benja22

I finally received my laptop a few days ago.  I ordered it originally on February 26th.  In a fit of frustrated anger I cancelled the order after a month of delays.  That is without a doubt my biggest gripe about this laptop.  Dell has a really lousy distribution division!  After looking around at other laptops I found out that the one I really wanted was the Dell.  So, with new found patience I re-ordered it.  Much to my surprise, it shipped on time.

I’m fairly happy with this machine.  The 15″ screen seems to have good resolution and is easy on the eyes.  The graphics card was my biggest concern when I purchased it.  It’s not the greatest in the world and uses shared memory but I can run several applications and play your basic tetris, breakout, tron type games.  I’m not going to use this thing for heavy gaming.  I have my doubts that it could handle  Castle Wolfensteins Enemy Territory.

The laptop feels solid and well built.  The hinges are good.  There is no latch but once the lid is closed it stays shut.

I like the keyboard.  The keys are solid and make just a slight clicky sound which I like better than the softer quiet keys on some keyboards.  There is no real number pad.  The num-pad keys are integrated in the J,K,L section and work when num-lock is pressed.   I don’t do much math so that is fine with me.  When I type numbers, I use the method Mrs. Gunnerson taught me on the Underwood typewriters in my freshman typing class.  I use the top number keys.

The touch pad mouse works well enough.  It is a two button job with a finger pad.   I had to learn to not rest the heel of my hand in that area but I am typing this review on it now with no problems related to the mouse buttons.   I don’t care for finger pads so I purchased a USB wireless mouse.  It plugged in and just worked.

I have been holding the Dell on my lap for over an hour and there is very little heat.  There is absolutely no discomfort in that area.

The speakers leave a bit to be desired.  The quality of the sound is fine but they don’t put out very much volume.  The headphone jack works great

The 1525 N comes with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed.  This is my first experience with Ubuntu,  I normally use Mandriva Linux on my desktop pc’s,  Ubuntu is dead easy to use.  Like Mandriva, Ubuntu Linux is now easy enough for anyone to work with.  Linux isn’t just for geeks anymore.  I have re-installed it a couple of times (see next paragraph) and the only thing I had to change was my tmei zone location.

My attempt to install Mandriva Linux has been unsuccessful thus far.  I’ve had to revert to the original configuration using Ubuntu twice already.  I’m closing in on the problem though. The sound card driver is the biggest issue.  Dell must have paid for a license or something.  I’ll have to get the driver another way after the install.  I’ll have to disable the sound card before installation to prevent the speakers from screaming at me on the first boot.   I also used an unstable development version that was being heavily patched at the time I attempted to install from the net.   Another problem is that I haven’t learned the Debian (read Ubuntu) way of doing things well enough to get all the configurations and specification information I may need.

Overall,  I have to say I’m really pleased with this machine and wouldn’t mind recommending it to anyone that isn’t planning on using it for gaming.