The customisable Dell Inspiron 1525 will please those for whom good performance is a priority.
If you don't like the specifications of the particular Dell Inspiron 1525 we tested, you can easily configure your own online. That's an important difference between this unit and most other inexpensive laptops: you can customise it down to the smallest detail - even lid colour - before finally clicking the 'Buy now' button .
Our review unit will please those for whom good performance is a priority.
Equipped with 2GB of memory and the best notebook CPU Dell offered for this model at the time of our review (a 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo T5450), our £429 Windows Vista Home Premium machine earned a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 78. That's 17 percent faster than the average sub-£500 laptop's score of 65.
With a standard six-cell 56WHr li-ion battery (it costs £20 to upgrade to a 9-cell 85WHr li-ion), our notebook lasted a fairly generous 4 hours, 4 minutes on one charge, about 10 minutes longer than the budget average.
About the only thing the Dell Inspiron 1525 can't handle is 3D graphics; with an Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 and no dedicated video card option, it's limited to simple games and other 2D applications.
The Dell Inspiron 1525 is wedge-shaped but svelte at 2.8kg, including a 15.4in 1,280x800 resolution screen, a DVD writer and a good keyboard. The port variety and layout is fine (the Dell Inspiron 1525 is one of the few notebooks in this price range with an HDMI connection).
And the Dell Inspiron 1525 gives multimedia lovers lots of entertainment features: an instant-on button, a webcam, and even dual headphone jacks. Alas, the raspy-sounding speakers take some of the shine off the 1525's entertainment appeal.
The real beauty of the Dell Inspiron 1525 is its customisability. For instance, our glossy screen (a no-extra-cost option at the time of our review) was pretty reflective, so you might be happier with Dell's standard antiglare screen. From a base configuration of £329 inc VAT, you can build your perfect sub-£500 laptop that includes a lid in any one of 11 different colours (£30 usually), Bluetooth (£30) an integrated mobile broadband card (£89), and so on.
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Comments
Angela Dawson7 said: We bought two dell laptops and both of them have had hinge problems and we are now unable to use either. Only had them less than two years, I would never buy a dell product again.
Jeod511 said: Yeah hinges are a real issue for this laptop. Unfortunately I bought it in Kuwait and they also insisted that the warranty didn't cover it.ah well...
naqi said: Hi, i brought a Dell desktop monitor from dell on 18/03/2011. they tried to deliver me the good by UPS but i wasn't there. the next day i went to UPS to collect my desktop monitor and they told me that, the sender (dell) have told them to hold this delivery and do not give it to me. they said contact dell.i contacted dell and they said due to some reason (which they are not disclosing) they will not give me the desktop monitor. i told dell that if you don't want to give me my goods then refund me my money. they said we will not refund you or give you the good. go to your bank and asked them to charge back.i tried to contact my account manager Stanley David in dell and he never come back to me. i tired to contact Stanley David's manager aditiya gupta and he also never get to me and didn't replied to my e-mails.[This message has been edited]Regards,Naqi
Millwallbill said: Had laptop 18 months and have had hinge problems 3 times, took out extended warranty and now Dell say that hinges are not covered in it.