the the low brightness looks clear.

----------Size & Weight---------
Due to the size of the screen, the laptop has a larger footprint than most. It's not exactly huge, but its slightly large if you're going to be carrying it around everyday. It's about an inch and a half thick, and it weighs around 3KG, making it best suited to use in one place rather than a roaming laptop.

----------OVERALL---------
A very good laptop, with a few things that could have been better. I would recommend it as for a laptop it is incredibly capable and offers great graphics performance for a reasonable price. Usually due to poor upgradeability I'd usually steer clear of dell, but in a laptop I think they're good, resulting in me owning two in a row. I would probably buy one again.