Dell Inspiron 1525
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The old days of bulky, overweight Dell notebooks
may be coming to a close in 2008. Today Dell announced
their latest addition to the Inspiron family of notebooks,
the 15.4-inch Inspiron 1525. We are happy to have
a pre-production unit to review, and this sleek successor
to the Inspiron 1520 might just surprise you.
Our pre-production Inspiron 1525 is equipped with
the following specs:
* 15.4-inch WXGA (1280 x 800) CCFL TrueLife (glossy)
screen
* 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7250 processor
* 2GB DDR2-667 SDRAM (up to 4GB DDR2 SDRAM available)
* 120GB 5400 RPM SATA HDD
* 8x Dual-layer DVD±RW drive
* Video: Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator
X3100
* Wireless: Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card
* Mobile Broadband: Dell Wireless integrated mobile
broadband mini-cards Sprint and Verizon serice
* Colors: Multiple colors and finishes available
* Media Card: 8-in-1 flash memory reader
* Input and Output Ports: 4 USB 2.0, HDMI, VGA, IEEE
1394a, RJ11, RJ45, 2 headphone, 1 microphone, 1 ExpressCard
54mm slot, 3 mini-card slots, consumer IR, S-Video
* No webcam (optional Integrated 2.0 megapixel webcam
available)
* Windows Vista Home Premium
* Dimensions: 1.00" - 1.48" (height) x 14.05"
(width) x 10.08" (depth)
* Weight: 5.9lbs with 6-cell battery
* Base configuration price: $499
* Price as tested: $1,024 ($874 after instant savings)
Build and Design
Dell received some much needed attention in 2007
with the introduction of the sleek, high performance
XPS M1330 and XPS M1530 notebooks. Although these
more expensive notebooks in the Dell lineup were praised
for their looks and low weight, the Dell Inspiron
1520 was criticized for being yet another bulky and
unattractive laptop. Dell listened closely to this
criticism when they designed the new Inspiron 1525.
The Inspiron 1525 is in fact 25% smaller, 30% slimmer
and almost half a pound lighter than the Inspiron
1520.
In addition to the eight color options available
on other Inspiron notebooks, the 1525 offers four
new patterns. These designs are inlaid molds so there's
no risk of the design coming off.
Although I wasn't a huge fan of the glossy inlaid
"Commotion Pattern" design on our pre-production
Inspiron 1525, I must say it looks flawless. I was
highly critical of the paint application on the Inspiron
1420, 1520, and 1720 because the paint has questionable
durability. The new glossy lid designs might be a
magnet for fingerprints, but it certainly looks more
durable than the old Inspiron paint jobs.
Screen
Display options for the Inspiron 1525 include a matte
finish 15.4" Widescreen XGA (1280 x 800), a 15.4"
Widescreen XGA (1280 x 800) with TruleLife (glossy
finish), or a 15.4" "high resolution"
(1440 x 900) glossy widescreen display. On the surface
the lack of higher resolutions is a serious flaw in
the design of the 1525. In truth, the overwhelming
majority of "average" notebook users will
think the WXGA resolution looks stunning.
The screen on our pre-production unit looks flawless
from straight on and the horizontal viewing angles
are great. Upper vertical viewing angles are good,
but colors did begin to invert at lower viewing angles
when the screen is tilted back.
Keyboard, Touchpad and Media Controls
The keyboard on the Inspiron 1525 is fairly similar
to the 1520. The keyboard is firm with virtually no
flex and the keys have excellent travel and cushion.
The touchpad surface utilizes the new design that
is integrated with the palm rest surface. The only
separation between the palm rests and the touchpad
is the indented area above the touchpad buttons. The
touchpad buttons have excellent travel and cushion,
though I did feel like they made a bit too much of
a "clicking" sound when pressed. The good
news with the touchpad is that it's responsive, has
dedicated scroll areas and the textured feel is good.
A series of touch-sensitive media buttons with blue
LED backlights are located above the keyboard similar
to the buttons on the XPS notebooks. One nice feature
about the media buttons is that the blue LEDs only
stay lit for a fraction of a second after being pressed,
so they won't distract you by staying lit all the
time. Another "interesting" feature of the
media buttons is that the blue LEDs "pulse"
back and forth for a few seconds during Windows startup
not unlike KITT from the old Knight Rider TV series
or a cylon from Battlestar Galactica.
Ports and Features
The port selection of the 1525 is resonably good for
a notebook of this size. Here's a quick rundown of
what you get:
Front profile view: LED status lights, dual headphone
out, microphone in, and memory card reader. (view
large image)
Left side: Kensington lock slot, DC power jack, two
USB ports, Ethernet, modem, HDMI out, and FireWire.
(view large image)
Right side: ExpressCard slot, WiFi on/off/WiFi catcher,
optical drive, S-Video out, and two USB ports. (view
large image)
Back profile view: no ports here.(view large image)
The built-in HDMI is a very nice thing to have for
those that want digital video output, S-Video and
VGA are also there for the more old-fashioned approach
to video output. The fact that the 1525 supports HDMI
with integrated graphics is impressive ... though
we didn't have the opportunity the test the limits
of the HDMI output from the integrated X3100 graphics.
With the addition of FireWire, four USB ports, a
media card reader, two headphone jacks, microphone
jack, ExpressCard slot and Ethernet port you're well
equipped ports wise.
I was pleasantly surprised to find four USB ports
on the 1525. I was a bit let down by the fact the
similarly sized XPS M1530 only includes three USB
ports. The fact that the 1525 packs four USB ports
into a reasonably thin and light 15.4" notebook
is worth praise.
Speakers
The speaker quality was "acceptable" for
a notebook without a built-in subwoofer. The speakers
for the 1525 are located at the top of the keyboard
area above the media buttons.
There's not much to write home about the speakers,
they get loud enough with minimal distortion, but
the sound is slightly tinny as is the case with nearly
all laptop speakers. Just imagine listening to music
from small speakers mounted inside a tin can and you'll
have an idea about the built-in sound quality. On
the brighter side, both audio out ports delivered
crystal clear audio to my earbuds during the test
period.
Performance and Benchmarks
One thing to notice is that the dedicated graphics
card option available on the Inspiron 1520 is missing
from the Inspiron 1525. The reasoning behind this
is that Dell is pushing the XPS M1530 as the 15.4"
notebook for those demanding higher-end graphics performance.
The Inspiron 1525 is meant for a more mainstream buyer
looking for good multimedia and productivity features
from a notebook, and not cutting edge 3D performance.
Regardless, I would have liked for Dell to offer
at least an entry-level nVidia 8400 GS 128MB dedicated
graphics card option on the 1525. Sure, it might compete
with a base configuration XPS M1530, but consumers
like to have choices.
That being said, the Inspiron 1525 performed quite
well during testing and this machine will meet or
exceed the performance needs of most average (non-gaming)
users.
wPrime is a program that forces the processor to
do recursive mathematical calculations, the advantage
of this program is that it is multi-threaded and can
use both processor cores at once, thereby giving more
accurate benchmarking measurements than Super Pi.
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