Dell Inspiron E1505
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Review Date: 18th July' 2006

If you're looking for a decent general purpose media center notebook that won't burn a hole in your wallet then the Inspiron E1505 is just for you.

Replacing the old Dell Inspiron 6000, the E1505 is lighter and more powerful yet retains its familiar external design.

Besides being powered by Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition 2005, the E1505 also features Dell's MediaDirect pre-boot environment. Here you'll be able to almost instantly access your videos/DVDs, music and photos without the need to boot into Windows.

Despite being a "Media Center" notebook, the E1505 does not come with an integrated TV-Tuner. You do however get the option to purchase a USB version separately. Another media related component worth mentioning is the speakers, although not of any top brand they do provide excellent sound quality - for notebook speakers at least.

In addition, as a media center notebook the screen is of high importance and Dell does not disappoint. The Inspiron E1505 is equipped with a 15.4" transflective wide screen display that is very sharp with good color saturation, high contrast and satisfactory brightness.

Perhaps the best part of the Inspiron E1505 is it's price/performance ratio. At a bargain price you get amazing performance. Powered by Intel's Core Duo processor with speed up to 2.0Ghz and having ample (1GB) of the speedy DDR2 RAM ensures such high performance. In addition, you get a dedicated graphics chip in the form of the ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 which may not be the best around but it surely beats any integrated graphics system. Lastly, Dell made a wise performance driven decision in including a 7200RPM SATA hard drive with the Inspiron E1505, this greatly reduces boot and software load times.

Battery life is quite respectable, although not impressive. Watching a DVD movie at full brightness depletes the battery in 2.5 hours. With light usage, the WiFi turned off and the screen dimmed the battery can last up to 4 hours. Normal usage yields a battery time of about 3 hours. The good news is that the optional 9-cell battery can provide a 50% longer battery life and it's the same physical size as the standard 6-cell battery.

The Dell E1505 also manages to stay quite under normal usage and it also stays mostly cool.

Overall, this Inspiron E1505 notebook is a great choice for technology enthusiasts who don't have much to spend. At a great bargain price (as usually expected from Dell), you get top performance, superb components, a wonderful screen, excellent speakers, and respectable battery life; all in a cool & quiet media center notebook.