Dell Inspiron 9300

Dell's gargantuan desktop replacement replaces the 9200 (though never appearing regionally) and comes loaded with lots of power and quite a few additional ports to appease the masses. As of June 2005, the lowest-end configuration comes at an affordable AU$2698. While we were very much impressed with the graphical performance, we weren't too happy that there was no remote to go.

You can fit the Dell with different covers. The leather black probably suits the notebook best.

Design
The frame of this Dell is more or less a larger version of the Inspiron 6000, but with a larger palm rest and array of ports. The form remains as a solid plastic material, though the chassis is much heavier at 3.6kg. The screen is locked by two rather flimsy latches which don't clamp down properly until the lid is forced down. However, when swiveled open, an expansive 17-inch reflective widescreen with a resolution of up to 1,920 x 1,200 awaits you. We preferred adjusting the screen to 1,440 x 900 pixels as we felt we were squinting our eyes at the higher res.

You get huge but firm mouse buttons with a four-way scroller lying on the touchpad. The keyboard, appearing to be almost dwarfed by the Inspiron's frame, delivers snappy and responsive feedback. While there are no quick launch buttons, seven useful self-explanatory media buttons line the front edge. With such a huge system, we were surprised that no remote was provided to optimise the use of the Dell Media Experience application meant to control DVD/MP3 playback. Also considering the amount of free space there is on the chassis, we were surprised to find no dedicated Wi-Fi switch.

It's ports galore at the rear. You can see the S-video, Ethernet, modem, USB, DVI-D and VGA-out ports.

Features
Most of the features packed into our system are top-notch material. Our test unit uses the high-end Pentium M processor 760 (2.0GHz), a huge 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM and a 60GB hard drive. At the left edge is a DVD±RW burner with dual-layer support to burn 8.5GB DVDs. The graphics are powered by the superb 256MB Nvidia GeForce Go 6800, just a level below the 6800 Ultra seen on the Inspiron XPS Gen 2 (not available in the region unfortunately). The unit is highly customisable so you can downgrade to a 730 chip, change the RAM or get a less powerful graphics chip like the 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon X300.

You have a wide range of connectivity options on the unit with highlights such as six USB ports (more than the usual two to four), FireWire, S-video out and DVI-D ports. On the other hand, S/PDIF support is lacking and the ability to read just a single flash card format (SD) is not enough. Many notebooks already come with 4-in-1 flash readers. For a desktop replacement, this is even more unacceptable. The speakers and the subwoofer lying at the 9300's base produce superb sound quality with great bass reproduction audible as far as three to four rooms away. You get a wide range of networking devices such as a 802.11b/g wireless card, Bluetooth, fast Ethernet and a 56K modem.

You can choose to swap the RAM and mini-PCI card should you need to.

Performance
We whipped out our usual benchmarking software, MobileMark 2002, to test the performance and battery life of the Dell. The 235 score we obtained was good by general notebook standards but definitely not the top in the 2.0GHz range, especially when the Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 was able to get a slightly better 237 score running on 1.73GHz.

Gaming performance is by far the Inspiron's forte. With an astonishing 8,118 result when using 3DMark03 and 3,004 in 3DMark03, this whipped all other laptops that dared to contend for the throne of the best gaming notebook. As such, the Acer TravelMate 8104WLMi boasting a score of 5,700 (3DMark03) fell into second spot in terms of mobile gaming machines we've tried.

Battery life didn't do too well, clocking 179 minutes (about 3 hours) with the additional nine-cell Lithium-ion battery before dying on us. But does anyone really care so much about this when you're probably going to leave the unit at home anyway?

The default option on Dell's Web site is a one-year next-business-day onsite warranty which covers parts and labour including phone support and battery coverage. A great array of extended warranty options is offered, such as three years of service, accidental damage protection and onsite repair. You can also access Dell's online support site to find additional help such as FAQs and downloads for your notebook.

Loaded with Windows XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2, the Dell comes with a software bundle which includes Power DVD, Sonic MyDVD, Sonic RecordNow! 7 and Microsoft Works 7.0. The Dell Media Experience application opens up an interface where you can choose to play music, pictures, videos and an option to connect to the Net for software support.