Product Reviews

With a name like this, you expect the Dell to be inspiring. And when you first unpack it, you're left with the impression that it will be. Its cool metallic-blue and grey colour scheme works well.

As first impressions gave way to familiarity, I became less inspired. The lid was a little on the flimsy side. The notebook is also pretty heavy, weighing 3.7kg. Couple this with some chunky measurements - 330mm wide and 47mm high, and you're left holding a bruiser. The 5100 is not a notebook that will slip unnoticed into your bag - but at least it's perfect for toning up those arm muscles on the journey to work.

The Dell's size means it offers plenty of space for a full-sized keyboard. Despite this, I wasn't impressed by what I found. Though generously sized, with near-perfect key spacing, it flexes too much in use. Bizarrely, the Windows key was moved to the top-right rather than its usual place at the bottom left. Annoying.

The hard disk is a generous 40GB. It was partitioned in two. The larger partition houses Windows XP, and all your work while the other side contains an 'image' or a duplicate of the original installation of Windows. If anything nasty happens to your Windows installation, you can return the Dell to its factory-fresh state using the copy on the small, 2GB second partition. A good idea.

For data backup, Dell has included a 24-speed CD-R/W drive that will also burn rewritable discs at up to ten-speed. This

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neat drive also doubles as a DVD-ROM drive, so you can enjoy a movie or install larger programs from DVD discs. Unlike most machines, the Dell has no floppy drive. This could be a pain, but remember you can use a CD-R/W as a big floppy disk, so it shouldn't really cause any problems.

Movie-buffs will appreciate the screen's good contrast and great viewing angles. It's also excellent to work on, as it's bright and evenly lit. The unusual resolution of 1,400x1,050 is also perfect for the 15in screen, providing more room on the desktop than a 1,024 x 768 resolution, but without making icons too small to read.

The stereo speakers at the front of the Dell lack the real punch that movie fans crave, but they're enough for Windows' bells, whistles and warning chirps. A mini-jack output enables you to connect bigger ones if you need more bass.

Other connections of note include a mini-FireWire port - ideal for connecting devices such as digital video cameras, MP3 jukeboxes and external hard disks, which need to transfer large quantities of data quickly.

The Inspiron's real claim to fame is its 2.8GHz processor, which is one step down from Intel's fastest processor, the 3GHz Pentium 4. The 2.8GHz processor is teamed with 512MB of RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 chip. These qualitycomponents help the Dell to achieve a 2D benchmark score of 1,095 and a 3DMark 2001 SE score of 3,867, which is impressive.

The Inspiron's processor isn't one from Intel's Mobile range, which are designed especially for notebooks. These chips are fast yet consume less power, maximising battery life. Instead, this Dell has a desktop processor. It's powerful but drains battery life at a fair rate. This can be seen in our gruelling battery test, where it lasted just 1 hour and 11 minutes.

The Dell is a fast notebook at good price - but you can buy better. Check out Multivision's Ionix (p72). It outperforms the Dell in 3DMark 2001, has a bigger hard disk, 512MB of RAM and a wireless network card too - all for £200 less.