There is no doubt that the Dell Inspiron 1520 is the counterpart of the Inspiron 1720. Considering the outlook only, it is apparently the same notebook, but smaller. It has the same curves and even the same color choice.
Not absolutely, the design of the display cover can be freely chosen. Therewith Dell follows the increasing shift to individual design.
The reviewed notebook had a matte black display cover surface, which felt velvety, nearly rubberized. The coating appeared very robust in contrary to the diverse glossy piano coatings.
The decent silver case has a good flexural rigidity and pressure resistance. Handling the notebook, no creaking noise got evident, besides when pressing the display cover. The size of the gaps above the keyboard could not completely convince. Besides the left gap was bigger than the right one, the size of the gap was generally too big, as its width is more than 1mm.
The two hinges were unable to hold the 15" inch display without some wobbling. Still, they seemed robust and durable. The display in light clamshell design is securely locked by a ramshorn hook. But, you can detect a clear possible wobbling of the display, if closed.
The rather sparely provided interfaces are distributed at the back side and the back parts of the notebook's flanks. This order is user-friendly as the front side and the areas beside the notebook are free of disturbing cable spaghetti.
We especially missed a video port - a digital video out. The size of the plug was the mostly brought forward argument that a DVI could not be provided, but, this excuse won't hold water any longer since the introduction of the HDMI port.
Dell's latest Inspiron range not only uses Intel's latest Centrino technology for speed and power, but also adds a dash of colour for style. Internally, the dell Inspiron 1520 battery looks similar to the older models, but the new external aesthetic combined with the powerful components makes for a great all purpose machine that can handle most tasks you'll throw at it.
Our review model runs on Windows Vista Home Premium and offers one of the high-end Centrino Duo CPUs from Intel's latest Centrino platform (Santa Rosa), the T7500 2.20GHz CPU with an 800MHz front side bus (FSB). Not only is the processor speedy, but the greater bandwidth of the larger FSB allows more of that power to be put to use.
Also installed is 2GB of DDR2 RAM; an amount that seems to be fairly standard with many of the new Centrino notebooks. Rather than rely on Intel's new graphics chip, Dell has chosen to install an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics chip for a little more oomph. All up these components helped the Inspiron 1520 do well in our tests and we were impressed by its performance in our battery tests, too.
One thing that can easily be said about most low cost notebook computers is that they lack much in terms of style. Dell is trying to break that image by offering their latest Inspiron notebook computers in seven colors other than black. Of course, you still can get black if you want something that fits in with the crowd. The real question is what about the rest of the computer. Does it perform as well as it looks? Find out more in my review of the budget oriented Inspiron 1520 laptop.
This is a comprehensive specification, which also includes an upgraded 1,440 x 900 display and an extended 9-cell dell inspiron 1520 battery. However, one can't help feeling that this particular configuration is a little unbalanced. The benefit of HSDPA in a notebook that weighs in excess of 3kg and features a 15.4in display is questionable, and with this included the price is a by no means cheap - £1,100 inc. VAT and shipping. I'd sooner drop the expensive HSDPA module for a faster 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, which would really boost overall performance. It goes without saying that this configurability is one of the main attractions of buying a Dell over other brands such as Toshiba or Acer, and this is something I'll explore further later on in the piece.
