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Dell has done a pretty decent job with the Inspiron 1525.Although not perfect and there are some things that could be inmroved upon,This is a winner for the money.
499$  at best buy
This dell came packed with some decent hardware as follows.
Vista home premium
15.4 wide screen glossy screen 1280×800
160 gig sata drive{sata drives are fast}
2 gigs ddr2 ram pc2 5300
6 cell battery
8x dual layer dvd writer
Intel® Pentium® Dual Core T2390 (1.86GHz/533Mhz FSB/1MB cache)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Built in wireless
Ethernet
Modem
IEEE 1394{Fire wire}
4 usb ports
s video
2 headphone out
Line in-Mic in
VGA
HDMI
8 in 1 digital media reader
Media buttons for sound,play, pause. rewind. fast forward

The dell comes packed with just about everything you might need.

The appearance and fit of the Inspiron 1525 is good.Dell has always made a quality laptop,but some models just werent with the times on appearance.The Inspiron 1525 is thin enough to look modern,and remanins ridged as the same time.The Inspiron 1525 scores well here.The dell logo however on the lid appears to be at risk of being damaged if snagged on an object.The logo is made of a somewhat soft material.Lid tension is good and has little flex.There are zero dead pixles.Screen finsh is durable for a laptop in this class.

The display is great for a laptop in this price range.Brightness is good.Angle viewing is better than many.Screen reflections on the glossy finish can usually be bothersome to most,there is no exception here.The angel viewing is good enough to usually move their screen and get on with business.

The keyboard has a good feel. Key board flex isnt a problem.The keys are not as easy to see as many though{black on silver}They are not hard to see,but dont stand out as good as black on white or white on black keys.The function keys are not color coded what so ever so you need to look longer than usual to find what you need to press.After  time or two using them you will be ok.

The touch pad buttons are great.The touch pad itself however is nothing to get excited about.The touch pad is of the Alps variety.The driver that comes with the touchpad has limited extra features and is not the smoothest scroller.Synaptics makes a far better touchpad,with much better extra features as well as being very smoth with scrolling.

The dvd burner has a decent tray,the dvd’s click on the spindle reliably enough.The sliding tray is of good construction.Vibration is low after trying several cds,with only one producing moderate vibration.That particular cd had caused considerable vibration with other laptops.The eject button is a little awkward due to the eject button being flush,you may find your self leaning your head over the first few times you use it.You get Roxio basic for your software when you purchase the laptop at best buy.

The unit comes equipped with a 6 cell battery.I got 4 hours of life with casual surfing with the display dimmed.The AC power brick brings the battery back up to full charge in a short time for a stock power brick.

The hard drive is quiet.The hard drive is fast for a laptop.Dell did great here. Processor and memory also play a part with being able open large files.A fast hard drive such as this one save wait times as well.

The built in speakers will not impress your friends while playing music,sorry.They sound tight and tinny.They are fine for general usage. They do seem to improve with time the more they are used.

The wireless system is good,you can pick up signal while some others may not be able to.The wireless switch is on the side.
Its stiff,just the way i like it so it doesn’t get accidentally shut off.A nice extra feature inclduded is the abilty to look for networks by holding the switch up,without needing to be booted into windows.Sweet. A light confirms if there are networks available.This can also be used as a basic trouble shooting device.Excellent.

Heat.Lets say this is one cool running laptop,you can have it on for hours and it remains cool.The fan isnt the quietest however,More design work would have been welcome to smooth that out a little.But hey you have no problem hearing the air move, so it is a comfort,if you are paranoid.

Graphics capabilities will not match gaming laptops.You can not play your most demanding games on it.One thing you can do however is beat the other laptops in this class with the graphic capabilities provided.
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This  Dell came with recovery cds + recovery patition as well.Sweet,A recovery to factory image{using recovery partition},including setup,all the way to setting up Google as home page was 16 minutes and 34 seconds.Any one having a complaint with that has personal issues.

The port layout is contained on the sides.the rear of the laptop has no jacks or ports.This is not the ideal way to layout.The VGA belongs in the rear.If you are going to hook up the VGA so this big heavy cable is out of the way.At least one USB port should be provided in the rear,this is benficial when it is used as a semi permanent hookup or u absolutely need the cord out of the way.The headphone jacks are in the front,when the side is preferred for a laptop.Anything in the front has the most risk of damage and is most likely to be in the way.If you havent guess yet,yes the plug is straight instead of angled where the power comes in at.The vodka team must have got the assingment of port placements.

How is support?Well its a dell,so support is good,all your drivers and such are available as usual.I like Dell support,if help is needed you can get an excellent walk through on the phone.Your Unit may be 3 years old and you will still recieve help.Xp drivers are available if you choose to go from Vista to Xp.

How does it perform?Out of the box this laptop does not contain much bloatware,so after unistaiing a couple programs I was ready to roll.Now for a trip to Windows Updates to get the security holes fixed as well as some bug fixes.Its time to get an AV after dumping the Nortons,so off to AVG it is.The laptop is  now ready for a workout.I begin by opening programs to acceptt the license agreement get them out of the way and go through any settings that may be needed,as to avoid possibly fighting it later when I have 20 windows going,Everything went great, not one problem encountered during the initation stage.I downloaded and installed Google Earth.Opened it.Downloaded Mozilla Firefox,installed then opened it.Set up an email account with Windoos Mail left it open.Opened Spider Solitaire,Word pad,Internet explorer,Windows defender and started a scan.I then started basic surfing and did some file searches.The result.No hangups or errors what soever.This machine will run many applications at once without any problem.

I then installed Dragon Naturally Speaking and run it through its paces.{a very high tech speech to text and command converter} a  very hungry application.This laptop wth its fast sata drive and duo core processor make the application perform very well.

I then installed super pi did a 1 m run in a time of 34.117 seconds.I then did a super pi run of 32 m to check for heat and stableness.The fan woud actually turn off at times.This laptop has a very effecting cooling system.I aborted the 32 m early as it is a lengthy test and served its purpose.

Time to rip a couple cds.I ripped two full audio cds quickly and without any errors.I transferred some files via dvd from one machine to another with out problems.

I tried a usb port with a 4 gig flash drive to try the ready boost.The hardware took off as expected.

The dell 1525 is a great machine for the money.Strong point are a good display,excellant harddrive,good processor 2 g ddr2 ram,nice keyboard,good battery,good support,cool running and all the ports and jacks you need.

The Dell 1525 Inspiron cons are not many,The not so fantastic speakers,the less than ideal placement of the ports,and the Alps touchpad are things we can live with.I highly recommend this laptop.

Get your self a nice headset while at the store the audio system actually sounds good through them.You will be glad you did.