I took charge of our new Inspirion 1520 laptop today and thought I'd just
comment on a few things I found.
First of all, I have to say the build quality of these Dell laptops is
excellent...'solidly built and they look the part too. Nothing that could be
called flimsy here. I powered up...'it took an age to first-boot, but not so
slow later on a reboot. The Dell media center program is a nice touch
outside windows. Vista....'is awful. I went with the flow, but I am trying
hard to like it. XP just feels more like home to me. The display as set
to maximum and looked terrible. I a*sed around with all the usual obvious
controls like brightness, changed font size, tried every resolution there
was, but the picture quality was so grainy and over contrasted it looked
like a washed out old photograph. I was thinking "back you go to Dell, you
**** laptop". How could they send me a laptop with such a poor quality
screen?! Shame on you Dell.
Then I decided to download the latest video driver for the Nvidia 8600 GT
card. I did, and then accidentally found more settings for things like
contrast, gamma, digital vibrance etc.,. Result? A truly amazing quality
photographic image replaced the previous abomination. God, how relieved was
I to see this?! In all honesty, the display is about as good as anything
I've ever seen on a flat panel monitor, and certainly better than most.
You need a mouse btw! That bloody touchpad thingy is not for the oldies.
There's a feature of Vista that I hate and wish I knew how to turn it off.
It's the thing where you are looking at some options like 'Save', 'Close',
'Delete', etc., and about a second after you hover on a button, it executes
the command as if you had pressed the left mouse button. A real bugger to
get on with if you're a slow-coach. (Anyone know how to kill this?).
Vista is far too security-concsious imo, and asks the same question too many
times. Also, that Aero interface...'what a waste of processor speed. Next
up....'I found the mouse they sent me. Aye! One of those ones with two
extra buttons on the inside and you forever keep accidentally clicking them
and going back to the previous webpage and so on. Nightmarish! So, then I
found this 'mouse studio' and set the buttons to 'do nothing', then clicked
'apply'....'and it did nothing. Rebooted too, but still the ****ed buttons
screed up my surfing. Grr!
I compared my laptop's screen to my 20" Dell widescreen...'the jury is still
out on that one. But, I am not a fan of the new LCD/TFT stuff at all. Reason
being, I am typing this on a pin-sharp and truly rock-solid display...'a
Mitsubishi Diamondtron FST CRT! Yes! It just can't be beaten for sheer
clarity...'it is soo sharp and colourful and I can view it from any angle.
New tehnology? Keep it. Anyhoo, the new Dell is still to be fully tested and
will have to earn it's keep.
Full specs are....
Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 Processor (1.5GHz,667MHz,2MB L2 cache)
15.4" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display with TrueLife
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
nVidia GeForce Go 8600M GT with 256MB DDR2 dedicated graphic memory
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Software
Nice write up Joe. First thing I do is turn off user account control (go to
control panel>user account) then to the security center to turn off the
nagging popup that the user account control has been turned off.
"Joe" <NoMail@thgbdkfyhemy.com> wrote in message
news:l9p5j.53741$JA1.813@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk ...
>
> I took charge of our new Inspirion 1520 laptop today and thought I'd just
> comment on a few things I found.
>
> First of all, I have to say the build quality of these Dell laptops is
> excellent...'solidly built and they look the part too. Nothing that could
> be called flimsy here. I powered up...'it took an age to first-boot, but
> not so slow later on a reboot. The Dell media center program is a nice
> touch outside windows. Vista....'is awful. I went with the flow, but I am
> trying hard to like it. XP just feels more like home to me. The display
> as set to maximum and looked terrible. I a*sed around with all the usual
> obvious controls like brightness, changed font size, tried every
> resolution there was, but the picture quality was so grainy and over
> contrasted it looked like a washed out old photograph. I was thinking
> "back you go to Dell, you **** laptop". How could they send me a laptop
> with such a poor quality screen?! Shame on you Dell.
> Then I decided to download the latest video driver for the Nvidia 8600 GT
> card. I did, and then accidentally found more settings for things like
> contrast, gamma, digital vibrance etc.,. Result? A truly amazing quality
> photographic image replaced the previous abomination. God, how relieved
> was I to see this?! In all honesty, the display is about as good as
> anything I've ever seen on a flat panel monitor, and certainly better than
> most.
>
> You need a mouse btw! That bloody touchpad thingy is not for the oldies.
> There's a feature of Vista that I hate and wish I knew how to turn it off.
> It's the thing where you are looking at some options like 'Save', 'Close',
> 'Delete', etc., and about a second after you hover on a button, it
> executes the command as if you had pressed the left mouse button. A real
> bugger to get on with if you're a slow-coach. (Anyone know how to kill
> this?).
>
> Vista is far too security-concsious imo, and asks the same question too
> many times. Also, that Aero interface...'what a waste of processor speed.
> Next up....'I found the mouse they sent me. Aye! One of those ones with
> two extra buttons on the inside and you forever keep accidentally clicking
> them and going back to the previous webpage and so on. Nightmarish! So,
> then I found this 'mouse studio' and set the buttons to 'do nothing', then
> clicked 'apply'....'and it did nothing. Rebooted too, but still the ****ed
> buttons screed up my surfing. Grr!
>
> I compared my laptop's screen to my 20" Dell widescreen...'the jury is
> still out on that one. But, I am not a fan of the new LCD/TFT stuff at
> all. Reason being, I am typing this on a pin-sharp and truly rock-solid
> display...'a Mitsubishi Diamondtron FST CRT! Yes! It just can't be beaten
> for sheer clarity...'it is soo sharp and colourful and I can view it from
> any angle. New tehnology? Keep it. Anyhoo, the new Dell is still to be
> fully tested and will have to earn it's keep.
>
> Full specs are....
>
> Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 Processor (1.5GHz,667MHz,2MB L2 cache)
>
> 15.4" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display with TrueLife
>
> 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
>
> 160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
>
> nVidia GeForce Go 8600M GT with 256MB DDR2 dedicated graphic memory
>
> Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Software
>
> Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)
>
> Dell Optical Scroll Premium USB Mouse
>
> 56.6k V.92 Capable Internal Modem & Adapter - UK
>
> Any opinions and/or advice appreciated.
>
> Joe.
>
>
>
New Inspirion 1520 laptop 
The display as set 
Linear Mode
