$399 Dell Inspiron 15 makes the scene
By Nilay Patel 
posted May 13th 2009 5:03PM
posted May 13th 2009 5:03PM
posted May 13th 2009 5:03PM
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MICROSOFTRULEZ
STFU
as a windows user, i say, GTFO
But I thought netbook was defined by the Atom?/Ion/AMD's dumb named alternative (I forget).
Teh Geoooode.
you forgot Via NANO
Hopefully they don't.
for 25 bucks more u can put in a 'pentium' dual core. more power for barely any cost. this is the ultimate performance per dollar laptop.
True, not to mention how stupid the statement "it's not like the 2.16GHz Celeron and 2GB of RAM running Vista are going to majorly outgun the usual 1.6GHz Atom" is.
The Celeron is built on the same architecture as the Core 2 Duo and Pentium Dual-core, albeit with slower FSB and smaller cache. The Atom is embarrassingly slow.
This laptop would be more than sufficient for surfing the net, checking e-mails, listening to music, viewing photos etc - which is what most people do. It could handle multi tasking quite easily so I don't see why a $399 laptop is getting ragged on.
I looking at your Apple !
The only bad thing is the 5.8 lbs "starting weight". At that weight it's not exactly "lap friendly"/
Actually, the 2.16 GHz Celeron is, clock-for-clock, more powerful than the old 900 MHz ones they put in the first EEE PCs. Since those had comparable performance to the atom, it seems this would have at least 2.5 times the performance, not to mention the faster, dual-channel RAM. Vista will slow it down a bit, but nowhere near enough to bring them into the same realm.
Sorry, new user. Misunderstood which reply button to hit (above/below). Easy to do with a low-contrast screen.
I know 5.8 pounds is not completely unnoticable, but is it really enough to call heavy? And if it is too heavy for you, I might argue that you should carry it everywhere you go until you work your way up to carrying the 9-cell battery with it (don't star too big too early, don't want to hurt yourself; use a spotter). J/k ;)
To me celeron always failed due to the fact it was put in notebooks and workstations. In a netbook it would make sense, but i believe the atom provides about the same power
Actually, the 2.16 GHz Celeron is, clock-for-clock, more powerful than the old 900 MHz ones they put in the first EEE PCs. Since those had comparable performance to the atom, it seems this would have at least 2.5 times the performance, not to mention the faster, dual-channel RAM. Vista will slow it down a bit, but nowhere near enough to bring them into the same realm.
If it had an Atom in it, I'd bet they'd already be calling it a netbook.
Even Dell isn't that stupid... 15.4" netbook?
I've a a Celeron Laptop and it is miles better than a Pentium 4. Well, the new Core based Celerons anyway. This would be great, just too heavy though.
Can't wait for the first $400 DVD burning nonAtom 4lb notebook.
Methinks the line between netbooks and laptops is blurring. The line between netbooks and smartphones is also blurring.
Can't use my laptop to make a phone call though... would be very annoying to lift several pounds near your ear for an extended amount of time...
Lines are blurring all over the place! You should get you eyes checked.
@Matt...bluetooth headset+Skype?
$40 paint jobs?
Smells like a55.. but then again only the vein will whell out the cash to whore it up in pink...
I wish black matt was standard...
LOL
Another one for Microsoft's laptop hunters!
According to Tom's Hardware a single core 1.2Ghz Celeron is 30% faster than an Atom.
I would think a Core based dual core Celeron would be significantly faster than an atom and although a bit slow will manage photoshop work or video encoding.
Atoms are crap accept it.
NEVER
ARRR!!!!
Laying odds at 50-50? Wow, what a bold prediction...
Haha
"Seriously! It totally looks like they'd do this. We say maybe they will, and there's an equal chance that maybe they won't."
....k
You know the best thing about this laptop?
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
You can get it with Ubuntu 8.10 preinstalled.
8.10? thats so old last october
Right now, it's the best balance of function and stability you can get aside from OS X. In a month or two I'll start recommending 9.04 to people.
Only reason im using 9.04 is for the multi touch trackpad niceness.
I was disappointed with the lack of a new theme, the whole earth colours is wearing thin.
I recommend Dust (comes with, using it now) and Shiki-colors. Combined with gnome-globalmenu, shiki-colors makes for a rather elegant looking desktop.
Nice, thanks for that
Can I install Windows XP on it afterwords if I wish to?
people who pay 499$ for a netbook are stupid.
Only downside I can see the it comes with Vista & there doesn't appear to be an XP downgrade or Linux available. No way can this machine run well if it's loaded with Vista & a Office 2007 or 2008 install.. the cpu / ram combo can't withstand the
onslaught of the resources needed & will slow down to a crawl. I bet this holds true even if it comes with a free Windows 7 upgrade.
As we all know Windows 7 is just a Vista Service Pack that MS is trying to charge us for..
I think you meant to say that the only downside is that you cannot click on the links and see that you can have Ubuntu on this laptop for $349.
Wake me up when these netbooks have better processors in them. My friends Acer Aspire One gets chocked up when he runs iTunes and Firefox at the same time. I will bite when they can put some mid grade processors in there something equivilant to a Turion X2 or a Intel Pentium Dual Core or something. Isn't the dual core Atom supposed to come out fairly soon? Then again I wouldn't think about a netbook until Windows 7 comes out.
[Insert generic comment that I think is related to the article, despite me not reading it]
have this laptop works grea. no problems, only a figure print magnet
but it looks like SHIT
Awe, I went to the bestbuy website to find a link to the laptop I purchased in November and it doesn't look like they carry it any more. I got an Acer with 2.0ghz C2D, 2Gb Ram, 120Gb HD, Vista Prem, Intel GMA4500 for $399. We have put this laptop through a lot of use and we absolutely love it. I was actually suprised the Intel graphics can run CSS and WoW.
I am thinking of buying Dell Inspiron 15 with Ubuntu pre-installed. Can I install windows XP on it afterwords if I wish to?