Dell Inspiron 1525, A Post Review....

Inspiron 1525 a post review

Having had this workhorse of a laptop for a good 6-7 years, it will be getting retired before the end of the year. I feel best placed to share my experiences of it with you all, and about time too! Despite all the problems I that follow this is still the one of the most reliable laptops I have owned, and definitely the quickest.

Around the same time both me and my girlfriend bought the same Dell, hers being as it came but with a white lid the standard amount of RAM. I specc'ed my 1525 with 3GB of RAM, bigger hard drive and an extended battery. Even when they were new the difference in boot up times and time taken to load programs or do general tasks were quite considerable. One of the main reasons I think I held on to it so long as its taken most things that have been thrown at it. Shortly after receiving it I noticed that the clock wasn't keeping time and credit to dell support, it was picked up and returned within 2 days with a new motherboard fitted.

From then on it was pretty plain sailing I took it where I wanted, visiting friend's houses, hotels, even camping a few times. Then more of less as my warranty expired I become victim of the classic 1525 Achilles heel, the hinges. Luckily I got it sorted out cheaply. A few years and and a handful of fresh installs later, save for the occasional blue screen, she has chugged along quite contently. I could never really fault the screen even though by today's standards 1280x800 isn't spectacular and the viewing angles leave a fair bit to be desired. For its time perfectly acceptable. The track pad has been great and responsive and I could not really have asked for more although now its well worn the left key has worn out and sits in the case a mm or two lower than the right and no longer guarantees a response every time. The silver colour has also worn off the right button and an area of the track pad, which leads me on to my main gripe I have had with this Dell, the build quality.





The hinges have been repaired 3 times, use of the SD card slot makes it freeze up although that's most likely driver related. The keyboard was good to start with but now does not always respond to every button press (I just had to go back and add the r to respond while writing this ) I have had it apart and cleaned the keys, but its just not the same as it used to be. The fascia between the keyboard and screen popped out of place due to the hinges and has never sat back properly from some reason. The screen bezel cracked around the hinges and again by the screen and the plastic has threaded the original screw mounts for it so I had to end up using self tappers through the lid to hold it together. The Disc drive door fell off only last week and was lost, oh, and it stopped charging the battery about two years ago now, I would have been more bothered but as my girlfriend also has one I just swap batteries between laptops when needed. I believe there is a video fix for that on Youtube. Oh and finally the hard drive gave up the ghost about six months ago and was duly replaced with an Intel SSD, a blessing in disguise as it has improved boot up times no end regardless of the sata I interface and gives a start up of around 18-28 seconds depending in what mood it is in.

Sounds quite bad really doesn't it, but lets but this in perspective. I never molly coddled this laptop and this is over a large period of time, more than dell expected I'm sure. This laptop gets used, muchly, 9 days out of ten its on all day for 12 hours or more. It does get quite hot too, you wouldn't want this on your lap for long at the end of its daily duties.

Ultimately despite the problems it has been a good laptop. If it wasn't for the build quality issues I would have probably soldiered on with it a bit longer, but maybe it would not have led me to my new requirements for its replacement, I'm going a full 180 throwing the good Dell support out the window and buying something that has a sturdy aluminum case, a Samsung Series 9. Hopefully it wont fall apart over time like the plastic Dell has, but if it does I will be well stuffed