List Price: $599.99
Sale Price: $456.50
Today's Bonus: 24% Off
I was looking for the perfect laptop to replace my old Toshiba. This laptop works great, no complaints so far. The price for this laptop is actually a steal with how fast the processor is. My mom bought one as well (her first laptop). I will update my review later if any problems arise and/or if my mom has anything to add.
Pros: Boots super fast (like SUPER FAST), lightweight (I carry it to class with me), Windows 8 is actually very easy to use once you get the hang of it (even the most computer illiterate person could figure it out), I LOVE the number pad as well
Cons: None yet
Sound Quality: It's loud enough for a laptop. I actually find the sound pretty efficient, but don't expect any "super bass" or anything.
But once again, this would be the perfect laptop for you, especially if you don't want to go buy an expensive MacBook.
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The first thing that you'll notice is that it's extremely lightweight and is very uncomplicated. This is something that my 87 year old mother-in-law would be able to use right out of the box. Since she's never used a computer before, that says a lot. Many of the everyday apps that you use on a daily basis, are preloaded into the device. It comes with things like YouTube, Gmail and other Google products, and there are literally thousands of free apps available. It starts up very quickly and according to Google, updates are installed automatically. I've found all applications to run smoothly and quickly.Best Deals for Dell Inspiron 15 i15RV-10000BLK 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black Matte
The computer feels solid. There's no latch to keep the screen down when it's close, but if you're careful that's probably not a big deal. Don't lift directly in the middle of the lid though, that's where the camera is. It does attract dust and fingerprints like a magnet, but whether you'll care or not is personal preference. According to the sticker on the front, it actively tries to run your battery in charge cycles to prolong life, which assuming they do a good job of it is an awesome feature. Just a note, you'll have to go into power options and click Dell Extended Battery Life options.The first thing you should do after you've set up the computer, is restart and press F12 before and as the Dell logo is coming up. Then choose diagnostics and test the system thoroughly. It'll take maybe 30-40 minutes, but it's well worth it. Then go into the My Dell application and stress test it again. Then do it again once a week or so. Your goal is to either fry the thing, so you're replaced rightfully so during warranty, or see that the system is rock solid and you're probably fine. You won't void any warranties, the Dell software specifically says it won't damage your hardware; if something gives out it's defective. DO NOT WAIT until you're close to or out of warranty to perform tests!
The DVD drive is about as cheaply constructed as they come. It looks very fragile and I wouldn't bet on it for a whole lot of use, however given a lot of video and games are digital now, it may not be a big deal. According to the Backup Media creation software, it burns at 2x so it's quite slow, but then again it's a cheap laptop.
Backup Media The backup media is not included; the software that creates it is awful. It ate two of my DVDs, failing both times, and took some time to hunt a solution online. Apparently they shipped it glitched so often times it will create the first disk, taking 20-30 minutes to do so, then fail on the second. You can alternatively backup to a USB drive. It appears as if they don't limit you to burning only one copy of backup media, which is one reason I got fed up and left HP. Tip: update the Dell backup software before you try to make backup DVDs or it'll just ruin DVD after DVD and fail every time.
Keyboard The keyboard is slightly eschew. To accommodate the number pad, things are just slightly off, so if you're a touch typist you'll probably be slightly off center when you first try it. The touchpad was responsive and the buttons had a satisfying click.
Windows 8 It's abysmal and makes everything harder than it needs to be. Dell did thankfully include a couple of videos to at least let you see how to turn the machine off. Hint: it's needlessly stupid and annoying. Move mouse to upper right of screen, then the "charms" appear and you can find it. Alternatively, you can do Ctrl+Alt+Delete and find the power button in the lower right corner. I'm strongly considering dual booting to Unbutu Linux.
Heat/Fans The laptop fan is very quiet. You can feel a lot of heat radiating off the keypad when the machine is doing a stress test, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. A good laptop case should dissipate heat easily. My only real concern in this arena is that it doesn't look very easy to blow dust out of the machine as it accumulates. They should have designed it with that in mind.
USB Ports The USB ports and the power supply are all on the sides of the machine. Three are on the left side along with the cord and one on the right. I'd rather have had one in the back, because it's a little too crowded if a USB plug is fat. I'm finding it difficult to nail down, with several websites having conflicting information, but from the icons next to the ports it looks like 1 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 3.0 on the left and 1 USB 2.0 on the right side.
Memory Card Reader There's a multi-card reader located annoyingly in the front which you can easily miss if you don't know to look for it. Still, better to have it than not, but I wish they'd included some sort of cover for it for when it's not in use.
The picture in the webcam is not crystal clear by definitely OK; you will want to have some light in the room you're using at or it'll look really bad though. There is also an integrated microphone, which is a little scary really since some viruses can turn both on. I'm probably paranoid, but I'm going to put a small bandage over the camera when I'm not using it. As long as you're close, the sound quality on the microphone is just fine for video conferencing.
All in all, very decent machine for the money. I'll have to try it out with some games, but so far it's looking very promising I'll be using it for many years.
---Update 8-12-13---
I tried it with Saint's Row 2 and the game is virtually unplayable, but that's just because it's a horribly poorly coded game. The laptop can handle the graphics just fine, slightly decreased, but the game has a glitch that makes it run way to fast. I think what's wrong is the TurboBoost makes the CPU speed variable so it's messing with the modification tool which normally fixes that speed issue. If you want to play that game, you're out of luck.
For other games, it's running quite well. For example, I've played Shank on it the other day and while it put out a lot of heat, the game played perfectly. I've read online it's graphics are roughly equivalent to a Nvidia 220 card. As long as the game doesn't require much more than 2 Ghz processor, as a rule of thumb you're probably OK with games that weren't high end graphics maybe three years ago or lighter new ones, but of course check system requirements. It's not a gaming rig, but you should be able to play a number of older games.
Upgrading to a core i5 processor is essentially a speed and a graphics card boost in one, making this laptop an even better deal. Time will tell if the speed is balanced out by too much heat that kills the machine or some sort of hidden shortcut they took on build quality, but nobody can really say that for sure until the machine has been out a couple years. If you're worried about it, you can buy a warranty from Dell. Usually, the sooner you buy it the cheaper it is.
Honest reviews on Dell Inspiron 15 i15RV-10000BLK 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black Matte
love this, windows 8 is very easy to use, light weight, great for travel. the quality of this laptop was as expected,Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Dell Inspiron 15 i15RV-10000BLK 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black Matte
I like the hardware. It's got a nice size and weight. Doesn't feel like a premium computer, but doesn't feel exceedingly cheap. Works well, once you figure out what you're doing. It's great for such an inexpensive computer!The cover makes for a nice grip, but collects fingerprints like you wouldn't believe, and then you can't wipe them off. That's the biggest flaw in the hardware.
I really hate to ding it for what is now the standard (which is why I only took 1 star)...
But Windows 8 has been a less-than-impressive experience. We had to google how to shut it down -I'm not kidding. You move the mouse over the lower-right, some faint buttons appear on the right edge, so you hold the edge and move the cursor up and they become visible. Then you click the gear, "power settings," and shut down. Seriously?
The Desktop vs Metro thing, including separate, non-inter-compatible programs is mind boggling. Switching back and forth between the two (IE can run in either mode, but the session is not shared, Word will only run in Desktop) is a pain. The lack of a task bar or even the ability to take IE out of full screen makes using two things at once a huge chore. Say you're updating a cover letter in word to line it up with a job posting (true story) was incredibly frustrating.
We haven't resorted to installing Windows 7, but it's going to happen sooner or later.
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