February 9th, 2009

Dell Inspiron 1525 Review

I purchased a blue Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop near the end of last year to use as my main “work station”. Out of the box it came with Windows Vista but I was quick to switch to Ubuntu Linux and needless to say I have been pretty pleased with the machine. Here is my review on the laptop.

Dell Inspiron 1525 Review

The Tech Specs

These specs will vary from machine to machine. The one I purchased had the following specs…

  • 15.4-inch WXGA (1280 x 800) TrueLife (glossy) screen
  • 1.73 GHz Dual Core T2370 processor
  • 1GB DDR2-667 SDRAM (takes up to 4GB – which I upgraded to)
  • 160GB 5400 RPM SATA HDD
  • 8x Dual-layer DVD±RW drive
  • Intel Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller
  • Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g Wireless Card
  • 4 USB 2.0, HDMI, VGA, IEEE 1394a, RJ11, RJ45, 2 headphone, 1 microphone, 1 ExpressCard 54mm slot, 3 mini-card slots, S-Video

The Good

  • Price – You definitely get a bang for you buck with the Inspiron 1525 series. I paid R7000 (About $650-700) for my machine and I couldn’t find a better deal at the time from the other brands/manufacturers. My machine came with Windows Vista home edition and a 3 year on site warranty.
  • Performance – I am judging the performance based on the intended market for this machine which is probably a lower end user. For tasks such as word processing, browsing internet, email, editing photos which an application such as picasa, this machine performs very well. Windows Vista is known to be quite a resource hog and with the 1gig of RAM and Dual Core Processor, the machine ran decently.
  • The Look And Feel – This machine is quite a pretty machine. It obviously aint no Macbook, but it comes in various different colors and is pleasing to the eye. The keys and mouse are laid out nicely and I also like the fact that the touchpad mouse has a scroll bar down the side.

The Not So Good

  • RAM (For heavier users) – I run some pretty CPU and Memory intensive software and I found that it lagged a little with just the 1gig of RAM when I opened multiple pieces of software. This was totally expected though. After upgrading to the 4gigs of RAM that it can take and installing Ubuntu 64bit edition, it flies :)
  • Volume Touch Pad – Something that is quite frustrating and you will have to learn to deal with if you purchase this machine is the volume touch pad that is on the base of the laptop. It is jittery and quite annoying. I have mostly resulted to using the volume control in Ubuntu. I have noticed though that other manufacturers are using similar volume touchpads. I was testing a brand new, top of the range HP the other day and it had a very similar volume touch pad with the same issues as the Dell Inspiron 1525 volume touchpad.
  • Built-in Webcam – I know, I know, you can get the model with a webcam built in, but I didn’t and I wish I had. It is the one thing on the machine that I really still want.

Overall, it is a decent machine that I would recommend to a business person, student, mom etc who uses office software frequently and does other light computing tasks such as surfing the web and email.

If you are a heavy user you will definitely want to upgrade the RAM and perhaps even install a 64bit operating system (be careful though, some of your software that ran on your 32bit operating system, may not run on the 64bit system). With a RAM upgrade you will definitely notice a huge difference in the system performance and it will actually run all your software very nicely, even with multiple processes running.

4 Comments


4 Comments

  • Laura, September 1, 2009:

    I am a student using a 1525 right now and I love it. It is actually enjoyable to type on and it’s design is quite appealing. I have to disagree with you though, I like the volume touch pad and only see positives from it. I did get the built in web cam and a friend of mine didn’t and she’s jealous. I have no complaints about my machine. Nice review.

  • The Headphone Guy, September 9, 2009:

    I hate the volume touchpad!! I have one on my HP and it’s alwasy causing problems. I’ll mute it when I’m away from ym computer and it will randomly turn on!!

    I’m in the market for a new laptop- do you know if I can get this model without the volume touchpad, or how to disable it?

  • Matt, September 9, 2009:

    Hey Headphone Guy,

    As far as I am aware, you cannot buy the model without the volume touchpad. Annoyingly, most laptops these days come with a touchpad :(

    - Matt

  • sanjay, October 14, 2009:

    I want to purcase this laptop please contact me on my cell

    Sanjaya = 9900204257

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