I have to be honest… I prefer things to come in compact packages. As you can imagine, the Inspiron 1525 is definitely not compact. In fact, compared to my EeePC, it is the Goliath of my laptops.

Size does matter. Do not let people convince you otherwise! However, may I add that for a laptop, it needs to be just nice — not too big, not too small. This is my personal opinion, of course. I buy a laptop because it is a laptop, not a desktop.

Dell is getting clever and learning from Ford’s history. Add more colours and designs and you can sell more products. In fact, this is a smart step for Dell (though I do not know exactly how many more consumers will change from Brand PANDA to Dell as a result of this).

The 1525 has a 15.4″ screen that can be too bright. Thankfully, the brightness can be adjusted. Interestingly, I do not know how I can make this a permanent setting rather than having to adjust it everytime I start up the laptop and when I plug in the power (because the screen brightens up).

On top of the large screen, there is a nice camera. The quality of video streaming from that camera is reasonably good despite poor lighting conditions.

I do not like this large screen for various reasons:
1. The large screen makes it impossible to place the laptop on the table without blocking my view of the television. The EeePC will never do that to me. However, having said this, if the screen is nicely facing you, the camera will be taking a good aim at you.
2. I could be wrong about this. However, because the laptop is never too far from me, the large screen makes it difficult to focus if you have Word on full screen. Like I said before, I use my laptop as a laptop and do not add peripherals. Adding peripherals detract from its attractiveness as a laptop.

My eyes are sensitive to bright lights as you are aware by now. There are five blue-coloured light indicators on the left hand corner of the laptop. These are annoying for me. Firstly, I never really needed to have any indication of what my laptop is doing… I just need it to work. Next, even if I shut my laptop screen, the lights do not get hidden from sight. This means that if the laptop is on standby overnight, you can get some really annoying night light. Well, if this also annoys you, you can tape some blutack and put on a scotch tape. The light will still shine through BUT it will be less annoying.

There are also three light indicators above the keyboard. They are for Num lock, Caps lock and Scroll lock. As you can imagine, I do not LOCK anything so that I can avoid the glaring blue.

Now, an interesting feature of this Dell is that you do not have buttons to press to adjust the volume or mute the speakers. Along the same panel, you can also reverse, stop, play/pause and fast forward the track on non-buttons. How would I describe it… it is like a touchscreen (but it is not) sensor type button! BTW, did I mentioned that the play “buttons” do not work with iTunes. Now, I cannot tell you if the “buttons” work for Windows Media Player. Well, these “buttons” provide feedback by having the blue light come on. The thing I do not like about these “buttons” is that there is no tactile feedback and it takes you a long time to increase or decrease the volume.

As you are aware, the keyboard is super generous and quiet. You still get the feedback that you need. You need to understand that I appreciate this keyboard because of its generosity (compared to EeePC) and the fact that the keys are not sticky.

If I can move on to the weight… the weight can really crush you if you are trying to use it at an inclined angle. It makes my stomach go numb.

The mouse is not very sensitive and sometimes I have to move my finger on the pad for a few seconds before I get a response. Well, I suppose I should get an external mouse (though I really should not have to).

The battery life is rather poor. I expect a new generation laptop to last at least three hours but I think it lasted just over an hour fully charged last night. However, it could be because I had the heater on. Apparently, an increase in surrounding temperature can decrease battery life.

Performance is probably what people might be interested in. I have 1GB RAM and 160GB HD. Now, I am going to have to just tell you that for an Intel Core 2 Duo, the performance is slow. The startup is fast but past login, it is slow. This laptop has to think and think before it executes my instruction. This does drive me up the wall. However, I suppose for the price (sub-A$600) I got the Dell for I should be happy with its performance. I am a realistic consumer.

Overall, I suppose this laptop is more like a desktop for me. Performance is alright for word processing tasks. Thank goodness, I am not a hardcore gamer.

Hope this helps.

Rating: 7