Dell Inspiron 2650 Review

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Dell Inspiron 2650
3.1 stars
Average rating for this product is: 3.1 out of 5

From 6 ratings and 18 reviews

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Jay.'s Review of Dell Inspiron 2650 Laptop

23rd Sep 2002

Overall Rating

4 stars
  • Value for money
    4 stars
  • Quality
    3.5 stars
Good Points

Price.


Bad Points

Tech Support, incorrectly configured.


General Comments

Had my Dell Inspiron 2650 Laptop for 3 months and it has performed very well. The 16mb graphics card nvidea geforce 2 is good enough for most games today (plays return castle wolfenstien very well). Overall performance is quite good, i chose the dell over the sony viao pcg-fx701 which had a similar spec (+ a few extras like infra red port and tv-out)
Build quality is good but not excellent as the screen does make a creaking sound when you close it. The LCD display is good, but looking at the screen from an angle (other than straight on) it does look quite dark, i.m not sure if this problem is due to the limitation of current LCD technology or to the screens DELL use.
The keyboard is good, free from any squeaks or rattles but sometimes if you type too fast it doesn't pick up the keys you have pressed.

I did have one problem with it when i changed the printer mode in the BIOS from ECP to EPP then When i tried to eject the cd tray from windows xp the shortcut key FN+F10 the whole machine would freeze up. I'm not sure if this was due to a DMA conflict or BIOS fault (may require a BIOS update). I did email DELL support but they didn't bother getting back to me.

The inbuilt speakers are quite decent for a laptop. Producng a clear sound, free from distortion. Not sure what the exact spec of the sound card is.

Can't comment on the battery life because i use the laptop as a desktop replacement and run it off the mains.

One major problem i had was with the DVD-rom, you can only change the region setting 4 times only, then it locks!! I have heard you can flash the bios drive to unlock it, but after hearing many disasters from other people who have tried it. I decided not to. And the region setting from the factory was set to region 1 (i.e for the USA), as a UK resident, it should have set to region 2. And also the 'paging file' set up was incorrect. It should have been set to where windows handles the exact amount NOT the user, as the hardrive was constantly writing data, till i changed it.


Overall this is a good machine (can't compare with other laptop manufacturers, as this is my first laptop).
Tech spec:

P4 1.7ghz
256 ddr ram
14.1 lcd screen
20gb hard drive
v92 56k modem inbuilt
NO network card
DVD drive
price £1060
1 year collect and return to base warranty

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Members' Comments onJay.'s Review

  • Tweety. on 12th Oct 2002

    I agree with most of your comments on the laptop, haven't had your problems with the printerports thoo...

    A few points... the angle of the screen... yes that is a limitation of LCD technology, it usually has a recommended wieving angle of about 30 degrees or less, and a maximum angle where it goes completely dark.

    Also ALL DVD players have a region code set at sale and then 5 OR LESS times to change it, though your should have been set to region 2, as you said.

  • rob. on 12th Nov 2002

    Dude get the new one with TFT its much better than anachronism LCD

  • Vynz. on 8th Jan 2003

    Just leave the region set at region 1. That way you will be able to watch all DVDs and never worry. Imagine the horror of buying a DVD only to be unable to watch it because your drive is set at region 2!

  • stormtroooper on 2nd Aug 2008

    You dont set to region 1 when you want to watch UK disks - DUH