86 of 90 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great CPU for the price, January 9, 2010
This review is from: Dell Inspiron 11 11.6-Inch Obsidian Black Laptop (Windows 7 Premium) (Personal Computers)
I want to add one thing that is perhaps easy to overlook with this laptop: it has the best CPU in it's class and price range. Most notebooks with an 11.6 inch screen have a Celeron CPU (such as the new Acer 1410 series). This means less cache and no "Intel Speedstep" which is an important power saving feature (mostly used when in battery mode). Celeron laptops will drain your battery quickly when you use any compute heavy task. The other common CPU is a single core "Core Solo". The single core CPUs have the bad habit of slowing to a crawl whenever the anti-virus kicks in (because it can't offload that task to the second core) and being generally slow if you run any internet security software(which any sane person would today but adds a lot of background CPU tasks that can run on a second core if you have one). You can step up to a full Core2 Duo, but that can add 20%-30% onto the cost (see the Acer Timeline series).
Dell did the right thing here when they used the 1.3GHz Intel Pentium SU4100 Processor. It has two cores, 2MB cache (twice the Celeron but 2/3 the more expensive Core2 Duo), and a 800MHz memory bus (vs. the Celeron's 667Mhz). And it has the all important SpeedStep technology found in the more expensive Core2 Duo. The only major feature it lacks is Virtualization, which is mostly a server technology which no home application to speak of. It uses the same core as the more expensive Core2 Duo so aside from the smaller cache the basic performance is the same (though some Core2 Duos have faster memory bus). It's the best fit price/performance wise but lately it's been passed over for the cheaper Celeron but vendors who count on consumers not knowing any better.
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59 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just received this computer, December 4, 2009
This review is from: Dell Inspiron 11 11.6-Inch Obsidian Black Laptop (Windows 7 Premium) (Personal Computers)
Very nice computer but I want to share a couple of specifics that others have questioned.
1. This comes with a 6 cell battery so it sticks out on the bottom in back. Very good battery life- about 7 hours yesterday.
2. Windows 7 is the 64-bit version.
3. There is 4 GB Ram.
Much faster than my Dell mini 9 and only slightly larger. So far, I love it.
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43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
My experience so far, February 24, 2010
This review is from: Dell Inspiron 11 11.6-Inch Obsidian Black Laptop (Windows 7 Premium) (Personal Computers)
Hello,
I've had my product over a month now.
THE GOOD:
The OS is 64bit Windows 7. Can't complain about that. I am happy with the size of the laptop and screen resolution. I find this has respectable battery life. The weight is quite comfortable for me. I have gone for at 2 hours with moderate and peaked down at my battery display at the halfway mark or a little less. I would risk going to a coffee shop without my charger on this laptop. This laptop does not burn my lap. I don't know if it is because the battery keeps it from laying flat. This a complaint for some people but I find that I like this. This unit has an HDMI which I am ecstatic about. It means I can connect it to HD TVs on my travels. So far I have tested it with 720p content to my satisfaction. I've read reviews where it is said to work well at 1080p with some tweaking.
MAJOR REASON TO CONSIDER NOT BUYING:
If you intend to use the built in touch bad a lot you may be in for major annoyance. On almost any review you read about this laptop they will complain about this touchpad. I agree with them. it is what stops this laptop from being FANTASTIC. I am a person who has never pulled out a mouse to use a laptop. This laptop has had me do that several times. It is also really easy to re-size the screen size without meaning too. I realize Dell meant this as a feature but I find this all counter intuitive. The left and right mouse button areas are also too small. I find myself using my left hand to hold down the left mouse button while using the right hand to scroll when highlighting. They've provided software updates to this, but I have noticed no performance improvement. They need to redesign this.
MINOR (RELATIVELY) ANNOYANCES:
No DVD Burner internally or externally. Its absence makes the drive lighter. Depending on your needs you may opt to buy a small external that you keep in your laptop case or buy a laptop with one built in. I think the primary annoyance for me is if I need to rebuild my machine from using a DVD. Be sure to create the emergency recover disc as soon as possible.
This is not a gaming laptop. It cannot handle graphically intense games. But I imagine the people who buy this laptop are not looking for that. If your game requirements are light you'll be happy. Besides, the touchpad is just awful for playing any game that requires mouselike interaction.
There is no drive activity light. Not a showstopper by ANY means.
To wrap it up.
Be prepared for the touch-pad. It is JUST as annoying as people say. It is the ONLY reason I don't give it four stars.
Plan for the lack of a DVD/CD burner just as you would any netbook. It does not have to be showstopper. Just be prepared. Have a recover plan and be good about backing up important data via, Network, USB or External burner.
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