The good: Fast; wide-aspect display; good battery life; dual-band 802.11b/g wireless; lighter than other desktop replacements.
The bad: Flimsy keyboard; erratic mouse buttons.
The bottom line: With its wide-aspect screen, screaming performance, and three-hour battery life, the redesigned Inspiron 8500 series is a mobile media powerhouse.
It's a nice machine. Very heavy, though! DVD drive and the battery make it uncomfortable to carry for more than a few minutes. I have made it dual boot. Installing red hat will take time but suse is cool. XP crashes on it a few times. It's a good idea to use system restore function.
Dell Inspiron 8500 (Pentium 4-M 2.4GHz, 512MB RAM)
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