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19 out of 19 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Nice 17" laptop but get TrueLife"
Pros: TrueLife screen, fast, cheap
Cons: TrueLife resolution, must rebuild to remove wasted space
Summary: My first purchase was the E1705 with the standard XGA+ screen. BIG MISTAKE. Brightness, contrast, and color were all over the map depending on what part of the screen you were viewing. So I called Dell immediately. They wanted $200 restocking, but thankfully I talked them out of that. They credited my credit card in less than one week from when I shipped it back to them. Well done!
I then purchased the basic solo processor E1705 with built-in video (non-nvida) but with these upgrades: UXGA TrueLife screen, fast 512 MB RAM, 7200 RPM 60GB HD, Intel PRO/Wireless card, 9 cell battery, and carrying case. So far I have been impressed. The TrueLife screen is much better. It's bright and vibrant. The only problems I see are light leakage at the bottom (easily seen with letterboxed DVDs). And the super small resolution this screen supports. 1900x1200 is impressive but unnecessary and way too small. Even Apple's 17" laptops only do 1680x1050. To see what you are doing you must increase the DPI (to 125-150) and use large icons.
The E1705 is fast and has about 3 hours of battery life. Be prepared to reformat the hard drive as Dell fills the drive with worthless software that you will want to remove. Plus 5 GB of the drive is partitioned for backup/restore. But keep the 1 GB partition if you want MediaDirect to work. The touchpad works well. The unit's weight and heat are not a problem for me. It's loaded with ports (6 USB, firewire, modem, ethernet, PCMCIA, memory sticks, external monitors). It boots XP fairly quickly. Funny that XP Media Center Edition doesn't have a DVD decoder by default in Widows Media Player.
