We just reviewed a new retail-specific version of Dell's popular Inspiron 1525 laptop, and found ourselves wondering why this new system's battery life was so poor compared to its very recent (and largely identical) predecessor. How can two versions of essentially the same laptop have a difference in battery life as big as the 3-hour vs. 2-hour one we found? We looked a little closer and found a potential culprit.
Both $650 laptops (the newer 1525-139B and the older 1525-121B) have six-cell batteries, but that's not always the most useful number to look at. Most laptop batteries are labeled for 56Wh (or watt hours), which means they can hypothetically power a 1-watt load for 56 hours. The 1525-121B had a standard 56Wh battery, while the 1525-139B has only a 41Wh battery, which one would never notice without taking the battery out and reading the fine print stamped on it--as the batteries (and systems) look pretty much exactly the same.
Thus, our shorter battery life, and one more area where budget-minded PC makers are apparently trying to shave a little cost from their systems. So the lesson here is that there's now one more bit of fine print you need to read carefully before buying a laptop.
Read the full review of the Dell Inspiron 1525-139B here.
Note the two different Wh ratings on these Dell 1525 batteries.
Also jumping the CES gun by a few days is Dell's 15-inch Inspiron 1525 laptop. This model actually popped up on Dell's Australian Web site earlier this week, but is being officially announced in the US today.
With a complete top-to-bottom revamp of Dell's entire laptop line in mid-2007, why the need for a new mainstream model so soon? While the current 14-inch Inspiron 1420 hit the size/features/performance sweet spot, and the high-end XPS M1330 and M1530 are slick, thin 13- and 15-inch models, the middle-of-the-road Inspiron 1520 was always a little too big and clunky.
With the upgraded Inspiron 1525 (hey, nobody ever accused these guys of creative naming), Dell's managed to shave a little bulk off of the system, and the smaller chassis leaves less dead space on the keyboard tray. Compared to the older 1520, this new version is about 30 percent slimmer and almost a half-pound lighter.
The Inspiron 1525 starts at only $499, and includes an HDMI output and touch-sensitive media controls, which are nice touches in that price range. The standard Dell configuration options are available (including a few new lid patterns, such as the one seen here), so you can easily build this out into a system costing $1,000 or more.
We'll take a more hands-on look at the Inspiron 1525 next week during CES.
Dell's new Inspiron 1525 has surfaced in Australia.
(Credit: Dell)The sweet spot in Dell's current catalog of laptops has always been the excellent 14-inch Inspiron 1420 model, matched only by the snazzy XPS line--the 13-inch M1330 and 15-inch M1530. Somewhere in there, Dell's basic Inspiron 15-inch--long the bread and butter of the company's consumer laptops, got lost in the shuffle.
Now comes word from down under that Dell's Australian Web site is offering a successor to the current Inspiron 1520, in the form of the Inspiron 1525 (originality in naming has never been Dell's strong suit), which seems to be a slightly slimmer version of the 1520.
According to the Aussies, this model will ship (down there, at least) on January 9, 2008, and so far preorder configuration options are slim--the only CPU right now is the Intel Core 2 Duo T7250, with X3100 graphics and all the usual Inspiron color combinations (Espresso Brown, Spring Green, etc.)
The 1525 starts at $1,399 in Australian dollars, which is about $1,200 to you and me. We wouldn't be surprised to see an American release sometime soon, but for now, this is Australia-only.
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