CNET Asia Review

Dell should bundle a big supply of popcorn with its new Inspiron 8500 series because the laptop's awesome 15.4-inch, wide-aspect display will have you watching DVD movies all night. This completely redesigned desktop replacement has plenty more in store as well, including the fastest mobile Pentium 4-M CPUs; integrated dual-band antennae for 802.11b and 802.11g wireless; and sizzling performance. All of these features are wrapped in a silver case that you can customize with QuickSnap lid covers in a variety of colors. For all that it offers, the Inspiron 8500 series's US$2,299 (S$4,052) starting price is reasonable. Any way you slice it, you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a cooler, faster desktop replacement than the Inspiron 8500 series, and it's one of our top picks in this category, even though it gets a less-than-stellar ValueWatch rating. (Note: ValueWatch is a rating system used by our US-based sister site, CNET.com, to gauge a product's true value today, compared to that of its competitors. It is not used in CNETAsia's reviews.)

Design
With the advent of the Apple iBook a few years back, colored plastics briefly became all the notebook rage. Dell attempts to rekindle that enthusiasm with the Inspiron 8500 series. Naked, the case exterior is completely silver; snap on one of the optional lid covers, and the 8500 assumes a whole new look. While we're partial to the cool Red Lava cover, it also comes in Graphite Swirl, Bamboo, Burlwood, and Venice Blue, which makes the system look a lot like another new Inspiron, the mainstream 5100.

The Inspiron 8500 series's 361.3x276.2x38.6 mm case is especially broad due to its wide-aspect, 15.4-inch display. The bright, crisp display comes in two different resolutions: WSXGA+ (1,680x1,050 pixels) or WUXGA (1,920x1,200 pixels). Either one is great for watching DVD movies, many of which are optimized for wide-aspect viewing. And when it's time to get back to work, the wide-aspect screen lets you view two windows side by side. (According to Dell Singapore, a third screen configuration at 1280x800 (WUXGA) will also be available.)

Despite its girth, the system stays fairly trim by including just one swappable bay for secondary storage drives and other modules. Our review system included a DVD/CD-RW drive, but you can also order CD, DVD, CD-RW, and floppy drives, plus a second battery to fill the bay. The whole package weighs 2.99kg (3.39kg with the power adapter); whether you consider that to be lightweight depends on your perspective. It is certainly lighter than most full-sized, three-spindle desktop replacements, including Dell's own Inspiron 8200 series. On the other hand, it is significantly heavier than similar two-spindle, wide-screen designs that blur the lines between a desktop replacement and a thin-and-light, such as the Apple PowerBook G4 and the Best Buy VPR Matrix 200A5. (Note: The Best Buy VPR Matrix 200A5 notebook is not available in Asia.)

The extra wide case left lots of room for a spacious keyboard with a familiar desktoplike layout, but the keyboard felt flimsy to us. We also found the four mouse buttons to be a little erratic: while the two under the spacebar (you're supposed to use them with the pointing stick) depress too far, the other two beneath the touchpad barely move. But we appreciated the CD controls to the right of the keyboard and buttons for volume up, down, and mute located above the keyboard. The two speakers located along the front edge emit clear, though not booming, sound.

The Inspiron 8500 series includes the ports and slots you'd expect in a desktop replacement. On the left edge, you'll find one Type II PC Card slot, headphone and microphone jacks, FireWire, and IrDA. The back edge features S-Video out, RJ-45, RJ-11, parallel, VGA, serial, and two USB 2.0 ports.

Features
A consumer desktop replacement should be packed to the rafters with the very latest parts--the Inspiron 8500 series doesn't disappoint. You can load up the laptop with the fastest mobile Pentium 4-M processors at speeds from 2GHz to 2.5GHz. Main memory comes in increments of 128MB up to a whopping 2GB. You can choose hard drives ranging from 30GB to 60GB at two different rotational speeds. The system's one internal, swappable bay can be outfitted with a CD, DVD, CD-RW, DVD/CD-RW, or floppy drive; a second hard drive; or a second battery. And two graphics chips are available: a 32MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 or a 64MB Nvidia GeForce 4 4200 Go. The configuration we tested included a 2.4GHz Intel Pentium 4-M; 512MB of DDR SDRAM; a 40GB 5,400rpm hard drive; and an Nvidia GeForce4 4200 Go graphics card with 64MB of video memory.

The Inspiron 8500 series's innovations extend to wireless. As with the new Inspiron 5100, the 8500 includes two integrated antennae with dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) capabilities. The setup will support the current norm in the wireless world--802.11b--as well as 802.11g as soon as Dell starts to sell this option. You can add wireless to the laptop through a convenient, internal, mini-PCI slot, or if you already have a wireless PC Card, the Inspiron 8500 series will support it as well. The Bluetooth standard also gets another chance to gain some ground with the Inspiron 8500 series, as Dell also offers built-in Bluetooth with the system.

The software options are typical of most Dell models. You can choose either Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional, as well as one of three different office suites. Dell also bundles several multimedia apps with the system, such as PictureStudio for image editing, a version of MusicMatch's Jukebox for digital audio, and MovieStudio for video editing.

Performance
Mobile application performance
Aided by its 2.4GHz Pentium 4-M processor, its 40GB hard drive running at a fast 5,400rpm, and 64MB of video memory, the Inspiron 8500 prevailed in our desktop-replacement speed contest. It beat its nearest competitor, the Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100, by 16 points. And graphics pros and gamers who need every ounce of speed from their systems will really appreciate the Inspiron 8500's 3D graphics performance. It walloped the competition on CNET Labs' 3DMark tests.

SysMark2002 performance
The Inspiron 8500 dominated our tests of performance on everyday productivity and content-creation applications, coming in at a very comfortable first place. The Internet-content-creation scores show about what we expected given the processor speed of each system. The office-productivity tests rely a lot on the performance of the hard drive, so it's no surprise that the Inspiron 8500, with its 5,400rpm hard drive, had the edge here.

3D graphics performance
The Inspiron 8500 scored extremely high in 3D graphics performance. The system is the first we've tested that includes an Nvidia GeForce4 4200 Go 64MB graphics adapter. This adapter pushed the system to a huge frame-rate score of 9,376, nearly doubling that of its closest competitor, the Sony Vaio PCG-GRX670, which houses an ATI Mobility 7500 32MB. This is an incredible score for a notebook and even rivals those of some high-end desktops. (Note: The Sony Vaio PCG-GRX670 is currently not available in Asia.)

Battery Life
While it can't compete with the battery life of many ultraportables, the Inspiron 8500 series' battery life is the highest we've seen among 2.4GHz Pentium 4-M notebooks. The Inspiron's 11.1V, 6,480mAh battery compensates for the system's fast processor, allowing it to stay up and running for nearly three hours. The system lasted more than 30 minutes longer than its closest competitor, the Sony Vaio PCG-GRX670, which houses a 14.8V, 4,000mAh battery.

Service And Support
A one-year, parts-and-labor plan with return-to-depot service is the standard warranty for the Inspiron 8500 series. The company also offers a laundry list of extended warranty options that provide everything from onsite fixes by Dell's tech reps and extrafast express service to a long three years of free service and protection against accidental damage to your system. Free, around-the-clock online support is also included with the Inspiron 8500 series.

If you're the type to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, Dell's extensive, preloaded Solution Center software is where you'd start. The program provides several self-help avenues, including electronic copies of the informative user's guide and plenty of how-to tips. The application also contains direct links to Dell's support Web site, where you can seek further assistance in the user forums and FAQ database.

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Dell Inspiron 8500 (Pentium 4-M 2.4GHz, 512MB RAM)

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User Reviews

Very good performance, good-looking

Sep 16, 2005

Rating: 8 out of 10 (Excellent)
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Not bad

Aug 23, 2005

Rating: 7 out of 10 (Very good)
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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.

 

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