Carla Thornton
Dell Inspiron 4100
If you share a laptop with other people in your office, you'll appreciate the Inspiron 4100's removable hard drive, dual pointing devices, and multipurpose bay, which can accommodate any one of eight different devices. Among the possibilities are a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combination drive (included at this price) and a supplementary battery. You can jazz up the 4100's business-gray case by swapping in colorful screen backs and palm rests ($20 extra for a set of four).Equipped with Intel's mobile 1.2-GHz/800-MHz Pentium III-M processor for notebooks and running Windows 2000, the Inspiron 4100 posted a mark of 107 on our PC WorldBench 4 test suite. Nevertheless, its performance is not particularly impressive compared with portables using similar processors. For example, Gateway's Solo 9550xl, equipped with a 1.13-GHz/733-MHz Pentium III-M CPU, earned a PC WorldBench 4 score of 107, as well.
Aside from its faster processor, bigger hard drive, higher screen resolution, and new combination optical drive, the 4100 is a rehash of its predecessor, the Inspiron 4000. A one-bay notebook, the 4100 weighs less than 6 pounds when equipped with a hollow travel module. With the combination drive inserted into the bay and the floppy drive attached externally to the parallel port, the unit tips the scales at 8.1 pounds, fairly typical for a laptop of its configuration. Aside from offering an S-Video port for connecting to a TV, the 4100 isn't much of a multimedia machine. Audio is just as mediocre in this model as it was in the Inspiron 4000. On the bright side, you can increase the screen resolution from 1400 by 1050 to 1600 by 1200 pixels (the new maximum for 14.1-inch screens). Documentation is plentiful but mostly electronic and a little disorganized, with multiple desktop shortcuts to the same manuals. The lithium-ion battery lasted 2 minutes shy of 3 hours on one charge--an average length of time for this class of notebook.
With its flexible design and fashion sense, the Inspiron 4100 should please small companies looking for a lightweight, configurable, fun-to-accessorize travel machine. If you like to listen to CDs on your notebook while you work, however, you may be disappointed.
| Buying Information |
| Dell Inspiron 4100 PC WorldBench 4 score of 107, 1.2-GHz/800-MHz Pentium III-M, 256MB of RAM, 512KB L2 cache, Windows 2000, 14.1-inch active-matrix screen, ATI Mobility Radeon M6 graphics with 16MB of SDRAM, 20GB hard drive, 8X DVD-ROM and 8X/8X/24X CD-RW combination drive, built-in V.90 modem and network adapter, touchpad and eraserhead pointing devices, 8.1 pounds (including AC adapter, external floppy drive and cable, and phone cord); Microsoft Office XP 2002 Small Business Edition. One-year parts and labor warranty, free unlimited 24-hour toll-free technical support. $ 2149 PC WorldBench 4 score of 107, 1.2-GHz/800-MHz Pentium III-M, 256MB of RAM, 512KB L2 cache, Windows 2000, 14.1-inch active-matrix screen, ATI Mobility Radeon M6 graphics with 16MB of SDRAM, 20GB hard drive, 8X DVD-ROM and 8X/8X/24X CD-RW combination drive, built-in V.90 modem and network adapter, touchpad and eraserhead pointing devices, 8.1 pounds (including AC adapter, external floppy drive and cable, and phone cord); Microsoft Office XP 2002 Small Business Edition. One-year parts and labor warranty, free unlimited 24-hour toll-free technical support. http://www.dell.com 800/388-8542 |