A powerful laptop does not have to be a boring laptop. Take Dell's Inspiron 1720 (dell latitude d820 battery ), a robust system that also happens to be available in seven colors besides black. The 1720 is a heavyish 17-inch notebook, but its multimedia design is outstanding.
The Dell Inspiron 1720 (dell xps m1530 battery )is a 17" desktop replacement targeted towards younger consumers, most of whom are in school. This notebook competes against such notebooks as the HP dv9500t and Toshiba P200/P205. The 1720 offers a wide range of hardware configurations, as well as 8 different color options to be customized exactly as you want it. Processors range from the T5250 all the way up to the T7700, RAM from 1GB to 4GB, HD from 120GB to 500GB (250GB x 2), display resolutions starting at WXGA+ up to WUXGA, and color ranging from jet black to sunshine yellow.
Our review model came with the following options, bringing the price up to $2,438 as configured from a base of $899.
- Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
- Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.20GHz, 4MB L2, 800MHz FSB)
- Mobile Intel P965 Express Chipset
- Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN (802.11a/g/n)
- 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (maximum capacity 4GB)
- 320GB Total Space (160GB x 2, option no longer offered at the time of this writing)
- 8x DVD (+/-R double layer) drive
- 17.0" diagonal widescreen TrueLife TFT LCD display at 1920x1200 (WUXGA, Glossy)
- 256MB nVidia GeForce Go 8600M GT
- 2.0 megapixel webcam
- Bluetooth version 2.0 plus Enhanced Data Rate (EDR)
- ExpressCard slot (ExpressCard/34 and Express Card/54)
- 5-in-1 media card reader
- VGA out
- Mic/Headphone connectors
- IEEE-1394 (FireWire)
- Five USB 2.0 ports
- Dimensions (WxDxH Front/H Rear): 15.5" x 11.5" x 1.7"
- Weight: 7.62 Advertised, 8lbs 13.2oz actual w/ 9-cell battery
- 90W (19V x 4.62A) 100-240V AC adapter (1lb 1.4oz)
- 9-cell (85Wh) Lithium Ion battery (1lb 1oz)
- 1-Year Standard Limited Warranty
Build and Design
Gone are the white bumpers of old, replaced with a solid shimmering silver paint, giving the body of the Dell 1720 (dell latitude d600 battery )a much cleaner and refined look. The body still allows some user configuration with its custom top cover paint options, including jet black, alpine white, espresso brown, ruby red, midnight blue, spring green, flamingo pink, and sunshine yellow. The high level of personalization can even go as far as a color matched Logitech mouse as an added $29 option during checkout.
The cleaner look and feel is matched with an even stronger and more durable chassis. During testing no plastic creaks or squeaks could be heard, with flex only apparent in the plastic painted screen cover. The entire bottom shell is a metal alloy which gives the laptop (apple powerbook g4 battery )a strong footprint on your desk, and is gives enough strength to resist bending if you hold the laptop by the edge of the palm rest walking around the room. The only downside to the chassis was the metal HD bay cover had some movement, and would make clacking sound if tapped with your finger, or placed on an uneven desk. Overlooking that fact, the underbody is strong enough to hurt your knuckles if you try to punch it without giving up as much as a millimeter of flex in the process.
Screen
The glossy WUXGA (1920x1200) screen on the Dell 1720 (hp pavilion dv6000 battery )is absolutely beautiful. ?No dead pixels were found during testing, and backlight bleed while noticed on some dark screens was minimal. Colors were vibrant as with many glossy screens, and wide viewing angles made the screen look sharp even at odd contorted angles. Backlight adjustment was very broad, allowing me to adjust low enough for darker room settings, and bright enough to still be readable in sunlight or a bright office. I had the adjustment sitting around the 80 percent mark or two notches down from max level for most of my testing.
Speakers
The speakers on the 1720 (ibm thinkpad t60 battery )were better than average for most laptops, comparable to speakers found on most midrange televisions. While lower bass was lacking, volume levels were quite loud, and distortion at peak levels was not present. Combined with the 17" display, it would not be hard at all to entertain a small group of friends in a dorm room with the laptop by itself.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard and palm rest structure matches the strength of the bottom panel of this laptop. Pressing down very firmly, the keyboard flexes less than my T60 Thinkpad. The palm rest is just as firm, supporting my wrists or elbows pressing down with barely a hint of flex.
Heat and Noise
Coping with heat under stress is one task that this laptop shrugs off with ease. Using two instances of Prime95 (dell kd476), each stressing an individual core, the processor went up to 75C after 40 minutes. Outside temps were barely fazed though, even with internal parts scorching hot. With a room temperature of 24C, the palm rest was 27C on the right side, and 29C on the left side. Keyboard temperature was between 30-33C going right to left. Air coming out of the heatsink grill came out at around 46C. Underside temps were into "warm blanket" range of 40-42C, so wearing pants while gaming intensively should be recommended. After letting the laptop cool down for 20 minutes, the keyboard and palm rest evened out at 29-30C with the bottom peaking at 36C under the heatsink area.
Software
This laptop came with Windows Vista Home Premium preinstalled, as well as other smaller applications included through Dell. The most notable addition being the Norton Internet Security package which I uninstalled from the system during review to speed it up. ?Another item unique to Dell is the "Dell QuickSafe" online storage system which comes included free for one year. This gives a user 3GB of online storage space for backing up documents, pictures, or other information to an outside source incase of system failure (or losing your laptop). The user then selects the folders they want backed up, what interval to have it pulled off the system, and let the software do the magic behind the scenes.
Under normal web browsing use the 9-cell dell inspiron 1720 battery performed quite well, pushing out 3 hours and 12 minutes of life before going into hibernation mode at two percent. Screen brightness was two notches below max, or about 80 percent, and other items were set to Vista’s balanced power plan. This gives more than enough time for taking notes (surfing the web) during a couple of classes throughout the day away from an outlet.
Conclusion
This Dell 17" laptop is a great performer and extremely well built laptop structurally. It seems to be built well enough to be thrown around in day to day use, and hold up throughout an entire college career. It will roll with the punches, and probably hurt your fist in the process. The only problems I found which don’t relate directly to the function of the laptop are the peeling paint, which should hopefully be worked out as production goes on in the upcoming months. Dell has mentioned paint quality problems with this new design, and how they were working to improve the painting process. Counting out that problem this is a great laptop, and I hope Dell continues on this trend of well built, affordable machines.
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