E1505 First Impressions

Well today I received the E1505 that a local agency is letting me use for my volunteer activities arrived today, so here are my initial impressions.

First, the screen. WSXGA Truebrite -- awesome. Now this is the display I expect from Dell. I had an Inspiron 6000 with an unacceptably dim display, and there were a rash of complaints about that laptops display which showed up in a few online reviews and in many comments from users, so I particularly wanted to see how this one would be and this does not disappoint.

(to be fair, I think my unit was defective, and others that weren't defective were on the dim side but still acceptable to most, as a few reviews mention. for me, the only acceptable display is a bright clear one)

I can dim it a lot for better battery life, it is very sharp, and there are a few areas at the corners where it's a little uneven but that's not a concern for me.

On the 6000 I had I was irritated by the fan which turned on a lot. I don't understand why, but this one, with the dual core, doesn't turn on nearly as much. It's a quieter laptop.

Build quality of all this generation of laptop is very impressive.

Weight -- actually, if I were to carry only this around or this with a notebook, I consider it portable. With any thick books, like a student might have, then I think it would be too heavy for most people. Because I will not carry a lot with it, it is portable enough for me. No doubt the 630m is a better choice for a student who wants a full size keyboard, and if a smaller keyboard is OK then the 710m shines. The Labreastude D620 would also be a good option for students I would think.

I am most interested in the battery life. I have read reviews that say the extended battery gets around 5 hours. If so, that's very good, but I won't believe it until I see it. I'll post about that in a few days.

Journey