Dell Inspiron 1420

durability, performance, screen, design, price

portability, usability, image quality, reliability

67% of the reviews on Amazon.com give this product a positive rating.

Media Direct, Price, 2 megapixel camera

Windows Vista Basic (not Home Premium), Benchmark performance

For its price there's little worth complaining about. The Dell Media Direct feature is handy and the 2 megapixel camera is a nice upgrade from the standard 1.3 megapixel option.

Handsome metal casing ; Decent battery life ; Easy-to-see, sharp matte display

Uninspired design ; Discrete GPU limited by power profile ; Short on ports ; A little too heavy

Dell's latest Inspiron 16 Plus (model 7640) is a fair all-around utility laptop but not a leading one, with underwhelming performance only partly offset by long battery life.

Compact footprint ; Keyboard and mouse included ; Generous mix of front-panel USB, plus an SD card slot ; DVD optical drive ; HDMI and DisplayPort outputs

Proprietary power supply ; Wired peripherals ; Just one M.2 slot for storage ; SATA connectors, but no mounting points for 2.5- or 3.5-inch drives

Dell's Inspiron Desktop (3910) makes for a cheap, versatile budget PC that won't chug running normal tasks. Just mind its upgrade limitations.

Sturdily crafted ; Instant-on multimedia and app viewers

A little heavy

Midsize consumer notebook has a high-quality design, good performance, and stand-alone media buttons.

Excellent price. Discrete graphics. New color splashes. Better-than-average battery life. Feature rich laptop. Very good typing experience

You'll need the E-Value code to take advantage of this deal. Heavier than competing systems

The Dell Inspiron 1420 continues to be a bargain hunter's fantasy by giving you discrete graphics, 2GB of RAM, and color splashes for $1,099.

Media Direct, Price, 2 megapixel camera

Windows Vista Basic (not Home Premium), Benchmark performance

For its price there's little worth complaining about. The Dell Media Direct feature is handy and the 2 megapixel camera is a nice upgrade from the standard 1.3 megapixel option.

Fast Core 2 Duo processors, and up to 4GB of RAM provide plenty of system performance ; Dedicated graphics option performs well ; Solid build quality and sturdiness ; Good keyboard and touchpad ; Great screen if you select the higher resolution option

Not-so-impressive design ; Questional paint durability ; Average battery life ; A bit bulky and heavy for a 14.1" notebook

Bottom line, although it's certainly not perfect the 1420 is a strong, capable notebook that will make a great back-to-school system

And as there has been much discussion about the black lid being of a slightly different texture than the other colored lids, and its predilection to picking up fingerprints, I thought I would mention that the black lid does indeed easily pick up the...