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Dell Inspiron M301z review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £529
inc VAT

The Inspiron M301z is a sleek ultra-portable laptop, but there are cheaper alternatives available that have even longer-lasting batteries

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The keyboard is comfortable to type on thanks to its large, reasonably responsive keys. They don’t feel quite as responsive as other ultra-portable keyboards we’ve used, but they’re more than good enough for typo-free typing. The large touchpad feels accurate and supports multi-touch gestures, although the buttons don’t give quite as much feedback as we’d like.

The Dell Inspiron M301z

We were disappointed with the quality of the 13.3in glossy widescreen display. It’s reasonably bright, but contrast is poor and colours don’t look very accurate due to the uneven backlight and the tight viewing angles. If you want to connect a better quality external monitor, you could use either the HDMI port or the Mini DisplayPort connector. The M301z is one of the first non-Apple laptops we’ve seen to have this socket which is even tinier than the already compact DisplayPort connector. There are few monitors that have Mini DisplayPort though, so you’d almost certainly need an adapter or a special cable.

If the 500GB hard disk isn’t large enough, you can add more storage using the three USB2 ports, one of which doubles as an eSATA port for connecting even faster external storage. The integrated speakers aren’t very loud and, unsurprisingly, have very weak bass but they sound reasonably clear and don’t distort at high volumes.

The Inspiron M301z's keyboard and touchpad

The Inspiron M301z is a slender and attractive ultra-portable laptop with surprisingly good Windows performance and reasonably lengthy battery life. It’s inexpensive too at just £529. However, Lenovo’s 13in ThinkPad Edge lasted an hour longer in our battery test yet costs £79 less from Laptops Direct. Its underside does get noticeably warmer than the M301z’s, but if you can live with this then it’s the better deal.

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Basic Specifications

Rating****
ProcessorAMD Turion II Neo K625
Processor clock speed1.5GHz
Memory4.00GB
Memory slots2
Memory slots free0
Maximum memory4GB
Size25x330x230mm
Weight1.8kg
SoundIDT HD Audio
Pointing devicetouchpad

Display

Viewable size13.3 in
Native resolution1,366×768
Graphics ProcessorATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225
Graphics/video portsHDMI, Mini DisplayPort
Graphics Memory384MB

Storage

Total storage capacity500GB
Optical drive modelnone
Optical drive typeN/A

Ports and Expansion

USB ports3
Bluetoothyes
Wired network ports1x 10/100
Wireless networking support802.11b/g/n
PC Card slotsnone
ModemNo
Supported memory cardsSDHC, MMC, Memory Stick Pro/Duo, xD
Other ports1x eSATA

Miscellaneous

Carrying caseNo
Operating systemWindows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore optionrestore partition
Software includedMicrosoft Works 9
Optional extrasnone

Buying Information

Warrantyone year collect and return
Price£529
Detailswww.dell.co.uk