DESCRIPTION

Dell Inspiron e1505  is a 15.4" widescreen notebook now available with the impressive Intel Core 2 Duo processor.  The Inspiron 6400 is available through the Dell Business site and is the same as the e1505.  The e1505 is a well rounded mainstream notebook, highly customizable and available at a competitive price.  Now that it comes with the Core 2 Duo at similar prices to the original Core Duo you'll be getting even more value for your dollar.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7200 at 2.0 GHz per core.
• 15.4" Ultrasharp WSXGA+ display with TrueLife
• 1GB DDR2 667MHz RAM in dual channel mode
• ATI X1400 256MB graphics card
• 120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• 8X DVD +/- dual layer recorder
• 9-cell lithium-ion battery
• Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition
• Dell Wireless 1500 (802.11n)

FEATURES

Build and Design

The Inspiron e1505 matches much of the Dell lineup clad in painted silver with white trim on top and a black underside.  The color scheme is simple and there's nothing to rave or rant about honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the white trim "bumpers" though.

The notebook is sturdy enough to feel comfortable lifting it by one corner.  It's not rugged or as well built as many business laptops, such as a ThinkPad or Dell's own Latitude line -- the screen latch is plastic as opposed to metal on a Latitude for instance.  But the e1505 is not flimsy by any means, the only real flex I could find on the casing was at the top just above the keyboard.

The back of the screen is plastic, but very sturdy and a hard push won't make ripples appear.  The hinges seem sturdy and well damped.  As mentioned before, the screen latch is plastic, but I'd rather have a plastic latch than the magnetic opening mechanism that some manufacturers are using -- they're so invariably hard to open.

Screen

The screen on this e1505 is the WSXGA+ (1680x1050) Ultrasharp with TrueLife (glossy).  The Ultrasharp screen is listed at having significantly higher viewing angle, higher resolution, and slightly higher brightness.  Overall the screen is very sharp with nice saturated colors and high contrast.  Brightness is excellent, next to my everyday ThinkPad T43 it certainly stands out as being much better.  There is some light leakage near the bottom of the screen, but nothing major.  The backlight in use must be quite strong because I can actually feel quite a bit of heat coming from the bottom of the screen.  You could bump the brightness down (using Fn + Arrow Down) to level four of seven and still have very comfortable viewing.

Speakers

The speaker performance of the e1505 is fine.  In the world of notebooks, they are quite good even.   Of course there is no bass but they seem to play low enough to make voices sound natural.  They also play loud, for a notebook, without distortion.  They point forward, and project the sound into a room so several people could easily watch a movie.

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and Performance / Benchmarks

The Core 2 Duo is fast, no doubt about it.  It appears to be about 10% faster than the proceeding Core Duo.  That's probably not enough benefit to rush out and get a new processor if you already have Core Duo, but if you're using a Pentium M machine the extra performance and 64-bit capabilities of the Core 2 Duo might tempt you to upgrade sooner or later.

The Core 2 Duo processor in the e1505 is the T7200 that runs at 2.00GHz.  For the sake of comparison I'll use a ThinkPad T43 using a Pentium M 760 that also runs at 2.00GHz.  Below are the laptops relevant stats that are being compared:

Dell Inspiron e1505 relevant stats

• Intel Core 2 Duo T7200
• 2.0GHz
• Dual Core
• 32-bit or 64-bit support
• Front Side Bus: 667 MHz
• L2 Cache 4MB
• ATI X1400 256MB graphics card
• 120GB 5400 RPM HD

IBM ThinkPad T43 relevant stats

• Intel Pentium M 760
• 2.0GHz
• Single Core
• 32-bit support
• Front Side Bus: 533 MHz
• L2 Cache 2MB
• ATI X300 128MB graphics card
• 80GB 5400 RPM HD

Noise:

The Dell e1505 is commendably quiet -- most of the time.  Even while watching a DVD, the fan remained off.  The hard drive makes a subdued, but noticeable hum.

Only under heavier tasks does the fan come on.  It has three speeds.  The lowest is very quiet, and more of a pleasing low pitched hum than an annoying whine.  Running benchmarks (which can cause sustained full processor usage, something most programs rarely do) will often cause the fan to quickly bypass first and kick into second and then third gear.  It seems that when the fan starts, the CPU continues to warm for a few moments while the cooling begins to take effect, triggering a higher fan speed that is not really necessary.  After a while it will slow back down and stay there.  If the fan is already running at a lower speed when the benchmark starts, it usually won't speed up.  After 10 minutes of simultaneous 3DMark05 and Super Pi, the fan did go from the lowest to the middle speed.

Heat:

After about two hours of DVD watching, both sides of the palm rest became warm, but never got hot.  The keyboard and area under the screen generated more heat.  The underside of the notebook was also slightly warm at the front and warmer, but not hot at the rear.  As with all notebooks, heat is more of an issue when used on an insulating/air-restricting lap.  Overall the e1505 can be commended for keeping its cool.

In terms of processor heat, the Core 2 Duo actually stayed much cooler than the Pentium M in my T43.  The e1505 T7200 processor idle temperature was about 35 C, after running Super Pi it went up to 42 C, and the hottest I saw it get was 46 C (temperatures were taken using Notebook Hardware Control).  The Pentium M in my T43 hit 56 C after running Super Pi to 2 million digits.  Cooling and heat dissipation in the e1505 is easier since it's a thicker notebook though, a lot of the heat buildup is as much a factor of the overall hardware design and cooling system as the processor itself.  Thin and light laptops with a Core 2 Duo will obviously run warmer as they're notoriously harder to keep cool.

Battery:

With the 9-cell battery and a powerful new processor the Dell e1505 lasted longer than expected.  At maximum brightness, it played a DVD for 3 hours and 12 minutes.  With normal light tasks such as wi-fi on and the screen dimmed to half, I was able to eek out just over 4 hours of battery life.  The 9-cell is a greater capacity than the standard 6-cell, but this type of battery life in a 15.4" screen notebook is excellent, so I highly recommend the 9-cell if you can afford it.  The 9-cell battery is flushed with the back of the notebook and does not stick out.

The keyboard has good tactile feel and is firm -- there's no mushiness to it.  The touch is light which allows for fast typing -- but contrarily provides easy chance to mistype if you're not accurate.  There is almost no flex, except at the very rear where the whole notebook casing flexes in when pushed hard.

The touchpad is slightly recessed so it's hard to accidentally touch.  There is a vertical and horizontal scroll area.  The two mouse buttons respond well.  I miss having a pointing stick like I do on a ThinkPad, but such an input device is the realm of business notebooks and not consumer.

Ports:

The E1505 contains the standard array of newer, non-legacy ports.  The four USB 2.0 ports are split between the rear and right side of the notebook, which is much better than all in one place.  There is no old parallel printer port or serial ports.  Sadly, the e1505 lacks the DVI port of its big brother the e1705, although the external VGA connection is capable of driving a big 24" LCD with 1920x1200 resolution.

Operating System and Software:

Dell includes "Media Direct" software that can be accessed without booting into Windows.  Media Direct allows you to play DVDs, access and play music files from the disk or simply to view images on your hard drive.  The advantage is very fast startup time if you don't need full-fledged Windows.  This is a nice to have.

On the desktop and system tray there is a fair amount of bloatware -- junk that many people won't use.  Dell did install Google Desktop, which can be useful.  It finds files on your computer far faster than a Windows search does, and includes other useful features.  One day, Google will rule the world.  Overall though, I'd prefer to do without 90% of the preinstalled stuff.  Oh well, it indirectly keeps costs down for Dell to include this software so we can't have our cheap laptop and eat cake too I guess.