Dell Inspiron 11z reviewed with high hopes, disappointing realities
By Ross Miller 
posted August 31st 2009 8:43PM
posted August 31st 2009 8:43PM
posted August 31st 2009 8:43PM
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I have yet to see a nice Celeron. Please let that name die.
That used to be my opinion, but the new desktop dual cores are great (built one for a friend) very over clockable aswel.
yeesh. Intel Celeron 723 sucks that bad ... just a notch above the atom?
As crappy and bloated as Flash is, a processor/chipset should AT LEAST be able to handle full-screen YouTube & Hulu.
DELL Inspiron 11z w/Celeron 723 fails.
seriously dell, are you that much an intel fanboy to have to put a gma/celeron combo where an amd radeon/neo platform belong?
Netbook = Cheapbook = Cheapparts = Cheapexperience = Cheapreturn. :)
The "Celeron" name (along with "Pentium" and even "Core2x") will die once the Core i3 and Core i5 come out, unifying the Core ix lineup...
Core i7 = High-end performance line (Xeon/Extreme Edition)
Core i5 = Mid-range/consumer line-up (Pentium)
Core i3 = Budget line-up (Celeron)
Celeron, the little Pentium that couldn't.
"...if you ask the gang at Notebook Review describe it, it's unfortunately a pretty letdown. Some minor issues with the body from the get-go, it's apparently got one of the worst touch pads the site's ever seen..."
Oh come on! Surely you read what you write before you post it?
Yeah it was a generally "positive" review. Though the trackpad is the worst thing in the world... I have one on the Mini 10... and every time I use it I wanna smash it to bits! Wish there was a driver that could fix that.
Tech blogs, ain't journalism, is a whole new fractured English ballgame. lolz
"THE VIDEO YOU ARE TRYING TO WATCH CANNOT BE VIEWED FROM THIS WEBSITE."
--
According to benchmarks, the Celeron is only a very tiny bit faster than the Atom. Don't know why people are so excited about it.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html
"...we can't help but have some hopes dashed here..."
Uh, you had high hopes for a Celeron laptop? With an Intel chipset?
Is anybody ever going to hire some decent designers for notebooks/netbooks besides Apple, and *maybe* Asus?
They need to use chips like the CULV Intel Core 2 Solo like in the Acer Timeline 1410.
The CPU kills it for me. I'd be in the market for something like this if let's say it had a CULV Core 2 Solo or something better.
Ive read about that, what is CULV and what makes it stand out?
yeah, too bad there are absolutely no other ultraportables with the specs you've described available at exactly that pricepoint.
Consumer Ultra Low Voltage*
google is your friend
Um, Acer 1410?
Acer 1410
I mentioned it in the other 11z story from a week ago or so but it kills this Dell for the same price. I'm sorry for the people who bought the 11z (unless if you really needed it ASAP) but the 11z is terrible.
I hate sounding like a shill for Acer but ... the Dell here is totally outclassed and a waste of money.
The Acer has a 6 cell battery for about 6 hours of battery life (vs ~3.5 for the Dell)
It has a Core 2 Solo SU 3500 (vs a 1.2 celeron that's a tiny bit more powerful than a 1.66 Atom)
It has 802.11n vs 802.11g for the Dell
It has 3 USB vs 2 USB
It has smaller dimensions than the 11z
I can't seem to figure out the draw of this notebook (netbook is portable computer < 11"). It's slightly faster than a 1.66 Atom with half the battery life for a greatly inflated price. At this price, it has to compete with small notebooks like the Acer 1410.
I think the first thing I'd do with a netbook is install XP/7 on it... I only wish Intel's Moblin OS was ready for prime time.
XP & 7 wow wait a waste of space.
/ = or
& = and
So many ultra portables and so many netbooks - with so many disappointments.
Get a good screen - get a crappy CPU. Get a good CPU - get crappy video. Get a good video - get a crappy touchpad.
It's like companies are doing their best to be sure their customers don't get the ideal machine.
totally with you, Dell really need some serious improvement.
Price. Performance. Portability factor.
The three Ps that manufacturers must inevitably make a compromise between.
They should've put ION in this thing. GMA4500 is such garbage.
I believe the ION platform does not include Celeron (but mentions c2d)....but they could lose that too, as far as I'm concerned.
ALSO has anybody else noticed the random price fluctuations since launch @ $399, it was one the site as $524 one day I checked :-P oh, Dell....
ION does not mention C2D it's for Atom, with C2D it's just a 9400m.
Brand names are great eh? I love marketing speak...zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Alright, I'll be the voice of experience, if not reason, here. I got my 11z last Wednesday, and I love it. Granted, I never even booted it with Vista, but it runs quite smooth with Windows 7 RTM. Due to the single core, you do see some lag in program startup when running other "intense" programs, but I find the performance to be very acceptable. No, you won't play Crysis on it, but it will run Photoshop and Lightroom quite well.
As for the trackpad, this is the first trackpad I've ever actually liked. My wife has a MacBook, and the multitouch gestures are quite comparable. The pad itself is nice and responsive, though lacking buttons. For people that tap to click, it's fine. For those used to using physical buttons, you have to get used to it. The bottom corners do click down, but I just tap with no issues.
My only issues stem from the video drivers; color profiles don't seem to stick properly, and I can't set it to retain the aspect ratio of the source when playing older games. The option is in the menu, but won't remember it was chosen, if that makes sense. I'm sure a driver refresh at some point will fix it.
All in all, I love my 11z. I'll be upgrading to a 4GB stick of RAM when the price comes down, but other than that, it's wonderful for me.
does it hyperthread?
Try going here for graphics drivers. I was looking everywhere to find drivers for my Intel turbo memory (don't make fun) for Windows 7. The only place I found was this site. It's in French, and it has ridiculous popups and popunders, but at least they had what I needed. I don't get why Intel doesn't have their own newest drivers though.
No, for the trackpad, it's more than just 'getting used to it'. Every single time I tried and use the 'button' it thinks I am moving the mouse. So, the mouse jumps to the bottom left and then it clicks. I will NEVER buy another Dell with this trackpad, it is almost unusable.
Excuse me, but when you said you click the bottom of the touch pad the mouse jumps to the bottom, but that's not how a touch pad is registered to move from one part of the screen to another you have to slide your finger across and so clicking the bottom of a touch pad isn't moving the mouse down to the bottom that is just user error. This is clearly not the product, but the user.
I have a mini 10 and I can't stand the mouse the rest of the machine is a home run.
Here is my problem. On most laptops I leave my finger on the buttons so I don't have to keep looking down. When you do that with this mouse it thinks you are multi touching and either does nothing or starts to zoom. Very annoying on web browsers. Then the two buttons are spaced very far apart so you can't keep a finger on the right and left buttons. Also trying to cut a selected line you need to move the cursor to the start of the line, then stop touching the pad, then look down to press the left button, then touch with the right finger and swipe, then let go, then touch to move the mouse back over the selected text, then let go, then press the right click. If two fingers are even slightly touching the mouse this will do any number of wrong things. arggggggggggg
If you could set the bottom 1/4 inch to not be multi touch and just emulate the 2 buttons it would be fine. Hear me DELL!!!
AMD Neo is the way to go for netbooks. I don't understand why netbook manufacturers aren't flocking to it.
I do - I had one in my Gateway L3103u and I can't say I was too impressed. Performance was not much better than on an Atom. I don't understand why they had to underclock it to just 1.2GHz - it just isn't snappy enough.
Neo generates a LOT more waste heat compared to an Atom (or even a Core2 Solo ULV IIRC).
I'm kinda pissed off at Dell. When it came out, they were selling it for $399. Last week, the price shot up one day to $524. Then the next day, it was $449. For a most of the week, one page listed the price at $399, but you couldn't get a configuration for less than $449.
As I see it, I wasn't going to get one until after Windows 7 came out, and this just makes me want to avoid the 11z, if they've raised the price on it.
Just like everything with the Dell name on it that I've ever owned. Crap!
Dell makes HORRIBLE netbooks.
They're just cheap pieces of crap.
Stay away.
Yes, these netbooks are pretty bad.
They didn't seem THAT disappointed.
I want desktop power in a 12" chassis. Maybe 2012? This Inspiron seems to be going on a path with a dead end, too.
Plenty of 12" Core 2 Duo computers floating around though. Just not at that pricepoint.
Well more like 2011 because Intel by that time is going to reduce size of chips to I believe 11nm so by then anything mobile will be far superior especially following Moore's Law.
1,2 GHz is the combined power of two iPod Touches. What the hell did they expect?
No it isn't you simple minded fool, iPod touches uses ARM processors and this ***book uses X86 Intel CPUs, they are not that easy to compare.
For any common reasoning in the tech world how do you compare "two iPod Touches" to a netbook:
Arm to x86
Flash Storage to Hard Disk/ SSD
128MB DRAM to 2GB DDR2-800 SDRAM
PowerVR MBX Lite Graphics to Intel X4500 Integrated Graphics
These products are for different purposes therefore you can't compare the two products.
Actually, I have one of these. I haven't had any problems with the body. The multi-touch is great! It plays back 720p just fine, so TiVo shows work. I have been able to use Windows Live Moviemaker without issues. The 11 inch screen is bright and the color is good. It's big enough that i'm not troubled by it and it's small enough that it still slips into the small pockets of my travel backpack. I've taken it on one trip so far and it's proven itself to be a very good travel computer.
I have to say that i don't believe Dell's battery life claims, but what else is new right?
At the price of a netbook, you get 2gig of ram instead of 1, 250 gig disk instead of 160, and Windows 7 when it comes out instead of paying for the upgrade from XP. I'm just wondering how Dell intends to distribute that upgrade to W7 since I have no optical drive in that laptop.... (Tell me Mr. Anderson. What good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?)
I have not had any of the problems that notebook review describes with the touchpad. I think they just hate the integrated buttons of the touchpad. While I would prefer separate buttons, these didn't do anything unexpected. I was able to hold down the "corner" of the touchpad to drag and drop without incident and it didn't pop my cursor to the corner of the screen or anything like that.
I've found that I actually prefer pushing two fingers around together to scroll instead of having a discrete scrolling 'zone' on the side of the touchpad. It makes scrolling more intentional, but no less natural. Zooming in and out is like an iPhone. Pinch or unpinch. There are more features, but I haven't messed with them yet. So far, it's a winner if you ask me!