The laptop was chosen to replace my broken Acer netbook. The goal was also to find a better screen size.The computer was delivered quickly and no damage on the box. Within 5 minutes after inspection I had the computer running. The Dell D430 has the appearance of a solid machine and works faster than I expected. The screen is great, the sound a little tinny for watching movies. The wide screen is not 16:9 but the 1280x800 shows web sites and photos nicely. A sign of professional computers is that there are double buttons with the trackpad. There is also a trackpoint but I do not use that as I am geared towards the mouse.
As a "compact" laptop the machine is light, but not to light. There is no space for an optical drive, so they gave me an external USB connected drive. It does not burn DVDs but that does not bother me as I have other computers for that purpose. With the HD capacity of 60 GB, of which 20 GB are taken, there is no room for big projects. I searched for bigger hard disks as backup but 1.8 inch hard disks max out at 120 GB and get expensive (other than my broken netbook which came with a 250GB drive).So I use an SD card as storage extension (like for downloads) and an external drive for my video/audio/photo stuff. The USB ports have enough power to run my external drives. On top, there is a firewire port which I like for an external drive. Integrated Bluetooth runs my wireless mouse.
Dell has a weird power connector and I will be looking for a duplicate power tip because I do not want to be without a backup. The computer gets hot on the right side which I think is not unusual, especially not with dual core processors. So do not use it right on your lap but get a cooling pad.
Talking backup: XP and Dell utilities are on a hidden disk partition and I did not find out yet how to copy that to a hard disk. If the hard disk dies I want to be able to recover XP. My files are backed up on an external drive anyway. There was not a single sheet of paper with the computer so it takes some knowledge to work things out.
But right now: I am happy I bought that computer.
i ordered this computer and within three days (even on standard shipping) i received my package. It's somewhat small but i find it to be adorable. There were only 2 tiny scuff marks on the outside, barely noticeable, but otherwise it looks and runs brand new. It took me just minutes to get it up and running, and by the way, it runs quite fast. I, being the teenager i am, have already downloaded programs like iTunes a new web browser, a couple games and a couple other software components and it still runs amazingly fast. Though i have only had if for a little over a week, i cant seem to keep a way from it. It's quite a deal. A lot of people find the external cd/dvd drive a hasel but i find it convenient, it doesn't bother to much in travel and i mean what if it breaks? its easy to replace without having to pull the poor computer apart. anyways, i love this laptop and so far its been quite helpful. I will admit it does heat up rather quickly, but thats noting a simple cooling pad from walmart or so can fix. now, another downside is that there are only two usb outlets, and with a cooling pad, that only leaves you with one, so you would probably need to order a cheap usb port like i did to go with it to help in that issue, but other than that this product is a steal. I hope you make the right choice, i mean, it took me a month to find the right computer for me, and im quite satisfied.
P.S if you find you are not satisfied with its hard drive space, i recomend looking at amazons wide variety of external hard drives, i found a 160 gb one for only 36 $.
hope this review was helpful! :)I'm satisfied with the new computer(: .The transaction was really fast, i got it within 5 days of purchase. The only thing I would say that i dislike about the pc, is that it heats up pretty fast, and it runs on about 2 hours of battery. Other than that, it performs quite well, and the programs that come with it, like the Open Office is fantastic! Overall it was a good purchase, especially for the amount of money spent.
Thanks again SamThis computer has been the best purchase I've made, originally came with Windows XP, now add 1 gb of RAM and installed a linux distro. It works great!
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