All About the AMD: Dell Inspiron 1501

Dell has gone where it hasn’t gone before: a cheap notebook that’s got an AMD processor and is Vista ready. The AMD processor thing is a first for a Dell machine of any kind-laptop computer or desktop. And the Vista thing-well, that’s not so much a first as a rarity. Most bargain laptops on the market aren’t coming Vista ready yet.

And bargain the Inspiron 1501 is. It starts at $499. And other than the two “firsts” mentioned above, the Inspiron 1501 is loaded like a cheapie. It comes only with 80 GB of hard drive. The optical drive is a CD burner and DVD combo drive, so don’t expect to burn your favorite videos. There is wireless but no Bluetooth option. A 3-in-1 memory card reader but no S-Video or FireWire.

The graphics card is a cheapie too: an ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 with 256 MB of dedicated RAM. Nothing will be moving in 3-D very quickly on the Dell Inspiron 1501’s screen.

And speaking of displays, the Inspiron 1501 comes with a 15.4 incher widescreen with TrueLife anti-glare technology. But don’t expect to share it with a friend when flying on a plane from Albuquerque to Albany and watching a DVD. The way this display works, there’s no watching it from any side angles. Sitting right in front of it is what works.

Yet for a first-time laptop for a first-time computer buyer, the Inspiron 1501 might work. It does after all come with a 1.79 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-56 processor, with its dual core and 64-bit computing capabilities.

And though your friend won’t be able to watch a movie on your Inspiron 1501, you sure will. The battery life runs upward of three-and-a-quarter hours. And for a kid-again, a first-time buyer-the XP Media Center 2005 operating system makes it simple to keep track of their music, games, and picture. That makes this first-of-its-kind Dell notebook perfect for first-timers.

Read – Indepth Review of the Dell Inspiron 1501

By Matthew Brodsky – Laptopical

Monday, December 11, 2006