Dell Inspiron 1300 £299 Inc VAT & Delivery (merged)

Sid_Harper

Offer seems to have gone now - says invalid eValue code!

Speculator

still works.

holidaygal

Thanks Talkshop, have finally managed to order one through small business on 3135 for £288.47.

Kilty_2

Can anyone provide me with an in depth review of this machine having recieved it?

Considering buying one (another offer will appear soon enough) but need something that is going to last and survive a fair bit of travelling.....

Not sure whether I should get the extra money together and buy a Toshiba or something, been told by some people that the build quality on Inspirons in general is not too great.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Roger_Rampant

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2738

buggu

I got a inspirion 6000 and happy with it since i dont take it around with me all day but you will find that dell laptops are not ideal if you going to carry them around alot, they are slighlty bulky and heavier.

Kilty_2

buggu wrote:

I got a inspirion 6000 and happy with it since i dont take it around with me all day but you will find that dell laptops are not ideal if you going to carry them around alot, they are slighlty bulky and heavier.

Im not really too fussed about the fact they are a little heavier, its the build quality I'm more worried about.

It'd have to survive being carried around a lot, taken in and out of cases, probably a fair share of knocks too

Roger_Rampant

In the review that I posted a link for, he says:

This is a budget notebook and as such is constructed in a manner to keep costs down. The body casing is entirely plastic, no fancy aluminum or magnesium protection. The plastic used is not flimsy though, it's actually really quite sturdy. I used the Dell Inspiron 1000 a while back and was highly disappointed with the flimsiness of the casing, the 1300 is certainly a step up from that. There's no major flexing issues of the body and the keyboard is firm.



Dell Inspiron 1300 (view larger image)

The hinges are firm, there's no wobble of the screen even if you move the notebook around. This is impressive, often with budget notebooks the hinges can be somewhat weak. The protection provided by the lid is also good, if you push in on the lid area it's hard to get ripples to appear on the screen. However, the plastic area around the screen is not held on very well. I can pull the plastic covering away from the LCD with ease.

talkshop

Kilty wrote:

Can anyone provide me with an in depth review of this machine having recieved it?

Considering buying one (another offer will appear soon enough) but need something that is going to last and survive a fair bit of travelling.....

I have had my Inspiron 1300 with 14.1 inch screen & 6 cell battery for about 2 weeks now.

I have dropped it once, well actually I fell asleep with it on my lap and was woken when the phone rang, and I forget the laptop was on me. The laptop was launched into the air and landed on a corner edge. The front facia of the DVD drive came unclipped and the PCI Express blanking slot cover came adrift. Both these items just clipped back into place and the laptop works perfectly, as I am typing this reply on it.

I have completely re-installed windows XP and added 1GB of extra RAM but 512MB extra should be enough for most people. With the standard 256MB, the DVD playback is a bit jerky, but is fine now with the extra memory.

The laptop is very quiet in normal use. The fan kicks in now and and again for short periods but it is not intrusive.

The built in Wi-Fi and Sony DVD writer work perfectly.

For the current price it is a bargain and you cannot go wrong.
It would be nice to have a brighter screen and a PCMCIA slot, but those are my only slightly negative thoughts, but you would have to pay another £200 probably to get something that is significantly better.

johno69

I have just purchased the Inspiron 1300 with upgraded memory screen and battery for £350 delivered. Can someone please advise will I be able to upgrade the laptop with a new graphics card once it arrives. If so for a budget of £40 could anyone recommend a card which would be sufficient for this machine. I read one of the earlier posts which states that the Ram is easily upgradeable, but I have read others which have said that this laptop might might not be upgradeable at all, is this correct.

Thanks in advance!