College Notebook? - The Dell Inspiron6400

Posted by Matthew Brodsky

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Back in my day when soul glow hair gel, and Stock Aitken and Waterman reigned supreme, a Commodore Amiga shipped for over a grand without a monitor. I repeat I spent over a thousand dollars for a PC with 512K RAM, and no internal hard drive. Today a little over 600 bucks will secure you a core duo notebook, with a 15.4 inch glossy display, and an assortment of other bells and whistles. Bah, young whippersnappers today don't know they're born!

Inspiron 6400 from DellThe exploding Dell saga is hot news across the blogosphere right now,but the massive computer manufacturer has not let that prnightmare thwart it from doing what it does best - offeringfeature packed laptops at bargain prices. Introducing the DellInspiron 6400 with a 2 GHz Centrino T2500 Duo processor. TheInspiron starts at around $659, compared to many core duonotebooks that run $1,400 and above. That alone is a reason,student dude, to buy this Dell.
But Dellgives you a couple other reasons, such as the glossy-finished15.4-inch widescreen with 1,680 x 1.050 resolution, a thumpingspeaker system designed for maximum DVD-watching pleasure, andmedia playback controls and Bluetooth capabilities for convenientmultimedia activity. Sounds suspicious, though, doesn't it?Nothing so good can come so cheap, is the mantra driven into myskull by my father over the course of four decades. And I hate toadmit it to his face, but he's right-including the case of theInspiron 6400.

For being a multimedia machine-it even comes with Windows XPMedia Center Edition-much of the hardware necessary to truly makeit such a machine needs to be bought as an add-on. Upgradesinclude a DVD writer (the standard is a CD/DVD dual player); aUSB TV tuner; and most importantly, a fast graphics chip. The oneincluded is an integrated Intel GMA 950 graphics card, hardlyworthy of Dell's gaming XPS series.

Some of the miscellaneous weaknesses that we can highlightinclude the smallish standard hard drive size (60 MB), and themiddle-of-the-road standard memory (512 MB).

Am I being too picky, dude? Perhaps, because after all, for mostfolks, this Inspiron notebook will be quick enough, fun enough, accessible enough, and definitelycheap enough. It's got USB ports galore, S-Video, Ethernet and a5-in-1 card reader for cameras, and an ExpressCard slot foranything needed in the future.

In short the Inspiron 6400 is a feature packed, budget priced Dellnotebook, ideal for keeping on top of assignments, playinggames and watching dvds in your college dorm room. But before yousurf over to Dell's website please consider this notebook weighsin at just over 6 pounds, which may be a little too heavy forsome foppish students. If you're seeking a lighter, cheapernotebook for college, and are willing to sacrifice the duo coreprocessor, the CompaqV2000Z is worthy of consideration.

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