Dell Inspiron M501R - An affordable quad-core laptop, with a catch! [Review]

For a price of just under Rs 40k, the Inspiron M501 does offer good performance with its quad-core processor and latest-gen dedicated mobile graphics chipset. However, its poor battery life does spoil the “power-play party” in a big way. The Dell Inspiron M510R will appeal to a very select audience, looking for a desktop replacement machine.

Pros

• Good performance
• HDMI and eSATA ports
• Comfortable keyboard

Cons

• Very poor battery life
• Extremely shiny body

Dell has made some changes to its laptop line-up by extending its Inspiron series and combining the Studio and XPS range into a single “Studio-XPS” series. The Dell Inspiron M501R promises to be a bang for the buck performance laptop with an AMD based quad-core processor along with dedicated 1GB of Radeon HD 550v series graphics processor. Impressive specs for sure, but, how does it deliver as a laptop? Let’s find out.

Look and Feel: Too shiny, and then some
Straight out of the box, and the shiny nature of the Inspiron’s body is what will catch your attention/ annoy you, depending on your mood. The lid, which can be customized in many colours, has a shine to it, which beats me, since the finish is not actually glossy. Open the lid and you are greeted by the silver finish around the keyboard and the touchpad. The silver looks classy, but this problem with this particular finish shows up over a long period of time...sweaty palms, when placed on this surface, will tend to ensure that the shine starts fading at certain places, giving it a horrible look.

The 15.6 inch screen is not as reflective as expected, but having said that, it is not perfectly non reflective either. The screen quality is typical of a 15.6-inch value laptop, but pushing the brightness to maximum did not result in a washed out screen, indicating a good balance between the brightness and contrast levels. Thanks to the big screen, the Dell Inspiron M501R does get a keyboard with a dedicated number pad. Speaking of which, the keyboard is very comfortable to use. The feel of the keys is quite nice, even though the keys are totally flat. This is neither the Chiclet style keyboard (which the Apple Macbook and HP Pavilion dm3 use), nor the floating style keypad (which the Gateway ID59C deploys). The travel distance of the keys is very good, and the keys are adequately spaced out as well. The touchpad is quite good as well, with pretty precise tracking. The separate left and right click buttons are not integrated into the touchpad, which is a good thing. Integrated buttons are not the most comfortable to use, while they may look good aesthetically.

Features: Quite loaded
The port distribution is done on all sides of the Inspiron. The right side panel has the optical drive, memory card reader and the E-Sata port. The left panel has 1 USB, HDMI out, audio jacks and the cooling vent. The rear panel has 2 USB ports, which is a bit annoying. Reaching behind the laptop to access USB ports is akin to going back and using a 7 year old laptop! Essentially, the Dell Inspiron M501R has 4 USB ports, because the eSATA port also doubles up as a USB port. This is a welcome increase, since most laptops have only 3 of these.

What the laptop misses out on is a bunch of dedicated access buttons. There are no dedicated buttons for controlling media playback, or even the standard Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and touchpad toggle switches. This laptop will lose a few points in our ratings because of this.

Performance: Lots of potential; only let down by the bad battery
For a machine powered by the AMD Phenom II X4 N930 processor clocking at 2.00GHz and 4GB of system RAM, performance was never going to be a problem. All the benchmarks we ran on the machine indicated a very powerful setup. PCMark Vantage threw up a score of 4695, which indicates enough power under the hood for multitasking scenarios. What is even more interesting is that the Dell Inspiron M501R registered a 3DMark score of 5993, which makes it more than capable of handling fairly current game titles at medium detail levels. No doubt, these scores are helped by the fact that ATI’s Mobility Radeon HD550v is in the mix, with 1GB of dedicated DDR3 graphics memory. To put this through a comparison, the Gateway ID59C, which is priced at Rs 51k, had a 3DMark score of 6846 with the NVIDIA GeForce GT420M graphics.

A lot of people will use this machine for multimedia viewing, and the case is helped by a big screen which is quite good and built-in speakers which offer better than expected performance. Even at volume levels of about 70%, the audio was clear, with no jarring. Maybe, the fact that the speakers are placed around the edges helped them to improve on the overall sound quality.

However, in the middle of all the power-play, is a disappointment of gigantic proportions. The battery life, which we expected would be at least about 2-3 hours, is actually 1 hour! Sounds unbelievable? Yes, we even we thought so! Which is why we ran the battery test 3 times, but the battery would not last more than an hour, no matter whether the power settings were set to Max Performance or Balanced. What this poor battery performance does is that it reduces the mobility power of this laptop. With such a bad battery, you will be forced to keep this machine plugged in most of the time. Kind of kills the purpose of a laptop, doesn’t it?

Verdict: Power, with no battery backup

The Dell Inspiron M510R is clearly not meant for anyone looking for mobility and anywhere computing. It is a well specced machine that gives you a quad-core processor coupled with a good GPU (graphics processor) along with a wealth of connectivity options. If you are looking for a powerful yet affordable desktop replacement machine which is also fairly capable at gaming, the Inspiron M150R does fit the bill. But, with poor battery life and its heavy, bulky nature, the Inspiron M150R is certainly not the most portable or efficient solution for mobile computing.

You can also consider the HP dv6 and the recently reviewed (and raved) Gateway ID59C as good options for powerful and feature packed 15.6-inch laptops with attractive price tags. However, if you are looking for a dedicated gaming laptop, checkout the MSI GT663R.

Specifications
AMD Phenom II X4 N930 processor @ 2.00GHz; 4GB RAM; 15.6 inch screen; 1366x768 HD screen resolution; ATI Mobility Radeon HD 550v graphics; 1GB dedicated graphics memory; 500GB hard drive; 3 USB ports; 1 E-Sata port; HDMI out, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Ratings
Features: 7
Performance: 6
Build: 6
Value: 6.5
Overall: 6.5

Price: Rs 39,990

Brand	Dell
Model	Inspiron M5010R
Features
Component Specifications
Processor Model No	AMD Phenom II Quad Core Mobile N930
Processor Speed	2.0GHz
RAM	4gb
RAM Type	DDR3
Memory Speed (MHz)	1333
Chipset	AMD 785GX
Graphics Solution	ATI Mobility Radeon HD 550v
Dedicated Video Memory (Y / N)	Y
Dedicated Video Memory Size	1GB
Audio Chipset	Integrated Audio with SRS Premium Sound
Storage size (in GB)	500GB
Drive type (HDD/SSD/other)	HDD
Optical Drive Type / Speed	DVD+/-RW/ 24x
Bundled OS	Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Characteristics
Screen Size (Inches)	15.6
Type of LCD	WLED
Screen Resolution (Native)	1366x768
Weight (Kg)	2.7
No. of Ports (USB / FireWire)	3 USB
USB 3.0 (Y/N)	N
Connectivity (LAN / Bluetooth / Wi-Fi)	Y/Y/Y
E-Sata (Y/N)	Y
Display output (VGA/DVI/HDMI/Display Port)	Y
Memory Card Reader (Y/N)	Y
Type of Memory Cards Supported	5-in-1
Inbuilt Webcam (Y/N)	Y
Webcamera resolution (in megapixels)	1.3 HD
Build (So 10)
Body	6
Keypad	8
Lid, movables	7
Ergonomics and Usability
Keypad Tactile Feedback (So 10)	9
Key Layout, bevelling, spacing & Usability (So 10)	7
Shortcut Keys/Switches (So 10)	5
Trackpad ergonomics, size, position (So 10)	8
Trackpad accuracy (So 10)	8
Biometrics (fingerprint/face) login (Y/N)	N/Y
Wi-Fi On/Off Switch or Button (Y/N)	N
Dedicated Bluetooth On/Off Switch or Button (Y/N)	N
Dedicated TouchPad On/Off Switch or Button (Y/N)	N
Performance
Synthetic Scores
PC Mark Vantage
PC Mark Score	4695
Memories Score	3045
TV and Movies Score	3499
Gaming Score	4243
Music Score	4038
Communications Score	3574
Productivity Score	4194
HDD Score	2646
3D Mark 2006
CPU Score	2883
Graphics score	2006
Overall Score	5993
Maxxon CineBench R11.5 (CPU score)	1.58 pts
Display Mate Colour Accuracy Test (So 10)	Score not available
Battery Life Test (in minutes)	1:01:44
Wi-Fi Signal Strength Test (Zone 2)	40%
Real World Tests
Speaker Quality (at 50% volume) (So 10)	8
HD Movie Viewing (using VLC) (So 10)	8
DivX Encode 7.0 (.VOB to .Divx, default mode)	01:02.9
WinRAR 3.9 (Compression / Decompression benchmark)	1.266
File transfer Test (4 GB test file-sequential) (Sec)	02:31.6
File transfer Test (4 GB test file-assorted) (Sec)	03:46.9
PassMark Wireless Mon 3.0 Signal Strength	65%
PassMark Wireless Mon 3.0 bandwidth	54Mbps
Doom 3 benchmark score	106.1 Fps
Far Cry 2 Benchmark	59.12 Fps
Warranty (Years)	1
Price (Rupees)	39,990

Contact: Dell India
Phone: 1800-425-4026 / 080-2506-8026
Website: http://www.dell.co.in