DELL INSPIRON 1420 REVIEW

Introduction
This is a great consumer notebook from Dell with a nice style and an affordable price. The laptop runs on the Santa Rosa platform and features Blu-ray disc drive and a good 14-inch screen.

Design
The design looks like a traditional Dell machine with nice simple lines. However I think Dells XPS series are far more attractive. The hinge mechanism works great and the laptop is very solid overall. This laptop is also available in 8 different colors. The paint looks very nice and even tough the design is what I call typical Dell, It is still quite attractive with the 14-inch screen. The entire case is sturdy with relatively thick plastic and magnesium alloy reinforcement in just the right places. I did not feel any flex on this laptop whatsoever so it’s a solid build. The keyboard works very nice and has almost no flex to it. Above they keyboard you will find a media center with buttons. These can be very helpful when controlling the volume etc. The touchpad is also great but it is a little bit small. However the design is great overall.

Screen
The 14-inch screen is very glossy and it can sometimes be like a mirror. The screen is a WXGA+ 1440 x 900 display with high quality. Great contrast, good brightness and excellent colors. You can also watch movies from all angles on this screen and overall it works really well.

Performance
The 2.2Ghz T7500 processor does a fantastic job running this machine and the Geforce 8400M GS also works very well with this CPU. This is a nice laptop and it can be used for mostly anything even game playing. However you will not be able to play the newest games like Crysis etc. On PCMark05 we got 4996 PCMarks and on 3Dmark05 we got 2847 3DMarks. These are great score for such a small and portable laptop, nothing to criticize here.

Conclusion
This laptop will work excellent as a student machine because of the many good facilities. However you will also be able to do some gaming from this machine. Bottom line, although it's certainly not perfect the 1420 is a strong, capable notebook that will make a great back-to-school system.

Pros
+ Great performance for such a small laptop
+ Very solid overall
+ Great screen

Cons
- Average battery life

Value For Money

Our Rating