Dell Inspiron 17R

I finally pulled the trigger on a new laptop during Dell’s President’s Day weekend sale. I must say that I am not disappointed and don’t have a trace of buyer’s remorse. The laptop is fast and Windows 7 is an excellent OS for me. I was a little worried about the transition from Windows XP, but those were quickly put aside. The startup time is dramatically faster and websites load much faster as well. It came with Microsoft Office which allows me to update documents for work.


For roughly the same weight as my Inspiron 8600, I have drastically bigger monitor, integrated 9 key touchpad and a host of features that are yet to be explored. These include home networking, built in webcam, and a DVD burner. Fortunately it made obsolete many of the peripherals I had purchased for my 8600 including a USB 9 key touchpad, a USB card reader and a PC card. The 500GB hard drive will also allow me to have more files local so that I am not trolling the Western Digital external drive for files that did not fit on my 40GB hard drive.

I look forward to managing my Tivo recordings and home movies more intelligently. In the past, I have been dependent on my wife’s computer.

There are of course the natural challenges in getting a new computer. I have not ported all of my files over and setting up iTunes and other sites is always a pain. Further, I will have to remind myself of all of my logins/passwords as I don’t know an efficient way to pass over cookies.

My primary usage is still e-mail and web surfing, but a net book would have been a disappointment. My intent is to have a desktop replacement at home. If I had a dedicated office, I might have simply opted for a desktop. The only drawback is the meager battery life. This will natural be a problem with the display I have selected and it is a not issue for me.