Well I ordered a new laptop, an Inspiron E1405. It’s quite a well designed notebook, and I’ve used and seen this model before, and they seemed decent. The only thing, I didn’t get to spend an extended amount of time with one. I really hope I like it and don’t find anything that bothers the heck out of me. Apparently Dell is starting to charge a restocking fee on returns. I’ve really given this some thought though, and for what’s out there on the market right now, I think this will keep me going. I’ll probably keep this system for a few years if all goes well. Unless something else comes out that I gotta have, then I can always put it up on Ebay. I really wanted a tablet, but all the tablets have the glossy screens which I really dislike. We just ordered around 12 tablets at work anyways, so I’ll have one there to play around with and do some more tablet art.

I actually wanted a wide screen this time, but it’s probably going to take some adjusting till I get used to it.

My core requirments for chooing a notebook were:

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
• 14.1 inch XGA or WXGA Screen
• No Glossy Screen
• Decent Battery Life
• Standard Keyboard with Ctrl and Fn in the correct spot.
• Touchpad with Matte Surface

Some of my optional requirements / considerations:

• Price
• Weight
• Media Card Reader
• Video Card
• Gigabit Port

After all is said and done, I met all the requirements except the Gigabit port and a higher end video card. I wanted to option to play some games every now and then, but it was very low on my list of considerations. I mostly use my notebook for web design / programming, chat / VOIP clients, web browsing, photoshop, and some other stuff. All the reviews I’ve read on this system have been overwhelmingly positive.

Here are the specs of the system I ordered:

• Intel® Coreâ„¢ 2 Duo processor T7200 (4MB Cache/2.00GHz/667MHz FSB
• 14.1 inch Wide Screen XGA Display
• 1GB RAM (I might upgrade this to 2GB later)
• Intel GMA 950 Video Card
• 120 GB Hard Drive
• 8X (DVD+/-RW)
• Draft N Wireless Card (Compatible with A/B/G)

On top of these things, I got a 3 year at home warranty, and also got the accidental damage service. I’ve never purchased the accidental damage service, but it was only around 96 dollars, so well worth it I feel. I usually treat my notebooks like a baby, but you never know when an accident can happen. Just the other day, I almost tripped over the power cable on my notebook and sent it crashing to the ground, however my ninja like reflexes were able to stop and prevent it just in time. :)

One feature missing that I wish it had was an integrated webcam. There are other people doing this right now, such as Sony, Apple, and HP. I rarely use a cam, but it’s cool for video conferencing everynow and then on Skype or Windows Live Messenger. I am predicting that Dell will have this feature included on the successor to the E1405 model.

Lastly the price was amazing. With some discounts at the time of ordering, the notebook came out to $1,360.00. The same configuration with other systems were close to 2 thousand dollars and higher. When it comes to value, Dell has really cornered the market.

I’ve been following the build process, and right now it’s in the testing phase at Dell. Hopefully they’ll ship it out soon. I have a business trip this month, so I hope I get it before then. After receiving it, I’ll post some initial views on it, and then I’ll write more after using it for an extended amount of time.

Cheers.

Tags: dell, e1405, laptop, notebook

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