Any Inspiron 600m Users out there?

[Liviathan]

Thinking of getting one. Size looks good, has centrino chipset.

 

[NeoMadHatter]

what do you want to know? mine has just turned 1 yr old as of last week
it's so old.

 

[Liviathan]

hows the video card?

Give me your review on it.

 

[w0rmh0l3]

I think the only thing that might get to you is the construction quality. I had one for about 2 weeks and sent it back - the thing feels cheaper than a fisher price toy. It also had a defect in the LCD, but that can happen to anyone on any laptop.

 

[Vadatajs]

I love mine, it has a 1.3Ghz pentium M, centrino wireless, 30g hard drive(4200 rpm), 32MB M9 graphics, and sxga+ screen. I use the machine mainly for programming and school work. The sxga+ (1400x1050) screen is great, some might say the text is a little small, but they're probably blind. It only weighs about 5lb, so it's not hard to carry back and forth from class every day. I don't have much to say about windows, other than the default setting likes to use dynamic cpu scaling, even when plugged in. Also, the 2 games I have on there (ut2003 and gta:vc) both run fine. Performance is sub-desktop, but playable at 1024x768. I use linux most of the time, and aside from having to patch my kernel to support the alps touchpad (just to enable edge scrolling, otherwise is works as a standard ps/2 device), it was very easy to set up. I'm using linuxant driverloader for the wireless, but will switch to native intel drivers as soon as they are done.

Build Quality: Here's the downside with this laptop. I used to have a vpr matrix 180b5 that was stolen, and the cheapo best-buy brand beat out the dell in materials and build. The inspiron has a plastic lid, and the back is pretty thin (vpr was magnesium). If you press on it with the display on, you can see is "bubble" under the pressure. If you adjust the screen angle by using the top edge, there is no problem. The rest of the case is plastic, but that is not as vital as the screen back imho. With that said, I've carried this laptop in my backpack, and haven't had any problems with it being bashed with textbooks. So the lid is tougher than it lets on. The battery wiggles in its socked a little, but this seems normal (and only by a very small fraction of an inch) and is in no danger of falling out. The power button is really stiff, and feels broken (it's not).

PROS: size & weight
screen
performance
battery life (I've never run out, but I don't use the battery all that much)
plays nicely with linux

CONS:
plastic screen back
really stiff power button

BTW, the dell came with a full manual, which describes how to go about ugprading ram, hard drive, and mini-pci in this laptop.

 

[Liviathan]

Thanks.

 

[NeoMadHatter]

the video card i have is the ati mobility 9000 32mb. it's really not that bad. if you're looking for games, it plays the games i tested on it fairly well. No One Lives Forever 2, Warcraft 3, Final Fantasy XI, Battlefield 1942. i also have the SGVA+ lcd screen. the 1400x1050 screen is really nice. it's a strange number for the resolution. but very nice to have the extra screen space. but if you have bad eye sight, it might be best to go with the XGA.

performance is very good. i also have the 1.3ghz centrino combination. very good. the only thing i would trade this in for would be an IBM T40 or T41. (p or not either one is fine) for the quality of the exterior. it is somewhat flimsy as some say. but for the price, it's really good. the build quality doesn't really bother me that much. but an IBM would own it in build quality i would think. battery life isn't the greatest, but i can get out a good 3.5hrs or so on a full charge. with the 2nd battery instead of a cd/dvd drive, it gets a bump up to 7hrs of battery life. that's with wireless on. without wireless i would guess around 8+hrs.

i have redhat 9 running on it, but i haven't used it in a long time, it does run though, if you are playing on using linux. i haven't kept up with the intel wifi card working with it, i used a pcmcia card instead.

but i am still using windows xp with it. hope this helps.

 

[Frightcrawler]

When people (including review sites) say "battery life," are they testing it at FULL speed or just partial (like having something run at 600mhz instead of 1.4).
8 hours on full speed seems kinda farfetched to me.

 

[Dark54555]

a few users at the law school here have the 600m. No one has had any trouble that I know of, unlike my GF's inspiron 1100. I've also seen a lot of good things from the latitutde D600 and D800.

i can only wish my Portege 3505 worked as well as those latitudes.

 

[NeoMadHatter]

Originally posted by: Frightcrawler
When people (including review sites) say "battery life," are they testing it at FULL speed or just partial (like having something run at 600mhz instead of 1.4).

8 hours on full speed seems kinda farfetched to me.

it is tested using the "Maximum battery" preset of the power settings.

 

[Liviathan]

I ordered one this week with the 64mb Card. We'll see when it gets here.