Dell Inspiron 1200

It looks like I'm within 72 hours of becoming a laptop owner again, so I wanted to give my impressions of the laptop I have been using (thanks to my gracious in-laws) for the past 2 months. The Dell Inspiron 1200 is Dell's entry laptop model that starts at a price of $549 and is the one most featured units in Dell's ads in the Sunday papers and on the back of the Parade magazine. The first time I saw it in person, I thought to myself how basic it looked; black plastic casing and very square, but a clean design. Nothing about it would make you say "Wow!", but then nothing about it would make you cringe. It's just basic.

Under the hood, it has a Pentium M Celeron processor running at 1.3 Mhz, 256 MB memory, 30GB hard drive, combo CD-RW/DVD drive, built-in modem/Ethernet, a nice bright 14.1" XGA screen and Windows XP Home Edition. That's the model for $549 - no wireless and virtually no warranty (90 days). Add a 3 yr. warranty and a PCMCIA wireless card and you're out of the door with this laptop for $777 after the $100 instant savings. That's a very good number for a price, don't you think Gary Lamb?? (reference to Stryper for the rest of you)

Before I get to my impressions of the laptop, I need to say that in the past, I have unfairly placed Dell's "deals" in the "you-get-exactly-what-you-pay-for" category and had largely dismissed them as viable options for anyone. Boy, have I been proved wrong. The only negative I found is that it came pre-loaded with a 90-day trial of Norton Internet Security - a software package that I personally loathe as it significantly slows down any machine, especially one that isn't top-of-the-line to begin with. After I replaced Norton with my favorite antivirus program, NOD32, there wasn't and hasn't been any hint of sluggishness. I was able to load and run Office 2003 Professional, Yahoo! Desktop Search, Konfabulator, Firefox, and Spybot with zero problems.

Although the wireless card sticks out a bit, at 6.33 lbs the Dell Inspiron 1200 is more than worth the price. As a systems administrator, I would consider myself a Power User and the laptop, for me, performed very well. If you're into Photoshop, video/sound editing or gaming, then move along, there's nothing here for you to see. But, if you're heavy into the Internet, email, word processing, spreadsheets or even watching DVD's, then you'll love this laptop.

So what laptop am I getting next? I'll tell you in a couple of days...