Dell's new Inspiron 13 and Inspiron 518 are after your back to school dollar

Dell has never failed to provide compelling reasons -- particularly pricetags -- for students and / or their cash-strapped parents to pick up a Dell desktop or laptop on the way back to school. This year seems no exception, with Dell adding some special Inspiron configurations to its already beefy budget lineups. The Inspiron 13 laptop (pictured) is pretty much laptop 101, with a 13-inch screen, 8-in-1 media card reader and slot-loading DVD drive in the base model -- you'll have to fork over extra for WiFi, a webcam or Bluetooth. Wal-mart will be carrying a $699 version starting August 3rd, with full configuration coming to Dell.com later that month. The Inspiron 518 desktop (after the break) is similarly straightforward, with DirectX 10 integrated graphics, gigabit Ethernet and a pair of easy-access USB ports on top of the case, in addition to options for a 500GB hard drive and quad core processors. The starting price is $349, and the systems should be available today.

[SneAKz @ Jul 29th 2008 12:15AM]

13 inch laptop for $699. That would be great for a student who goes to uni or college. Dell going to do killer sales for B2S.

[JohnTitor @ Jul 29th 2008 12:28AM]

not to mention kill eee sales, unless ASUS pulls a eeePC 1301HDBack2School2008 Celeron-edition

[Midnightblade @ Jul 29th 2008 12:31AM]

I doubt this would do anything like kill EEE PC sales. They're still two completely different markets though the lines are beginning to blur. I'd still take an MSI Wind over this Dell though that's just me. Other people will obviously have their own opinions.

[Flashpoint @ Jul 29th 2008 12:31AM]

Its amazing what the market has to do to get your dollar nowadays. After Bush passed out those stimulus welfare checks and tried to convince everyone to spend spend spend, the reality of the siituation was that people were racked with debt and needed to use them to pay bills.

Now they are telling people to go back-to-school shopping in mid summer to try and help the economy.

Brings back memories to when those idiots told people to "make it the best christmas ever" in 2001 after the terrorist attacks and had people spending on credit like madmen.

[Flashpoint @ Jul 29th 2008 12:31AM]

Its amazing what the market has to do to get your dollar nowadays. After Bush passed out those stimulus welfare checks and tried to convince everyone to spend spend spend, the reality of the siituation was that people were racked with debt and needed to use them to pay bills.

Now they are telling people to go back-to-school shopping in mid summer to try and help the economy.

Brings back memories to when those idiots told people to "make it the best christmas ever" in 2001 after the terrorist attacks and had people spending on credit like madmen.

[tkatz111 @ Sep 6th 2008 1:05AM]

Dude, take your politics elsewhere.

[Dave @ Jul 29th 2008 9:05AM]

Flashpoint, you're a moron.

You can blame Bush for $300 stimulus checks but you can thank the Democrats for blocking the privatization of social security, the $300 billion farm bill, and the housing bailout (which rewards dumb people who overextended themselves and screws the market because it eliminates moral hazard). Maybe you didn't notice, but by just announcing that we would allow more offshore drilling would send oil prices drastically down, since it went down $15 the week that Bush said he was lifting the executive moratorium on drilling offshore.

Anyways, I think its great Dell can make a computer like this for so cheap, although I think charging extra for WiFi is just to make the price look lower, because really who isn't going to get wifi on their laptop nowadays? It would be like selling an SUV with a manual transmission.

[ooglek @ Jul 29th 2008 11:07AM]

I got a brand new Dell inspiron 15" widescreen laptop with 2gb of memory and a decent core 2 duo proc for $649 a while back. Sure, it had a discount attached, but clearly here you're getting less than you can get if you shop around. The 13" laptop doesn't seem to have any huge benefits over the 15" you can get right now elsewhere. Look at buy.com, ecost.com, or just go to dealnews.com and search in the laptop section. I've almost always been able to find a deal when i need a new laptop.

[Haikibutsu @ Jul 29th 2008 12:15AM]

Dells recently have been ranking up with Macs in sexy factor. Plus they can have linux preinstalled, although Linux is easy to install anyways.

[Michael LaFramboise @ Jul 29th 2008 1:51AM]

ok, I'm sorry, not to sound like a fanboy/hater w/e -- but seriously, WHAT changed? All I see is that they put on a piece of shiny plastic on the back of the screen...

...thats it.


Same goes for the desktop... typical PC, only the first 2" from the front are designed, beyond that its the same old boring plain shoebox.

[George @ Aug 9th 2008 4:19AM]

Michael: Personally, I think it looks sweet. The XPS-like hinge and the taper from back to front, they actually look pretty good.

[Matt @ Jul 29th 2008 8:39AM]

Oh, you know, just a few things: latchless lid, new hinge design, slot loading drives, backlit keyboards. Honestly, if you can look at an old Inspiron and then this, not to mention the new XPS units which are hawt, and tell me Dell hasn't changed it's design all that much, then you need your eyes examined, son.

[giantenemycrab @ Jul 29th 2008 12:21AM]

damn that bottom picture is SLEEK.

[mike @ Jul 29th 2008 1:12AM]

iphone bitch

[Einhanderkiller @ Jul 29th 2008 2:30AM]

The 518 has a 160W power supply, though. Not much room for upgrading there unless you get a new PSU.

[Adderz @ Jul 29th 2008 12:24AM]

wow, i must say, even though im a total mac fan and would NEVER buy
one of these, they arent bad. They are really stepping things up in
the design area. Slot load drive, thats my favourite bit lol. Its
about time they introduced them, tray load is just so 1999.

Its nice to see they are using 13" screens. Budget laptops usually have those unwieldy 15" screens, to give them more room in the bottom. At least we are no longer in the stage we saw 3 years ago.

Laptops went from nice 12" to 14" screens then every laptop was a huge 15" with a base measuring upwards of 3cm. Now we are coming back down to normal sizes.

[Kamokazi @ Jul 29th 2008 1:22AM]

Slot load drives are much more prone to failure, vibration/skipping/read errors, and are usually more espensive. Look at CD/DVD duplicators and servers...what do they use?

But slot-load is cool as hell. I won't argue with you there.

[Michael Scrip @ Jul 31st 2008 5:26PM]

> "Slot load drives are much more prone to failure, vibration/skipping/read errors, and are usually more espensive."

I'm sure that's true for slot loading computer optical drives... but every car CD player has been slot load for 15 years. How many people replaced a failing car CD player with a tray loading one?

Slot load computer drives were always so much more expensive than tray loading ones. I wish they became more of a standard so they could make better ones. I'd buy one and take my chances... but they didn't make them long enough for the price to drop. If a crappy base-model Chevy Cavelier has a slot load CD player, why can't I buy one for my computer? It seems like the car CD player people could talk to the computer drive people and figure them out.

Aren't all Mac optical drives slot loading? They don't even have a tray loading option.

[Manabu @ Aug 3rd 2008 5:25PM]

I agree. I still want to see more cheap 12" and 13" laptops. I don't understand why the 15" models are so much more cheap than this 13" model.

[BigD145 @ Jul 29th 2008 12:25AM]

You can pick up 14 and 16 inch Lenovo's for around that price. Why would I want to touch a Dell? Those things tend to get hot.

[midnightblade @ Jul 29th 2008 12:29AM]

Yes, because past Dell laptops MAY have gotten hot, therefore all Dell laptops get hot. It's hard to argue with that logic.

[jason @ Jul 29th 2008 12:31AM]

What is the point of having DirectX 10 on integrated grafix?

It is not like you will be playing any games w/ it.

Never really got that.

[Harry Wagstaff @ Jul 29th 2008 6:23AM]

It's so that you can play Crysis: Slideshow Edition.

[Boiler09 @ Jul 29th 2008 12:44AM]

Ok nice price, but an upgrade for WiFi?? I didn't know you could even get a laptop without WiFi these days. This should be a standard item if you are aiming at students, virtually all campuses are completely wireless.

[heshmati4 @ Jul 29th 2008 12:44AM]

That's Dell Alright!

[Midnightblade @ Jul 29th 2008 1:03AM]

I think it means upgraded Wifi from the Dell chips to the Intel ones so you can get your little centrino sticker.

[tumnasgt @ Jul 29th 2008 1:04AM]

Thats got to be a typo, I mean, I bought an Acer Aspire for about $330US, and it's got WiFi b/g, maybe it's meant to say that 802.11n will be an upgrade

[Oend @ Jul 29th 2008 12:16PM]

No, it's just Engadget. The press release says "Optional features include built-in broadband wireless networking" which they misinterpreted as meaning WiFi when it actually means, well.. Wireless Broadband.

[PeterF @ Jul 29th 2008 12:49AM]

Looks just like an XPS M1330! Looks a bit cheaper though, and I like the silver inside of the M1330 more than the black inside of this.

[YpoCaramel @ Jul 29th 2008 12:57AM]

Good job to Dell for recognizing the need for a full-featured mainstream 13" laptop. I'd imagine it'd be too heavy for an ultraportable, we'll see.

[Ferny @ Jul 29th 2008 12:59AM]

I thought wifi was standard on all laptops by now.

[Scott C @ Jul 29th 2008 1:02AM]

Do not buy Dell Laptops if you are thinking of upgrading to a dedicated graphics chip solution..

My Dell E1705 with a nVidia 7900GS has a burning smell when the graphics chip rises above 68 deg C. and I get NMI (that's non-maskable interrupt) blue screen informing of hardware failure -- I think it's a pending overheat shutdown signal sent by the graphic chip. This always requires a hard reboot. Stay away and ask them to address those issues for people with problems with existing problems.

You have been warned!

[cesium @ Jul 29th 2008 1:08AM]

Ever thought that maybe you have a defective part? I have a 7400gs in my dell, and some friends have higher end GPUs in theres. And none of us have any of the issues you're talking about,

[a12ctic @ Jul 29th 2008 1:12AM]

thats true to any company that has a 7 series nvidia chip. nvidia fucked that mobile line of chips up really bad.

[Kevin L @ Jul 29th 2008 2:19AM]

I have the exact same model with the exact same graphics card. Whenever the temperature gets up to 75 degrees Celsius, everything starts throttling in performance (CPU, GPU, etc.)

[LarryLarryLarry @ Jul 29th 2008 4:45AM]

75 C is like 250 F. What do you expect? You could fry a hummingbird egg on a chip that hot.

[Jughead @ Jul 29th 2008 8:34AM]

I put a 7900GTX/Quadro 2500M in my E1705 and still don't have any issues after a year.

[Darth Abe @ Jul 29th 2008 1:06AM]

Dell really seems to be on the right track recently. I just got an M1330 because it is a sexy beast but the rest of their offerings seem to be similarly shaping up.

[Joshua.JWilliams @ Jul 29th 2008 1:29AM]

I agree, I purchased my M1330 in October of last year and love it. While it's look is much better than a Macbook and more professional IMHO -- I still wish I could just bootup OSX without problems. (I've completely given up OSx86)

Once my warranty is up (a long time from now) -- I think I'll make the switch though to an Apple. I kinda regret not making the decision last year. Ah well, Vista suits me fine.

The 9-cell battery just lasts and lasts. I swear, Dell has hit a home-run lately with all their great designs lately. I really like the new Studio lines of laptops being produced, even if they're plastic and not aluminum like the XPS.

[BobTurbo @ Jul 29th 2008 1:09AM]

They won't be getting it because a) they ugly, and b) I ain't school n that.

[EliteBeatsAgent08 @ Jul 29th 2008 1:17AM]

Uhh you're hating...

Dell deserved in the past but clearly they're trying to change things and I for one am damn impressed. While laptop style's aren't exactly my flavor the new Studio line is definitely a step in the RIGHT direction.

The Studio Hybrid is a cute little PC as well and I'd buy that for my mom in a heartbeat.

Big props to Dell. Hopefully they can keep it up. Affordable, good looking, and excellent performance is always a winning combo. Someone needs to prove that you can sell good technology without overcharging like dear old sony.

[Pochi @ Jul 29th 2008 1:34AM]

Hey BobTurbo.

You're a moron.

[Midnightblade @ Jul 29th 2008 1:38AM]

Pronouns require antecedents

[BobTurbo @ Jul 29th 2008 7:51AM]

they're alwaze stepin in the write dyrection but never get their.


...

But they still make the best computers in every respect other than looks.

[Michael Scrip @ Jul 29th 2008 2:11AM]

I hope it's just a misprint... with the webcam and Bluetooth being optional. I could live without those 2... but not without Wifi.

They're gonna piss of a lot of people who buy this laptop from Wal-Mart and it doesn't have Wifi.

[Zackf @ Jul 29th 2008 2:18AM]

Okay when you buy this laptop from walmart it DOES come with Wifi, trust me I'm using the exact model right now to type it. The walmart version also comes with the built in 2.0 mp webcam and speakers. Also the media buttons are touch sensitive like the ones you find on hp

[Michael Scrip @ Jul 29th 2008 2:46AM]

You have the Inspiron 13 now? The one Wal-Mart will be selling? How much is it and what are the specs?

What comes with the $699 Wal-Mart model?

[Billy @ Jul 29th 2008 2:45AM]

Wow, a laptop without wifi - that's fucking useful.

[Gardengnome @ Jul 29th 2008 4:02AM]

The notebook looks like a cheap version of the current M1330. Without metal wristpad and frame and such... but with large shiny blue pad glued onto it...
Hopefully it will come with Centrino 2. Otherwise prepare for some nice whining action.

[El Taco @ Jul 29th 2008 4:15AM]

paying extra for wifi? That's something I haven't seen for a while