Dell Inspiron 1720 Review

We wanted to replace our 4 yr old Dell D800 that has been a great PC.
The first laptop sent had a defective high-res display and the replacement had a
defective dvd drive and the same display problems plus dark lower corners! The second one also had a refurbished hard drive and we purchased new , nor refurb. When asked twice if laptop was refurbished , Dell would not answer the question. We have spent at least 3 hours in the last month on the phone with tech support
and countless emails. It seems like they just want you to wear down and
go away. We have spoken with many different support people and have
been asked the same questions countless times.
We spent over $1600 which is alot of money to us, What happened to Dell ?
I can no longer recommend Dell products to anyone !

 

I've had a dell 17" WUXGA laptop for almost 2 years now.
The WUXGA resolution is great, I use it for mainly browsing, typing up work, programming. It is quite essential to me. I can fir more stuff on screen, and fonts look crystal clear (granted I use linux which does fonts better ).
I worked a couple of weeks on a dell 15.4" WXGA screen, and it was horrible, the letters seemed all pixelated.
I think I have also scaled up the fonts a bit on firefox (I dont like reading too tiny). But the clarity of the fonts man, its insane.

I would not go lower than WUXGA on a 17". Heck, even on a 15.4" I prefer WUXGA.

Another thing to consider is that AFAIK, the contrast ratio of the WUXGAs is more than that of the other screens, this means blacker blacks, and whiter whites. This WUXGA is not as good as the esteemed thinkpad flexviews (not made now), but they are pretty darn good.

Here is a thread I made with screenshots comparing it to a non-flexview thinkpad SXGA+
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=47998
Yes, the thinkpad screens ARE that bad (I've seen recent T60P SXGA+ ones)

Andrew - you should try punching the Dell 17" Precision laptops, even the lid there is metal

BTW, doe the 1720 have a buil in microphone ?

 

Website was very good and easy to use.

Horrible Customer Service. Received acknowledgment of order but no confirmation. Tried email, chatting, talking and talking to a supervisor - none of which could help. Told "order was in collections" (paid with credit card) and "configuration was wrong". Could not cancel because I only had a "Dell Purchase ID" but I did not have a "Dell Order Number" so now I watch to make sure they do not charge me. A complete DISASTER.

This was how Dell treated a customer trying to buy a $2000 laptop. I cannot imagine how they treat people who actually own one of their products. I plan to go back to buying hPs as I have done in the past.

 

I just wanted to give my 2 cents. I bought my 1720 about 4 months ago and have been really pleased. I'm happy with the performance, and while I don't do much gaming, I do some video encoding and even when I keep it at 100% processor (both cores) for 8 hours it doesn't go about 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

The only single issue I have with it is that the power cable is very loose. I can be running it in my lap for a while and it will pop out with the slightest move in the wrong direction. I know this to also happen on the 1520, but not on the 1420. The 1420 not only has a tighter fitting power cable port, but also has it located on the side.

Also, as a side note, I wiped Vista and put Linux on it. I have pretty much everything working in Linux except any events for when you push the wifi button (in Vista it brings up Dell's network selection). If you can get hardware to work in Linux, you can most likely get it to work in XP.

 

I actually had this happen when I tried to order online. First I tried customer service (the online chat was more helpful than telephone), but eventually I had to call Dell's Sales line and they cancelled out the order and placed a new one for me (took a couple days).

 

Greetings good day and welcome
got this thing a few weeks back as a cancelled order. however seems a bit slow to me
was wondering how easy it is to replace the fitted t7250 cpu with a t8300 or t9300 unit?
does anyone know how it is done?
many thanks
Wassi

 

is it possible to connect a games console to this laptop so the aptop can be used as a TV screen, if it can it will save me a few bucks on a new HD ready tv. the console is an xbox 360 if this make any difference

i have lots of cables: s- video a couple of hdmi and a load of audio video ones(red white and yellow plug things)
please reply soon