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Home and small business users requiring a well-designed mainstream notebook with excellent performance and reasonable battery life will like the desktop Pentium 4-based Inspiron 5100

Pros

• Excellent performance
• Reasonable battery life
• Attractive price
• Big display
• Integrated dual-band 802.11a/b wireless antennae.

Cons

• Big and heavy
• Media bay is fixed rather than modular.

Key Specs

The Inspiron 5100's silver case and striking blue lid and mouse buttons herald a new look for Dell portables. Part of the company's high-performing desktop-replacement line, the Inspiron 5100 battery comes with a FireWire port, a 16MB or 32MB ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 AGP graphics card (our review system had 32MB), and a Wi-Fi antenna. To complete the notebook's wireless setup, you'll have to pay $49 for an 802.11b/g Mini-PCI adapter.
A bit on the hefty side, the Inspiron 5100 weighs 8.1 pounds (not including its power adapter) and measures 1.9 inches thick. The Inspiron 5100 battery life, at 1 hour, 48 minutes in our tests, is far from impressive.

There's a lot of real estate for showing off the striking finish, done in what Dell calls Moonlight Silver accented by Venice Blue. The system measures 1.8 by 13.1 by 10.8 inches (HWD), has a system weight of 8.2 pounds, and a travel weight with the transformer of 9.5 pounds—hefty even by desktop replacement standards. Some of the bulk comes from the 12-cell, 1.4-pound lithium ion battery; most batteries are 0.9 to 1.1 pounds. Nevertheless, the charge lasted 3 hours 41 minutes on our Business Winstone BatteryMark 2002 test—competing systems are hard-pressed to break 2:30. The 21.4 on Business Winstone 2002 and 29.2 on Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2003 are in line with what we'd expect from a 2.4-GHz P4 processor and about four-fifths of the scores newer Pentium M (Centrino) CPUs deliver.

When designing its new Inspiron 5150, Dell started with the same sensible case that houses both the Inspiron 5100 and the Inspiron 1100 battery, then filled it full of awesome components such as a 3.06GHz mobile Pentium 4 processor, 333MHz memory, and an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics chip. These parts helped the Inspiron 5150 achieve outstanding scores in CNET Labs' benchmark tests. Additional highlights, such as a DVD+R/+RW drive, 802.11g wireless, and a giant battery, help this machine excel at just about any task, from marathon movie viewing to all-night work sessions. As long as the 8.1-pound Inspiron 5150 stays close to home, it will please even the most finicky laptop users.

It would be impossible to pick the Inspiron 5150 out of a lineup alongside the Inspiron 5100 and the Dell Inspiron 1100 battery because all three systems share the same 13.1-by-10.8-by-1.7-inch, 8.1-pound case. The AC adapter pushes the total weight past the 9.4-pound mark.

For the price, the Inspiron 5100 is a good deal, and you're better served by picking the more fully equipped model than the $1,099 entry-level model. Conversely, those who do little more than Web browsing, e-mailing, and word processing can save $200 with the $899 Celeron-based Inspiron 1100.

System configurations:

Alienware Area-51m
Windows XP Professional; 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 64MB; IBM Travelstar 40GN 40GB 5,400rpm

Dell Inspiron 5150
Windows XP Home; 3.06GHz Intel Mobile Pentium 4; 512MB DDR SDRAM 333MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 64MB; Hitachi DK23EB-40 40GB 5,400rpm

Eurocom D470W
Windows XP Professional; 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 333MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 64MB; Fujitsu MHS2030AT 30GB 4,200rpm

Dell offers an industry-standard one-year warranty with the Inspiron 5150, which includes free parts and labor repairs through return-to-depot service. Toll-free, 24/7 phone support is included in the plan, as well. For various prices of up to approximately $300, the company offers a whole host of extended support options. The options include four years of free service; onsite repairs by a Dell tech representative; accidental-damage protection; and express service, which bumps your tech-support calls to the front of the queue.

Dell's extensive support Web site includes convenient features such as a list of the top 10 FAQs, a hints-and-tips section, and a customer community where you can gab with other users about your tech issues.