Great laptop for surfing, email and productivity applications
I had this netbook for about a week now and have been used to varying degrees every day. I bought it to use as an inexpensive second machine for home and travel. I was very surprised by how it works for web browsing, checking email, and perform typical office tasks (eg creating docs in Word). I was also pleasantly surprised by its ability to support video playback. I did not expect it to support video at all well. I do not have the model that supports HD video since it was not available on Amazon.Unlike some other netbook keyboards I’ve tried in stores, the keyboard on this machine is fantastic with very good comments. The size is almost that of a laptop keyboard full size. Even with large hands and a preference for the butterfly keyboard, I find I can type on it very well.
The display is sharp and clear. Color seems to be good for the occasional user. However, viewing angles are limited. I guess that’s to be expected in this price range. The display should be in front of you perpendicular to your line of sight for a better display. I’m used to using a Dell UltraSharp 24-inch with my office and my work laptop is a Dell Latitude D830 – two viewing angles are much better.
The touchpad works well, but the integration of the pad and buttons to make it more cumbersome than using a traditional pad with dedicated buttons. I found more annoying when you try to catch something and drag. Buttons can also be difficult to push.
Battery life was about as advertised. I get about 6-7 hours per charge.
As mentioned above, I was impressed by the machine capacity to support video playback. It seems to handle standard definition flash vids (YouTube), Windows Media Video, vids and Silverlight (Netflix streaming movies) without any problems. I took the machine to the appointment of my son’s doctor recently. They have wifi and I was able to stream video from two [...] and [...] without any problems at all.
He struggles with HD content like you find on YouTube and with 640×480 AVI as your typical point and shoot camera records. I have some AVI 320×240 to play well.
I uninstalled MS Works and installed a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student. Desktop applications works very well to my surprise.
I had two problems with the machine performance. One was temporary and was when I first started the machine. Dell had installed several software packages to run in the first startup. This has slowed the machine, while those over. The second occurs when you play HD video like you find on YouTube. Video and audio are very choppy when playing HD video. Other than that, the machine works fine.
The Windows Experience Index is 2.3 for this machine with the CPU score is 2.3. The video is respectively 3.0 and 3.1 for graphics and gaming graphics. Memory is 4.6 and 5.9 disc.
My biggest annoyance with the machine is all shiny surfaces show fingerprints and dust very easily.
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