Dell Inspiron 2650

Two months ago we took a look at the first notebooks to contain Intel's Mobile Pentium 4 chip. The two problems that stood out were the price and poor battery life.

Dell has managed to rectify the first of these issues with the Inspiron 2650, as it's more than £700 cheaper than the model we looked at in May.

Packed with a 1.6GHz Mobile Pentium 4 processor and 256Mb of PC2100 memory, Sysmark performance is reasonable, if slightly lower than we would expect, coming in at 145.

A 16Mb Geforce2 Go graphics card caters for those who need portable 3D performance. However, the display is a 15in TFT unit capable of resolutions up to 1,024 x 768 and could not run our graphics tests. However, it is good quality with bold and sharp colours.

The chassis has been redesigned; it's still a three-spindle design so you get everything you'll need as standard. Dell has even managed to squeeze in a DVD CD-RW combo drive at this price, as well as a 30Gb hard drive.

Other standard features include built-in modem, 10/100Mbit Ethernet, two USB ports, a single PS/2 port, parallel port, and a DSub for connecting to an external monitor as well as a single Type II PC Card slot.

The keyboard is well laid out, although the Windows key has been relocated to the top right-hand corner, the touchpad is unresponsive and the buttons are a bit stiff.

The problem of the poor battery life has not been resolved. In our tests the review unit lasted one hour 27 minutes, and this is disappointing and makes it a poor choice if you're looking for a notebook to use on the move.

Price: £1,643.83 (£1,399 ex VAT)

Specifications:

• 1.6GHz Mobile Pentium 4 processor
• 256Mb of PC2100 DDR SD-Ram
• Intel 845MHz chipset
• 30Gb IBM hard disk
• 16x CD-RW/DVD
• Geforce2 Go 16Mb graphics card
• Intel AC97 sound chip
• Windows XP Home Edition
• Microsoft Office XP
• Actiontec V.92 56K modem
• Weight: 3.3kg.

Contact: Dell 0870 907 5664
www.dell.co.uk