Dell Inspiron e1405 with 1.66GHz Core Duo Processor Review (pics, specs)

by Ben Housman

Overview:

The Dell e1405 is a portable media laptop that Dell has recently released to replace the XPS M140. The E1405 has excellent battery life, a slew of multimedia functions that can make a grown man cry and the best laptop processors currently on the market.

Dell Inspiron E1405 Specs as reviewed:

[specs]

• Processor: Intel Core Duo T2300 (1.66Ghz)
• Operating System: Windows Media Center Edition
• Hard Drive: 60GB 5400RPM SATA
• Screen: 14" WXGA+ (1440 x 900) with Trulife
• Memory: 512mb DDR533
• Graphics: Intel Integrated GMA 950
• Optical Drive: 24x CD-RW/DVD-ROM
• Battery: 6-Cell
• Wireless: Intel 3945 802.11a/b/g

[/specs]

Dell Inspiron e1405 (view large image)

Reasons for buying:

I was looking for a laptop on the smaller side of 15.4" that would be easily portable from room to room in my house but also good on road trips where watching a movie could be the only thing to save your sanity. After trying the Compaq V4000T, which ran extremely hot and was bulky, I knew I wanted something smaller and more portable. Given a few months and I narrowed my choices down to the Dell e1405 and the Apple Macbook. But again with heat issues and the new reports of the plastic on Macbooks turning colors, and due to a better price oftheDell machine, I decided to go with the E1405.My configuraton for the e1405 came to $640 + tax due to some pretty good deals going on at the time of purchase.

Initial Impressions:

This laptop is much smaller then I had expected. I had used a 15.4" laptop in the pastwas so I was thinking a 14.1"would be close to the same size. Another feature of the E1405 that struck me is the thickness. On paper 1.5" sounds deep for a laptop but when carrying it around you don't really notice it too much. I'm not a fan of the white bumpers that the e1405 and allrecent Inspiron laptopscarry though.

Dell Inspiron e1405 setup next to a desktop LCD screen and keyboard (view large image)

Build Quality and Design:

The build quality on the E1405 is nothing to write home about, butat the same time itisn't bad. When picking the laptop up from one corner you can hear it creaking, but I still feel confident enough picking it up with one hand. Another weak pointis the hinges. When pushing on the inside of the hinges you can hear a cracking sound that isn't too pleasant. Also, when the laptop is closed if you're looking at it from the front you can see a small gap on the right side between the laptop and the LCD. It's almost as if the plastic was warped.

Above view of Inspiron e1405 (view large image)

Size comparison, Dell Inspiron e1705 on the left and Dell Inspiron e1405 on the Right (view large image)

Screen:

The screen is a Samsung WXGA+ 1440 x 900 with the Trulife glossy coating over it (currently Dell only offers this screen with Trulife). The first thing that l noticed with this screen is the light leakage. When booting up for the first time on theXP loading screen there was about an inch of light appearing across the entire bottom of the laptop. But once on the desktop I didn't really notice the light leakage. It's only apparent when watching some movies with a black bar on the top and bottom or doing something else on it that is dark.

Viewing angles are not the best on the market. Horizontal viewing angles are pretty good and I can move my head to the left and right pretty far without noticing any distorting or colors changing. But with vertical angles there's only one sweet spot: the center. Moving your head either up or down an inch or more and everything looks degraded. If you move your head down everything becomes darker while moving your head up will make everything brighter. The glossy Trulife coating on the screen brings out the colors and contrast well while the reflections don't really bother me. I have read on the NotebookReview forums that many people dislike the glossy screen for their reflective nature, but for me this is not the case.

e1405 Screen (view large image)

Sound:

The speakers aren't fantastic on the E1405, but theyare adequate. When watching a movie they sound slightly tinny, but are loud and good enough for general use. I recommend thatif you use the speakers often topick upa pair of headphones or external speakers. I used my Sony MDR-V700 DJ quality headphoneson them and they sounded great.

Processor and Performance:

I chose the 1.66GHz Core Duo T2300 processor for my e1405and I find that it is very snappy. I often watch a DVD in one corner of the screen while chatting on MSN and browsing the web without slowdown. Also, Dell put a service panel on the bottom of the laptop that when unscrewed (only 3 screws) you have complete access to the processor and heatsink. 4 more screws and the heatsink is off and you can just pop a Core 2 Duo CPU in there --assuming Dell releases bios that supports it.

Benchmarks

Super Pi

Super Pi is a program that forces the notebook processor to calculate Pi to 2-million digits of accuracy. Thee1405took 1m 26s to calculate this value with its1.66 GHz Core Duo processor, here's how it stacked up to other notebooks:

Notebook	Time
Dell Inspiron e1405 (1.66 GHz Core Duo)	1m 26s
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 12s
Lenovo Z61m (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 16s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 45s
IBM ThinkPad Z60m(2.0 GHz Pentium M)	1m 36s
Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 (1.73 GHz Pentium M)	1m 48s
Dell Inspiron 6000D (1.6 GHz Pentium M)	1m 52s
Dell Inspiron 600M (1.6 GHz Pentium M)	2m 10s
HP Pavilion dv4000(1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 39s
Asus V6Va(Pentium M 1.86 GHz)	1m 46s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s

PCMark04

Here's how thee1405 stacked up in PCMark04 results against other notebooks. This result considers system performance as a whole (processor, graphics card, hard drive) and is a better indication of how thee1405 performs compared to other notebooks:

Notebook	PCMark04 Results
Dell Inspiron e1405(1.66 GHz Core Duo)	4,430 PCMarks
Dell XPS M1210 (2.13 GHz Core Duo)	6,033 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron XPS2 (2.0GHzIntel Pentium M)	4,082 PCMarks
Acer Aspire 5002 WLMi (AMD Turion 64 ML-301.6GHz)	2,392 PCmarks
Acer TravelMate 4400 (AMD Turion ML-30, 1.6GHz)	3,104 PCMarks
Toshiba Tecra A6 (1.66GHz IntelCore Duo)	2,653 PCMarks
PortableOneSR2(Intel Pentium M Dothan 735 1.7GHz)	3,274 PCMarks

Gaming:

This is not a section you would expect for the E1405, but it doesn't do bad on older games. Counter Strike 1.6 at 1440 x 900 will get you 50-60fps. Playing Trackmania Nations at 1440 x 900 on low settings + 8x af gets me a playable 20-30fps. I haven't tried any other games but I hear that games such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Need for Speed: Most Wanted should run on lower settings.

Hard Drive:

The hard drive that l ordered with my E1405 is a 60GB 5400RPM SATA. It is not fast but runs very cool. The only negative about it is that it comes with 2MB ofcache instead of the 8MB that is nearly standard these days, this causes some slowdown:

Ports and Inputs:

The Dell e1405 has an average amount of ports considering the size of the laptop. It has 4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 VGA-out, 1 S-Video port, headphone jack, microphone jack, 4-in-1 media card reader,Express Cardslot (noPCMCIA slot), 10/100 ethernet, modem, and firewire.

Dell Inspiron e1405 front side view(view large image)

Dell Inspiron e1405 left side view (view large image)

Dell Inspiron e1405 back side view(view large image)

Dell Inspiron e1405 right side view (view large image)

Wireless:

I configured my e1405 with the Intel 3945 802.11a/b/g wifi card and so far it lives up to my expectations. I'm sitting on the couch on the 1st floor typing this and l have an "Excellent" signal quality from my router which is on the 2nd floor.

Heat and Noise:

The e1405 runs very cool by nature. After boot up the processor hangs between 25-30C and about 10 minutes later it hovers in the 30's. When the temp gets to 41C the fan kicks in until the temp drops to 40C or lower. The fan is extremely quiet and unless the room is entirely quiet you won't even noticeit. You can use this laptop on your lap without a problem; the bottom of the laptop gets warm but never to a point that would become uncomfortable.

Keyboard and Touchpad:

Dell Inspiron e1405 keyboard (view large image)

This keyboard has no issues that I can find. Key travel is average, there is no flex when typing and aside from the F1-F12 buttons and the ones above the keys are full size. The only issue with the keyboard for me is that I can't tell the difference between one key and another when the room is dark, but that's a problem with just about all laptop keyboards, or maybe I needto improve my night vision. The touchpad is satisfactory, but l often use a mouse in place of it. There is an option in the software to turn the touchpad and buttons off if you wish to do so.

Battery:

I opted to get the 6 cell battery to save $100, but at the same time l was worried l would be plagued with 2 hour battery life like withmy previous CompaqV400T. This is NOT the case at all with the E1405! On 6/8 brightness,Wi-Fi on and browsing the web while listening to musicI consistently get over 3 hours of battery life. The battery also has a small strip ofLED lights that has a small button you can press to tell you how much charge is left in the battery, whetherthe laptop ison or not. This can be a handy feature to use in case you need to know if you'll need your power brick when going out somewhere without turning the laptop on. Note, that this is also on most of not all other Dell laptops.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, I am happy with my purchase and while this laptop has its flaws they don't detract enough from the experience of owning it and using it on a daily basis. For $640 I couldn't think of a better laptop for the price that could come close to outperforming it. I would recommend the e1405 to anyone that's looking for a budget laptop that has a small screen but doesn't skimp on features.

Pros:

• Small size
• Excellent battery life
• Keyboard is nice to type on
• Fast processor and performance

Cons:

• Screen has light leakage across the bottom
• Build quality is average if not slightly below.
• Hard Drive is on the slow side

 

A nice review. Glad that the e1405 is at least working out better for you than the Compaq v4000t. Are you still happy with the e1405 since getting it?

It's strange to me how the comments regarding light leakage is so varied, an inch of light at the bottom is a lot, but in the last review of the e1405 with the same screen it looked pretty normal in terms of light leakage http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2950&review=Dell+Inspiron+e1405

 

Yeah I think there are two or possibly three different brands of 1440 x 900 LCD's that Dell uses on this. I am still extremely happy with my purchase and the only thing I can think of upgrading at this point is the memory (although dell is running a current offer with free 1gb upgrade).

I dislocated my knee last week and I have been laying in bed much of the time because I couldn't bend my leg to sit in front of the computer chair. Having this laptop helped me out alot especially when typing up the review

 

Great review!

In the E1705 and E1405 pic, is the E1705 on max brightness as the E1405? The E1405 looks much brighter

 

I dont know, thats not my pic

Abaxter threw that in from someone elses.

 

Unreal,

One slight error on your spec review... the Inspiron E1405 DOES have Express Slot, it lacks the PCMCIA card slot.

 

Great review Unreal. For the money, can't beat the E1405. Dell definitely has the edge over its competitors when it comes to screen options - they offer the WXGA+ on their 14" - no other company does that in the US; LG has one model in Canada.

Also I am glad to hear it runs both cool and quiet, both would be very important factors in my buying decision.

Chaz

 

Nice review, thanks Ben. I've thought many times about buying this notebook, myself, (you can get it now with a 20" LCD for around $850), but Dell still hasn't offered any dedicated graphics cards. Even adding the option of an ATI x1400 would change this from a nice notebook to a great notebook.

 

Your right varco but I still think it plays games great. I didn't get a chance to mention this in the review but the other day I installed CS:CZ and again at 1440 x 900 it plays great.

 

it would be helpful if you could include some pics of the light leakage? in that paragraph you say it's the first thing you noticed, but in the side-by-side pic, it looks pretty perfect to me.

 

I put that picture in from hazel_motes review, it's here http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2950&review=Dell+Inspiron+e1405

 

nice catch scorpio, I think he meant to say that but got the two switched, I'll fix that.

 

That pic isn't mine, its from another review. But I'll try to get a pic of the light leakage later if I can.

 

Great review, Unreal. Anyway, it was I who took the picture with the e1705 and e1405 side-by-side, and I'm nearly positive both were on maximum brightness. I don't have the e1405 anymore, but I do remember its screen as being very visually appealing, whereas that of the e1705, which I own, is more or less average. The glare-type screen just seemed much brighter, more vivid and sharp, though that particular picture may exaggerate the differences somewhat. Also, the e1405 light leakage was very minor and no bother at all. I thought the e1405 was a fantastic buy for someone looking to pay $700 or so.

 

How much is the capacity of the extended battery?

 

Nice review, Unreal. For $640, its a steal!

 

Its a 9 cell, and the battery that I have with my E1405 is a 6 cell.

 

Thanks for the review. Amasing you got it for $640.

 

UPDATE:

I just finished downloading CS:S and gave it a test run to see how it would perform on integrated graphics and I have nothing but good news I ran it at the following settings and I got 29.93 fps on the stress test:



I didn't try testing it at native res cause I didn't think it could handle it. But I will try it later at 1440 x 900.

 

I just ordered the 1405 with some added extras. Here's my specs:

Intel® Core™ processor Duo T2400 (2MB Cache/1.83GHz/667MHz FSB)
Memory 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 1 DIMM
Hard Drive 60GB 7200RPM Sata Hard Drive
Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy™ HD Software Edition
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

Everything else was the standard. I really wanted 2GB but Dell's prices were too high. I can get another 1GB from crucial for far less.

Just wondering how those who have the laptop like it still? I have an Averatec 3120v now so I know this will be a huge upgrade.

 

heheh

It is definitely one of the best budget notebooks out there. I just got mine with Intel Core2Duo T5550 @ 1.66Ghz 1GB RAM and 80GB Hard Drive.