Dell Inspiron 1520 review

Verdict:

What a dull world it would be without colour. And really good affordable laptops. The 1520 has good battery life and copes well with 3D games. As for the colours, you decide.

Review Date: 19 Sep 2007

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Alan Lu

Our Rating 5 stars out of 5

Our Inspiron came with a built-in webcam, a modern 2 megapixel device that's streets ahead of the low-resolution units that gave online video its traditional reputation for near illegibility. This is another of the 1520's options. One extra feature that's standard is a small switch on the side of the laptop that activates Dell's 'WiFi catcher' utility. This shows the signal strength of nearby wireless networks and is supposed to make it easier to find public WiFi hotspots. It doesn't do anything that Vista's wireless manager doesn't, though, and you still have to use this to connect to a network once you've found one.

Dell has suffered some delays in shipping these new models, exacerbated by high demand and reportedly caused partly by the difficulty of producing the colour finishes. At the time of writing, Dell's UK website was quoting up to five weeks. Things should have improved considerably by the time you read this.

The positive side of 'just in time' manufacturing, as opposed to product sitting on shelves, is that you can customise most parts when ordering. If you like the look of the 1520 but feel you'd be just as happy with a smaller hard disk, for example, or don't need so much 3D graphics power, you can reconfigure it, with prices for this model starting at just £599 including VAT and delivery. If you want to order the exact configuration we tested, at the reduced price of £750, you'll need to enter the correct Dell e-value code: NPUK5 - N0915205R.

As a travelling companion, Dell's Inspiron 1520 isn't the lightest of laptops, but it does offer decent battery life. It has plenty of oomph for Windows, and gamers will be pleasantly surprised to find a credible machine at this price.

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