A personal review (of sorts) of the new Dell B130 notebook.

I got the idea about finally getting a notebook computer with the big Black Friday sales, especially the sub-$400 models offered by several retailers. I didn't want to join in the carnage at Walmart, Best Buy, or Circuit City, but the idea was in my head about getting a notebook and that idea was going to stick there until I satisfied it.

I've built my own desktops for a dozen years, and can't even remember now the number of processors, motherboards, memory sticks, and video cards I've bought and configured over that time. I do remember a mad rush to Best Buy for their unheard of price of $149 for a 4 megabyte memory module! But, with the desktop I was always stuck at my desk, getting a bad backache after several hours. I've wanted to be able to take the computer, sit outside, be in another room, or take it with me when I went somewhere.

Notebooks in the past were always ultra-luxury items to me because of their really enormous costs. When they started appearing on retailer's shelves years ago, they were all in the four-figure range and were pretty slow compared to desktops. I think an awful lot of people sunk a lot of money into them just to be able to proudly display their little portable computer.

Now, with decreases in price and improvements in technology compared to "way back when", a notebook seemed more realistic and just slightly more practical for me. Even the most basic of notebooks this year were offering features and performance that would have cost a fortune just a few years ago.

So, I see a Dell ad on one of the websites. I click on it and decide I'll get about the most basic I could find with the features I thought I'd need. That weekend after Thanksgiving, Dell was offering the 14-inch screen B120 with wireless at a really low price. Little did I know I was entering into the dark labyrinth which is the Dell product feature and pricing system.

I decided on one model B120, opened my Dell account and ordered it, thinking I was getting a great deal. The big price cuts were originally on the 2200 model, so I went to the Dell kiosk at the local mall to see the 2200. I noticed next to it one of the B models, I think it was the 130 and noticed how much nicer the display looked, but didn't inquire as the 2200 was my focus. I saw the 2200 and came home to order it.

What's this I see? No more 2200s, instead there are B120 and B130 models. The B120 pricing was about the same as the 2200 and I ordered it. I then started looking around the web for more detail on it and noticed about 6 different prices on the same machine, depending on the link and whether you had a Dell coupon to go along with the order. I got so confused and dismayed, I called Dell to cancel it. After a long search I found the "cancel order" department which, in my case, was in El Salvador. But, I got the 120 cancelled.

The idea stayed with me, though, and I found I couldn't reorder what I first tried, and needed to go with the B130 for the features I wanted. I gathered up coupon codes, checked all the links I could find for the best price and ordered. The B130 actually had more than the original order, an extra 256MB of memory, the 15.4 inch widescreen display, and a year warranty. It came out to about $50 more than my first order, but I was getting the extras and, from what I could tell, there was still some upgrade potential down the line should I need it. I ordered the Celeron CPU, but since it came with 533 MHz memory, I felt that someday I could go to a 533MHz Pentium M model if I thought I needed it. Little did I know until I started seeing Xbandaidx's posts on this forum, the 533 MHz dream was a marketing illusion, they were putting 533MHz parts on a 400 MHz motherboard, so no upgrade potential. I was glad I hadn't spent the extra on the Pentium M and had taken the 400 MHz Celeron, which is what the included 910 motherboard was always going to run at.

I ordered the computer on November 29 and it was delivered on December 12. It was early by about two weeks. I was really excited to try it out, test it out, and see if I would really have any use for the darned thing after all. Here are some comments about what I've noticed. I'm not including pictures, as other posts by xbandaidx show as much, if not more, than I could.

From the "feel" of the unit, it seems solid, well built, no dangling parts, rattles, or flimsiness. It's a basic black with a dull silver trim around the keyboard, not exactly a work of art, but nothing that screams "cheap" either. It has a bit of class to its plain look, sometimes less is more in design.

The keyboard has a nice feel to it, I like the bit of a click I get when pressing keys. The lettering on the keys seems a bit larger than an ordinary keyboard, which I like as my eyes aren't what they used to be. There has been some adjustment as I am used to the split Microsoft natural keyboard with my desktop, but I am getting better hitting the keys I want.

The touchpad is OK, I suppose. I don't think I'd like a touchpad on any notebook, to me it is awkward and I'd find myself trying to pull up menus and losing them because I wasn't controlling the pad well enough. Used to buttons at the top of the mouse, the buttons on the bottom of the touchpad were inconvenient. But, that's the way these touchpads are made, I guess. Rather than fight the touchpad I went out and got a Microsoft wireless optical notebook mouse, and can ignore the touchpad completely.

The display, a 15.4-inch WXGA widescreen, is a little more difficult to talk about. As each person tends to see things a little differently from another, comments on the display are really quite personal. When running on AC power, the notebook defaults to the brightest setting, and it is very bright. Text and images are sharp, though I'd like to get a little more definition to text and the Cleartype settings didn't help much. It's overall a nice, very viewable display. On battery power, it defaults to about half-brightness, and I found that a little too dim, but it can be adjusted at the expense of battery life. Outside in daylight, the default on battery was too dim and required full brightness for me to use. I think my biggest disappointment in the display is the lack of color management. The colors are not true, reds in particular tend to an orangish or brownish cast. If Dell could supply some color management profiles for the type display my B130 has (made by Quanta) I think that would help. Most monitors now come with drivers which include color management profiles to assist the monitor in displaying a more true set of colors. But, the display is nice, that's what kept drawing my eye to the B130 when I was at the Dell shop in the mall. It's a clean screen, I have no dead or stuck pixels.

Audio is, well, there. It's nothing to write home about and reminds me a bit of small transistor radios when those first came out. It is just adequate and clear, you hear the system cues and whatever. Volume is not loud, and the sound overall is OK for use. I was not expecting high quality sound performance out of the tiny speakers. I wasn't buying a multimedia machine after all.

The drives appear to be fine. The combo CDRW/DVD drive works well, is quiet, and hasn't been fussy about what I've put into it. Home burned DVDs and CDs work OK. This system came with the 40GB drive. Unlike some lucking out on good brands with 16MB cache, mine came with a Fujitsu hard drive with 8 MB cache. The 8 MB does help in comparison to 2 MB cache drives, and it is 5400 RPM. It works fine, quiet, though I have no experience with the Fujitsu brand, I'd never considered that brand in the past when purchasing drives. I'll see how it holds up down the line.

The software included was so-so. Dell no longer includes a Windows XP Home or Pro reinstallation CD. You sometimes have the option to purchase it when configuring your system, but if you don't, you are left to Dell/Symantec PC restore, a hidden partion on the hard drive, to restore your system to it's original state, bloatware, trial programs and all. And this certainly is not a good idea should your drive fail and you need to replace it, or just want to upgrade to another drive. There's no way to install the operating system without the CD. I found that pestering customer service with requests for a CD paid off, they sent one out to me. I want to do a reformat and install Windows XP as close to the way it is on my desktop as possible. I didn't want AOL, Music Match Jukebox, Earthlink, Dell Games, Corel Picture something, Word Perfect and a few other odds and ends.

Performance of the notebook has surprised me. The 1.4 MHz Celeron is fine for my uses so far. Web browsing is just like on my desktop through the 1370 wireless card that came with the computer. I'm getting adequate range and speed and had no problem just setting the computer up and it recognizing my router and wireless connection. I've not really tried games on the notebook yet. I don't figure Battlefield 2 or Doom 3 will run well, but do hope it will allow me to play some less demanding older games I go to once in awhile, like Diablo 2 or Unreal. I did notice some stuttering when pressing the onboard video and the CPU by playing one of Microsoft's WMV high definition clips. I think the stutter was a combination of the Intel 900 video and its use of slower shared system memory and the fact I was probably stretching my memory to capacity. It appeared to be dumping a lot of data into the pagefile.

The battery is one item where I should have upgraded. I ordered the computer with the standard 4-cell li-ion battery. Dell has yet to put batteries for this machine up for sale separately, so I'm stuck with the fairly short-lived 4 cell. I got about 1 hour 55 minutes before getting low battery warnings. I'd like enough time to play a full DVD. I doubt playing a DVD I'd get to the end before the batteries faded.

512MB of 533MHz memory running at 400 MHz was included. I'm upgrading that amount and will see if that improves performance any. Right now, the two included 256 MB Hynix modules work in dual channel mode. Casual, quick benchmarks run with the latest SiSoft Sandra and Everest Ultimate put this B130's memory and CPU performance at about the same levels as a Pentium M 715 model (a 400 MHz CPU with less cache than the included Celeron). I'm seeing that the memory and CPU are running at a 6:3 ratio, I don't know whether that is good or bad, my desktop runs at 1:1.
( Edit: On rechecking some of the stats I used in this review, I discovered I am in error on the specifications of the current Pentium M 715 model. It contains 2 MB cache, double the cache on the Celeron model. I will review the comparison statistics on performance to see if there were other factors influencing fairly close performance figures between the Celeron M 360J and the Pentium M 715 I used in making this statement. Using SiSoft Sandra, the performance hit for the Celeron vs. the Pentium M seemed not to be substantial. I will remove this comparison if it is incorrect as stated. I know in the Prescott series of Pentium 4s, the 2MB cache did not give the boost expected because of architectural flaws in the pipeline which actually caused data to process slower than expected because it had to travel a greater distance in the processor (if I am recalling correctly) despite the great increase in cache memory in comparison to previous Northwood models with less cache. That may not hold true for the Pentium M, as I believe it is a different chip design than the Pentium 4. I just wanted to comment on my original statement to be as accurate as I can for the integrity of my review. - sjrnv 12/21/05.)

The system also includes 3 USB 2.0 ports, a 56K modem, a network interface card, microphone input, headphone output, a standard video connector for adding an external monitor. I does not include a standard PCMCIA card slot, this may be important to you. It has an Expresscard slot which is touted to replace the PCMCIA cards. However, there are few, if any, Expresscard cards. I would have personally rather had the old technology here because of the availability of PCMCIA card devices. I hope the Expresscard technology starts producing products soon, as I'd hate to have a "latest and greatest" technology find itself an orphan if the public doesn't take to it. Over the years there have been many technologies that never really made it - VL Bus, CNR risers, oddball slots and plugs for things that never came to market.

The system doesn't look like it is taxing itself in normal use. I see a CPU temperature at 27C (81F) at idle. I've not felt the machine get hot and rarely hear the fan spin up, about the only time I do is when there's disk access loading a program file.

Well, this has been a long post, but I do hope it is informative for some people. Am I sorry I bought the machine? No, I'm pleased with what I got as it suits my needs. If I was a heavy user of games, multimedia, or CPU intensive programs I'd have had to go with another price point computer. The B130 should suit me fine. A notebook for me is more of a luxury, a new toy rather than a necessity. It's an extension of my present overdone desktop systems. I would say for the average user, the B130 can fill most needs without breaking the bank.

My only disappointments were finding that Dell did not include the 915 motherboard which would have allowed for a CPU upgrade. The specs that Dell gives on the B130 are very lean, and one is led to make assumptions. Seeing that my machine came with 533 MHz memory and having the 533 MHz Pentium as an upgrade option when I configured my order, I assumed it was going to be capable of running 533 MHz parts at that speed, not the 400 MHz it's limited to.

My other complaint is with the Dell company system itself. I just don't think it's right to offer products, the same product at different prices depending on how you get to their website. It's like a slot machine, hit the right link and win the best price. I don't like the way the Dell Customer Service is set up. Finding the appropriate department to contact can be confusing and frustrating. For USA customers, actually calling and talking to the company here in the US is nearly, if not truly, impossible.

Most departments seem to have been farmed out overseas, and my purchase and contacts with Dell have been like a trip around the world - Panama, El Salvador (twice), India, and the Philippines. Everyone I spoke with was courteous, and I think really did try to help answer my questions, but I know had I been speaking to a native English speaker, my questions and comments would have been more quickly understood, and I would have better understood the responses. I don't like to be rude to anyone anywhere working in customer service jobs. It's got to be a horror of a job dealing with all sorts of people - from the genius to the idiot, the cordial to the homicidal. I couldn't do it, but I sure wish a couple of times I had been able to speak with an American. There are regional nuances in language and meaning, a vernacular that sometimes doesn't get across to those using English as a second language.

Will I buy another Dell product? I don't know. I've always built my own systems, tweaked them, and knew what I was putting in them. This is the first "ready made" computer I've ever purchased. I like the notebook I bought, but I did not really care for the confusing, frustrating Dell shopping and ordering experience.

That's my story, I hope it will give some more information to people looking at the Dell model B130 notebook.

 

wow, a very inciteful post sjrnv, it's always interesting to hear what finally tips people over into the world of notebooks from desktops. most often it is when the price point meets the right spot and the perceived level of convenience of laptop over desktop reaches a certain level.

I have the b130 and also agree that it's just fine for basic needs, you won't get away with much gaming on it and it just doesn't feel as nice as a more expensive thinkpad or dell latitude, but it's great for an extra computer in the house or to compliment a desktop you already have that offers higher performance and storage.

I hear you on the fight to get the best price through Dell, but in the 21st century where everything comes easy to us in terms of food and shelter, you have to enjoy the hunt of something (in this case finding the right price) -- and Dell is just trying to fill that basic human need for you

 

Great review

 

LOL!!!

Hermit

 

Nicely informative review! Definitely helpful.

I am surprised that it comes with a 5400RPM hard drive - an 8MB cache Fujitsu no less- and a decent display. I remember the ones on the i2200 were terrible...

From your descriptions, it sounds like an excellent budget notebook. I am going to take a ride and see this at a kiosk soon.

Thanks again.