Throwback: My First Laptop Review (Premium)

Over 20 years ago, in January 2001, I published my first-ever laptop review in a column for my weekly Windows 2000 Magazine UPDATE email newsletter.

Thinking back to this time, Windows Millenium Edition and Windows 2000 were still the then-current versions of Windows, and the Windows XP branding and look and feel had yet to be revealed; that would happen less than a week after I wrote this, but at the time of this writing, it was still known by its codename, Whistler.

That my first laptop review was a Dell is somewhat fitting, as the first PC I ever purchased—using an advance from my first book, by the way—was also a Dell. This one is lost to the mists of time, but it was a desktop tower PC, probably an XPS something, and it had a 486DX chipset. As with this review laptop, I don’t believe I have any photos for some reason. I couldn’t find any, at least. (And this newsletter was just plain text.)

Anyway. Here’s the review, with some notes.

Laptop of the month: Dell Inspiron 4000

This month, I’d like to introduce my first laptop of month, Dell’s stunning Inspiron 4000. The impetus for this column was my admittedly depressing experience last year buying a laptop, and while I can’t say that things have worked out yet, the silver lining is that a number of PC makers contacted me about their systems. So I decided that it might be good idea to expand my look at laptops to include a wider variety of machines. And the Dell Inspiron 4000 is a great way to start.

I had written earlier about my horrible experience trying to buy a high-end Compaq laptop. I can’t remember the name or model, sorry, but what I do recall about this escapade was that it had an optical drive of whatever sort that could be swapped out for a second battery, so I had ordered a battery for it as well. That battery arrived very quickly, but after waiting a month or more on the actual laptop, I finally had to cancel the order.

Dell currently sells two lines of business-oriented laptops, the performance-oriented Inspirons and the network-optimized Latitudes. The Inspiron line includes the budget-minded 3800 series, the 4000 and 5000 mobile performers, and the no-compromises 8000, which is truly a desktop replacement. On the Latitude side, the choices are even headier: The company offers the value-oriented CPt series, the thin and light C600, LS, and CS series, and the desktop alternative C800. In general, the differences between the two product lines are pretty vague, though Inspiron systems tend to get the latest technology first. I chose an Inspiron 4000 because it’s the perfect middle ground between the super-small Latitude LS and the Inspiron 8000 behemoth.

I wasn’t disappointed: The 4000 features a wonderful keyboard, a bright and beautiful 14-inch screen, and a dual pointing capability that lets you choose between a standard trackpad and an IBM-style pointing stick.

That “pointing stick” was and still is called TrackPoint.

It also includes two PC card slots, a built-in modem (and optional built-in Ethernet), and a standard complement of ports: The 4000 is no legacy-free device. The system I received was configured with Windows 2000, an 800 MHz Pentium III with SpeedStep, and 128 MB of RAM. Maybe I’m not the typical user, but 128 MB of RAM never seemed enough for me, and I’ve always recommended more for Windows 2000.

At a previous job, I briefly had a loaner Dell laptop with 64 MB of RAM. We paid extra to have Windows NT 5.0 installed on it instead of Windows 98.

The review system included one battery and a DVD drive; the media bay can also hold a second battery, floppy drive, CD-ROM, CD-RW, or ZIP 100 drive. The floppy drive can plug into the parallel port if you need to use it alongside one of the optical options.

Not mentioned here: The Inspiron 4000 display offered a resolution of 1024 x 768 and a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Also not mentioned here is the hard drive, which was 6 GB big. Yikes.

Aesthetically, the Inspiron is stunning, with nice touches, such as a small nub on the power cord that makes it easy to plug in. The system ships with QuickSnap color inserts that you can use to personalize the system: Dell provides golden yellow, Tahoe blue, storm gray, and royal purple inserts. I thought I’d enjoy changing the look of the system, but I’m a little unsure about the ease with which the screen panel can be removed, and wonder whether it compromises the integrity of the LCD. On the other hand, the Inspiron’s screen exhibited none of the annoying “waterfall” effects I’d seen on my last laptop, and the picture is sharp and clear.

I really did enjoy the color customization capabilities of this laptop, and I still remember that fondly. They were just thin plastic inserts with tabs that could be easily removed and re-applied.

On the road, the Inspiron was a joy. With DVD and battery in place, the unit weighs about six and a half pounds, and the battery lasted for almost an entire 4-hour plane flight (on the return flight, I decided to idle away the time playing Diablo, and battery life dropped to two and a half hours; I guess I can’t find fault with Dell for that).

6.5 pounds!! Today, a typical 14-inch Ultrabook weighs about 3 pounds. And that battery life. Intel Evo-certified PCs ensure you’ll get at least 8-9 hours of real-world battery life. Granted, the Inspiron 4000 only had a 26.5 watt-hour battery; today, 43-57 WHr is common.

Performance was astonishing, and the system boots into Windows faster than my desktop system. And unlike many high-speed machines, it never got overly hot, even after hours of use. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect balance between performance and portability, and the Dell might be it: It’s light enough to cart around a tradeshow, but it features a full-sized keyboard and is sufficiently powerful to make me forget my desktop system.

Complaints include weaker than usual speakers and the QuickSnap color inserts: I’d like to see Dell offer a 4000 without them. And like many laptops, the 4000 offers only one USB port, which is one too few. The dual pointing device sometimes caused me to initiate mouse clicks when I didn’t intend to. But these are just quibbles: The Dell Inspiron 4000 is an impressive machine, and it’s one that I recommend strongly. Prices start at about $1500, and a system configured identically to my previous laptop is about $3000, an $800 savings.

Next month, I’ll be taking a look at the Gateway Solo 3350, an ultra-thin, ultra-light notebook designed for maximum portability.

This first laptop review was barely 750 words long, which is less than one-third the length of a typical laptop review I’d write today. Granted, I’ve formalized the process quite a bit since the early days, and I use a template to make sure I don’t forget to hit on any major points (design, display, internal components, and so on). But the funny thing about the UPDATE newsletter was that it had to be at least 500 words, and I would almost always exceed 1000 words. This made my first editor, Ronnie, crazy, and when she complained one day, I said, “It’s more bang for the buck.” She responded with, “But Paul, it’s a free newsletter!” So I tried to keep the word count down when I could.