jackwelch

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Excellent Performance for the size!

Jan 17, 2009

Rating: 9 out of 10 (Spectacular)
Pros: Excellent Performance, Nice Keyboard, Strong battery life, Audio Output is good, eSata, Backlit Keyboard
Cons: Only USBx2, ControlPoint software could be better implemented, Color choice could be better, EXPENSIVE
Opinion:
I think this notebook has the best performance for this class of notebook. love the technical specs of this notebook. Backlit keyboard is a very very nice user feature.

What I thought would make this even better will be on having at least 3 USB. The bundled ControlPoint software is meant to make things simpler but the interfaces really need more tweaking to make it easier to use and accessible. I'd think at this point in time, DELL would have learnt to include a more intelligent battery charging software as I hate it that the notebook always charges the battery even if it is only 99% when I last plugged it in. It should be intelligent enough or at least let me pre-set a certain level of battery level to start charging. I know there is a manual button I can use to deactivate charging but this is not the solution I am looking for.

Keyboard tactile feedback is a lot better but compared to the Lenovo X300, there is still room to improve on.

Introducing Color choices are interesting but I think they ought to employ better color experts to help to pick out the 2 best pantone colors. The blue is too childish and cartoonish looking. The red while better, should have a more dark corporate like of look than a beef red kind of look. The color options seems to attract fingerprint easily.

Overall, it is excellent but I'd really hope to see DELL improve in the area of bundled software intelligence and ease of use.