I’ve been a fan of Dells Latitude Laptops for several years now. My old CPx was one of the best computers I’ve had even though it’s pretty outdated by today’s standards, so when I started looking for a new “modern” laptop, I immediately went to Dell.
I first looked at the selection of Latitudes, and found that they only sold them on their business site. I did some research and found that the latitudes were basically rebadged Inspirons for businesses. I went back to Dells home website and started looking at their selection of laptops. The main two models they have are the XPS and the Inspiron line. The XPS are specially gaming laptops, with a much higher sticker price, and the Inspirons are more general and media use laptops. I was looking for something light weight, fast and small for word processing, some light gaming and media. The 1405 suited my needs perfectly.
As the name suggest, the 1405 has a 14 inch widescreen. All the 1405’s come with Dells “Truevision” coating which most owners either love or hate. It really does bring the colors to life on the screen, but in bright light can have a really bad glare. I found that you can really cut the glare down by pushing the screen back just a bit farther than usual. Light leakage is present around the bottom, but isn’t very noticeable unless the screen is completely black. The widescreen takes some getting used to, due to the fact that the lettering is so small on full resolution, and the display can be to dim on battery power.
The 1405 is extremely quick for a laptop of its price. I bought the top of the line version with a 2.0 GHz Centrino Dual Core with 1 GB of ram, and the performance is exceptional. The Inspiron is compatible with the upcoming version of Windows Vista, and comes standard with Windows XP Media Center Edition. It has no problem multitasking due to the advanced Dual Core Processor. You can watch DVD’s while running yahoo messenger in the back ground, or browse the web lag free while running a virus scan.
The Build of the laptop is excellent. It feels very solid, and makes no creaking when held by one hand. When I first saw pictures of the 1405, I thought I liked the previous generation of the Inspiron better, but I was impressed when it pulled it out of the box. The White, Silver and black color scheme looks very nice, and professional. The keys do tend to rattle a bit when the CD drive spools up, but I’ve noticed other Dell Laptops do that as well. I ordered the optional DVD burner and extended battery, which allows you to play over six hours of DVD’s on the Inspiron. It’s really incredible how long the battery lasts, and it lives up to the claim.
Overall the Inspiron 1405 is a great deal for the money if you’re looking for a light weight travel laptop. The light weight, battery life and speed of this laptop make an unbeatable deal for the money.
