Dell Inspiron 8000

This Inspiron 8000 features a 15-inch screen with a native resolution of 1400 by 1050 (a 1600-by-1200 screen also is available), dual pointing devices, and a set of dual-purpose buttons that can either control audio CDs or launch applications. The sensible bay design includes a fixed 8X DVD-ROM drive and a removable floppy drive; this arrangement lets you carry two optical drives at once, for instance, or two batteries and a DVD-ROM drive so you can watch back-to-back DVD movies on your next cross-country flight.
Some users may not like the springy, somewhat noisy keyboard. Dell could have given the 8000's four dual-purpose buttons a more elegant design, too: Instead of simply flipping a hardware switch as on other notebooks, you must use a software utility to toggle between CD-playing and file-launching modes. The 900-MHz 8000 is heavy--even with a travel module in the floppy-drive bay, the notebook weighs 7.5 pounds--and its PC WorldBench 2000 score of 141 in our speed tests lagged somewhat behind the average score of Pentium III-850/700 notebooks running Windows Me.
This thick, dark-gray notebook comes with two USB ports and a number of heavy-duty multimedia ports, including a fast IEEE-1394 connection for digital video editors and an S-Video port for using a television or other large screen as a monitor. An included cable adapts the S-Video port for use as a composite video port or S/PDIF-out connection. Despite this notebook's many multimedia frills, the sound is a little disappointing, with middling volume and weak bass. However, like its lighter-weight sibling the Inspiron 4000, the Inspiron 8000 boasts an easy-to-remove hard drive--handy if you like to keep important data under lock and key. Bored with the same old look? You can pop out the included dark-gray palm rests and swap in one of four other colors, including bright yellow; the set costs only 20 bucks extra. Documentation is plentiful but mostly electronic, and it's a little disorganized, with multiple shortcuts to the same manuals.
Small to medium-size businesses seeking a well-equipped desktop replacement for multimedia pros will find that the well-rounded 8000 almost does it all. Performance is a little disappointing for a Pentium III-900, but the $2295 price is well below what we've seen for other similar models.

Buying Information

Dell Inspiron 8000
PC WorldBench score of 141, Pentium III-900/700 CPU, 128MB of SDRAM, 256KB L2 cache, Windows Millennium Edition, 15-inch active-matrix screen, NVidia GeForce2 Go graphics chip with 16MB of SDRAM, 20GB hard drive, 8X DVD-ROM drive, built-in network adapter, V.90 modem, touchpad and eraserhead pointing devices, 9.2-pound weight (with AC adapter and phone cord), Microsoft Works suite 2001, three-year parts warranty, one-year labor warranty, free unlimited 24-hour toll-free tech support.
$ 2295
PC WorldBench score of 141, Pentium III-900/700 CPU, 128MB of SDRAM, 256KB L2 cache, Windows Millennium Edition, 15-inch active-matrix screen, NVidia GeForce2 Go graphics chip with 16MB of SDRAM, 20GB hard drive, 8X DVD-ROM drive, built-in network adapter, V.90 modem, touchpad and eraserhead pointing devices, 9.2-pound weight (with AC adapter and phone cord), Microsoft Works suite 2001, three-year parts warranty, one-year labor warranty, free unlimited 24-hour toll-free tech support.

800/388-8542
http://www.dell.com