Dell Inspiron 1420 User Review Discussion

hello all,

i am definitley considering buying this laptop, but i had a quick question that i am hoping someone will be able to answer...

does this laptop (inspiron 1420) have a relativley similar feel to the latitude d620/d630?

the reason why i am asking this is because unfortunatley, there are no stores that i know of that sell dells, so i will not be able to see this computer in real life and test it out, etc. my dad has the latitude d620 and i love it, so does the inspiron 1420 have the same general feel to it, keyboard, touchpad and surface wise?

thank you very much to anyone who can answer this question.

 

The keyboard feel is very firm. I have an old D620, which has too much sag in the keyboard. This 1420 feels firmer to me. Overall the fit and finish is very good. The only thing that seems strange is that the battery feels loose. It's locked in place, but you can jiggle it a little. I have been very satisfied with the 1420 in the few weeks I have had it.

 

How did you reformat your hard drive and reinstall vista? I would imagine that you used the system recovery disk, and therefore all the bloatware returns. I have read a popular thing to do is format the hard drive and reinstall the OS, but how do you do that without getting the bloatware? Can anyone give some steps on how to do this? Thanks

 

I forgot to mention...excellent review! I'd say it was better the the pcmag review. Tons of important useful information and wonderful photos. Keep us posted as you find new things, since I ordered mine July 16 and wont get it till Aug 17, sigh.

 

question about heat and noise...how hot do the palm rests get/keyboard get? and how loud does the laptop when let's say watching a tv show/movie or just browsing?

 

I'm seriously considering buying this laptop, but the one I was checking out at the Dell kiosk has very loose hinges connecting the screen to the unit. Have you noticed this or found it to be a problem as you've used the notebook?

Also, I'm a little concerned about wireless connectivity. I've been trying to connect my HP dv1000t to our network using a Netgear Wireless-N router, but it refuses to connect (although it detects the signal). I definitely plan to get rid of the HP for this and other reasons, but do you find that the 1420 drops wireless signals or has difficulty detecting them, especially since it's cased in the magnesium alloy? Does Vista force you to connect using the Windows wireless network wizard, or can you use the Intel software?

Thanks a lot, and great review!

 

Thanks for the review.
Just ordered a 1420 using the AAA 6% discount.

 

Where can I locate a discount coupon for this Dell Inspiron 1420. I want to buy one and the discount sounds good.

 

You need to be a AAA member and have a login on their website. Go to www.dell.com/aaasne

 

The hinges on mine feel very sturdy. I feels like a sturdy laptop, comparable to my friends D630 and about $300 less expensive for better specs. The wireless has worked great for me so far, I have not had a single drop in my 3 story house.

 

Man, this got me all fired up, but no dice...

Earlier today I ordered a 1420 (T5250/2GB/160GB/Vista Premium/BT) for $798. I figured I could save another $48 since I'm a AAA member.

I spent a lot of time on hold and then talking with various Dell reps. I came to find out that you cannot use the 6% off of any computer, but you have to shop on the special AAA members' store. The price there with coupon was $6 higher than my initial price.

Thankfully I didn't cancel before I found this out, and I'm still waiting on my order... FYI for others who may get their hopes up like I did.

Chris

 

I recently purchased my first Dell laptop, Inspiron 1420. I opted out of the anti-glare screen and insted went for the glossy, high contrast wide screen.

This is my first lap top purchase since 2000 (college laptop) so I'm a little out of the loop ... though this review was an amazing help for making my decision!

If anyone could send some advice my way in regards to my screen choice ~ I'd greatly appreciate it!

 

I got a 16% discount off of my 1420 by shopping through the boeing store. My grandpa used to work there, so...
My original price was somewhere around 1300-1400$, and I got it for 1100$.

 

Nice review!

By the way, after i've receive mine, i place another order to buy the bluetooth adapter, even if the prep on the phone told me that cannot fit in the laptop. So i've ordered the Bluetooth apdator model 355.

Removed the middle panel at the back of the 1420 and installed it there, then reboot, the blue light next to the Wi-Fi light went UP and then, in Vista, inserted the CD and install everything by default.

Everything works fine!

TanGU.

 

I'm going to buy a Inspiron 1420 with a Core 2 Duo 7100 mainly because that processor has virtualization support, but that is usable by the OS only if the BIOS and CHIPSET has support too. Can you confirm me that that's true? The BIOS has any configuration for this?
Thanks in advance!!!
Horacio

 

Matt, what are all of the sidebar gadgets you are using. You said you would include a list, but I don't see it... Please let me know

Thanks

 

Thought I'd update this thread with the answer to biff's question and some other tidbits...

First off, the sidebar gadgets I was using when I wrote the review are as follows:

AccuWeather.com Mini-forecast
Battery Monitor
DriveInfo
iStat wireless
Multi Meter(D)
NetGadget
SearchGadget
Shutdown Gadget
Top Processes

I'll note that I stopped using the Sidebar long ago...No real reason other than I wanted the screen real estate and I was always shutting it down anyway.

There was a sale some time ago at Best Buy on USB 200GB hard drives that turned out to be 2.5" Hitachi 200GB 7200RPM SATA drives, so I bought two and put one in my 1420 and one in my fiancée's e1505. At the time I used the demo of Acronis True Image to copy the original hard drives, and then later I partitioned mine to put Ubuntu on it. I put the original hard drive into my PS3, which it rather likes. With regard to Ubuntu, I used it for a while but eventually found I wasn't using that much. Which brings me to the latest part of my story.

I was sitting at LAX last week bored while waiting for a flight so I decided to delete Ubuntu and get my full (or nearly thanks to the whole 1024 vs. 1000 thing) 200GB hard drive space back. Well, what did I do but delete the bootloader. And of course I was LEAVING when this happened, not returning home, and since I needed my laptop for work I had to figure out how to get it fixed. And since apparently everyone in Tucson ****ing sucks and refused to let me just borrow a Vista CD for a few min to remake my MBR, I ended up purchasing an upgrade to Vista Ultimate from Best Buy (figured if I have to but the CD anyway might as well get something out of it).

But things were still not quite right after I got it fixed up and so this weekend while I've been home I decided to embark on a full reformat. And the absolute pain in the butt it has been I cannot even begin to tell you.

As everyone knows you can install any version of Vista you want from any version Vista disc, so I tried to install Home Premium from the Anytime Upgrade disc that I had purchased but it wouldn't boot. Everytime the installation finished it would just repeatedly blue screen. So then I used the Dell CD and was able to get it installed, but trying to install the Ultimate upgrade I was again met with the BSOD issue. So after trying this a few times and doing some ready I came to learn it was a driver issue, specifically related to the SATA driver. So I downloaded the latest Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver from the Dell Support website, put it on a USB stick, and proceeded to load the Dell Home Premium (which didn't need the extra driver, I should add) and then the Ultimate upgrade over it (from which I had to do a "Clean Upgrade" and select "load driver" at the partition selection screen).

After that all was good. And I'm happy to say she's working well now since finishing up last night. Put the nVidia 169.09 drivers on it from LaptopVideo2Go and she clocked a 1500 in 3DMark06, which is nothing as compared to my desktop (which now hits 9500 with its new Radeon HD3870) but is perfectly adequate for the small screen to play Half Life 2 and World of Warcraft.