Dell Inspiron 9200 user reviews

Pros Lightweight, powerful, cool, silent

Cons Dealing with Dell can be pure HELL

Summary It took me several tries, many hours on the phone fighting with Dell over numerous mistakes they made on my order and continued to make on replacement laptops - the speaker buzzed on one, the screen had a very pronounced sparkly effect on another - but I love this laptop. It plays the newest games with ease, it's cool on the lap and the fans are 100% silent while browsing the 'net and very quiet with DVDs.

Sometimes I wonder if all the frustration that I went through in dealing with Dell was worth saving the $300-$400 bucks in savings from dealing with a vendor who understands basic customer support practices.

They even sent me 3 free parts as an apology - a battery, international plugs, and an auto/air adaptor - and all 3 of them were for the wrong model. Every step of the way dealing with Dell was a serious hassle.

Pros Great machine in many ways

Cons Screen, perhaps

Summary I see what people mean about the WUXGA screen...it is rather shiny...the resolution is amazing, and of course you have to increase the size of fonts and icons, and it's great for movies. But it is quite shiny, almost shimmering when a lot of white is showing. This is no problem when surfing the internet or doing anything where there isn't a lot of white, but of course with MSWord and similar programs there's a great deal of white showing. It's too late for me to return it, and it seems to help to turn the brightness down a bit, or to work with an off-white background. The amazing resolution makes up for this to quite an extent. The backpack carrying case is great. Dell left part of the order out--the auxiliary keyboard I ordered as well as the utilties and photo program disk, but after I emailed them, they have shipped them. Mixed feelings on the whole...

Pros Fast, Amazing screen, 4 USB2, bult in wireless G, Battery lasts 3-4 hours, does not run hot, cd/dvd drive that burns everything, Great keyboard,

Cons The price in the UK for Dell laptops is aN.bout two thirds more expensive than the US, I know the UK is a Rich country but COME ON.

Summary Thanks for the complains about the WUXGA screen I knew to get the WXGA. I can not believe just how good this laptop is. You can run multiple applications at the same time, burn DL dvd's, download mp3's, House a web server and play half life 2 all at the same time without any slow down. You can leave it on all night and then place it on your lap and its barely warm.

Intergrated wireless means that I never have to worry about cables. Its Big but surprising light. I use it to watch movies in my kitchen while cooking. I also use to run large oracle query's while at work. I even have a 9i oracle database running on it. It is by far the fastest laptop/PC I have ever worked on.

I am very surprised at the users low reviews.

I hope this helps someone to make there mind up.

Pros Good battery life, good screen (1440x900), light weight for size.

Cons a bit bulky to carry around

Summary I have had my 9200 for around six months, has served me very well and done everything I asked of it, be it complex Matlab work or encoding of DVD´s or unreal tournament 2004, which runs very fast! My spec is as follows 1.7 Ghz, 1 Gb ram 80 Gb Hard drive, ATi Radeon 9700 128 mb and a bluetooth antenna.
Battery life has been a nice surprice, on average runs for more than 3 hours, even when burning DVD´s. Only down side I could find was that it is a bit bulky, but that is to be expected for a laptop with a 17" screen. But having said that it is very light for its size.
I did contemplate to get the higher resolution screen but after testing it decided on the 1440x900 resolution.
I would recomend the 9200/9300 to anyone looking for a large size screen laptop.