Dell Inspiron 1000 Released (pics)

The Dell Inspiron 1000 released today adds to the Inspiron family a rock bottom priced, no frills notebook. Dell is back in black with the case coloring of this new machine. Instead of allowing for configuration, Dell is simply offering three flavors of the Inspiron 1000: "Standard", "Enhanced" and "Feature-Rich".

Dell Inspiron 1000 Front View -- Dell is back in black with this budget laptop

There's not too much to get excited about with the Inspiron 1000 other than it's darn cheap. Here's a breakdown of what you get witheach flavorof this notebook that Dell is offering:

• The "Standard" Inspiron 1000 comes with a 14.1-inch XGA screen, 256MB of RAM, 30GB Hard Drive, CD-RW/DVD combo drive and 1-year warranty. One thing that's a major downer on the "Standard" notebook is that the battery isn't even a Lithium Ion Rechargeable. Instead, it's an 8-cell Nickel Metal Hydride battery in which you can only expect a maximum of 1.5 hours battery life, but more likely that will be closer to an hour. Link to Dell site for this notebook config: Dell Inspiron 1000 for Home (Celeron 2.20GHz, 256MB, 30GB)
  


• The "Enhanced" Inspiron 1000 comes with a 15-inch XGA screen and 40GB Hard Drive. The rest of the specs are the same as the Standard edition, including the sub par battery. Link to Dell site for this notebook config: Dell Inspiron 1000 for Home (Celeron 2.20GHz, 256MB, 40GB)
  


• The "Feature Rich" Inspiron 1000 comes with a 15-inch XGA screen, 40GB Hard Drive, 512MB of RAM and a proper 8-cellLithium Ion battery that should get you 2.5 hours of battery life. Link to Dell site for this notebook config: Dell Inspiron 1000 for Home (Celeron 2.20GHz, 512MB, 40GB)

Left view of the Inspiron 1000

Each Inspiron 1000 comes with 3 USB 2.0 ports and Windows XP Home Edition as the OS. The Inspiron 1000 is for sale via Dell.com and has an estimated shipping date of 1-week. Did you say you wante wireless built in? Not even an option. For wireless on this notebook you'll have to buy a wireless card and put it into the PCMCIA card slot, of which there is only one.

Back view of the Inspiron 1000

The Inspiron 1000 model is obviously targeted at those that are on a major budget or just want an extra notebook around the houseor for Jr. to play around on. We don't recommend this notebook as a primary machine for somebody wanting to do major amounts of work on or trying to run softwareanywhereclose to being a high-end application. But there's a market for this notebook since it at least burns CDs, gives you internet access and can run basic Office applications. So if you fit that market and just want a cheap laptop,then maybethe Inspiron 1000 isright for you. We'll try and get a review in of this machine in the coming weeks.

Right view of the Inspiron 1000