Inspiron 700M Dell Notebook Review and Rating

The Dell Inspiron 700M represents a welcome change to the Dell consumer notebook line. The silver and white chassis is a great improvement over previous Inspiron designs and the glossy 12.1-inch display is great for watching DVD's on the built-in DVD+RW drive. Other multimedia-friendly touches include FireWire and headphone jacks right up front, a Secure Digital slot, and S-Video output.

The 700M's most distinguishing characteristic is its beautiful 12.1-inch widescreen display. The LCD's on most laptops feature a matte finish, which gives them a dull, lifeless appearance, but the 700M's polished display puts it in the same league as the Sony Vaio TR5AP. Even if the 700M isn't well-suited to demanding gaming applications because of the lack of a video card with dedicated VRAM, you will be rewarded with a solid multimedia experience.

Built around Intel's 1.8-GHz Pentium M processor, this Dell is one of the fastest ultraportables yet. Just as impressive is how long this system lasts on a single charge regardless of whether the Wi-Fi is turned on or off. The 8-cell battery is located on the back side of this notebook and juts out ever so slightly, but it doesn't really affect the profile. The 700M still fits very easily into a slim notebook carrying case.

Unlike a lot of other ultraportables, this machine features a very comfortable keyboard and the touchpad is generously sized for a laptop in this classification.

Kudos to Dell for including a built-in memory card reader on this Inspiron notebook. This feature lets you view pictures by sliding in a Secure Digital card. Meanwhile, digital camcorder and
i-Pod owners will like the front-mounted FireWire port, which makes it easy to upload video or audio. The only real connectivity weakness is that the two USB ports are stacked on top of each other, so you may have trouble plugging in two thick cable connectors at the same time.

The Dell 700M offers very fast performance, a good looking design and display, and long battery life. The Inspiron 700M is by no means the slimmest ultraportable, but this mini-notebook delivers a lot of multimedia bang for the dollar particularly in an ultraportable form factor. Hats off to Dell for this excellent design and feature set. penya-barcelona-japan.com