Dell Inspiron 1720

Summary: The internals of this laptop are great. It has a top end video card, which can run all the latest 3D applications and decode high-end video. The CPU is dual core, so multiple applications run smoothly without interrupting each other. The memory (up to four GB) also comes with a flash buffer (also called turbo cache) that eases the communication between RAM and the hard drive. It also comes with the newest wireless standard, 802.11n, for fast wifi now and faster wifi in the future.

Unfortunately, Dell made some unusual design decisions that reduce the quality of this laptop. At nearly two inches thick, it is not very dense, so it has a cheap feel. In spite of this laptop's large size the included battery sticks out by inch in the back. Note that the pictures on the website do not show this problem. Dell also made a very poor decision to leave out a DVI video port. With only VGA and S-Video outputs, connect to a high-end monitor or HDTV is not possible. While this feature may not be necessary on a lower-cost laptop, the Inspiron 1720’s high-end video card and the Blu-Ray option should mandate a high quality video output.

The front face of the laptop also includes some media buttons to control volume and media playback. This would be a good feature, but the paint on these buttons comes off easily.