Attack of the cheap Dell! (Inspiron 1420)

[K. Eng]

Early review of Dell's newest junk consumer model indicate that the 1420 series is far from 'junk'.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2150869,00.asp

Magnesium alloy casing is now standard. Good riddance ABS plastic!

Dell didn't skimp on the design materials, though. Unlike the previous Dell E1505 (Core 2 Duo), which was encased in ABS plastic, the 1420's chassis is housed in magnesium alloy.

Keyboard has gotten a lot better too.

The full-size keyboard on the 1420 is the same as the one found on the XPS M1330, so you're getting top-notch quality even on a budget laptop. And admirers of the Lenovo ThinkPad keyboard will find the typing experience eerily familiar. The slight edge still goes to Lenovo, though.

The only thing I really hate about this model is the styling. Ugh. It reminds me of a Toshiba

[KristianJ]

You're not wrong about the Toshiba-esque look - when I saw the picture of the back of that Inspiron I instantly compared it to my friend's Satellite. Not very "inspiring" at all, to be honest and pun-filled

[Turbo Audi]

A product of Dell's new idiotic ad campaign no doubt

[ryengineer]

For $1099, that's a stellar deal.

On a side note, I don't mind the looks of any non-thinkpad notebook as long as it's not shiny and white in color. For me, I'll accept it if it delivers in terms of performance and gets my work done. However, I don't see myself moving to Dell anytime in many years...

[furrycute]

My trusted Dell Latitude C600 is still trudging along after 7 years of faithful service. Nowadays I only use it for the occasional web surfing. Never really had much hardware problems with it, except for replacing the hard disk one time a couple of years ago. Which reminds me, when I get around to it, I should upgrade the RAM from the current 256MB to the full 512MB.

But I can't really stand its styling and the all plastic enclosure.