Dell Inspiron 9300

To replace my Inspiron 8200, I went back to www.dell.com to see what was out. This was early November 2005.

My top choices were to either go small & light with the Inspiron 700M, or large & powerful with the 9300. Hmm... small & light... or large and powerful. Power wins.

This time I ordered a new model instead of refurbished like I did with the 8200. The prices were decent enough to not have to dig to the bottom of the barrel.

I carefully chose custom features to maximize performance, but went with the lower res 1440x960 screen instead of the 1920x800 version. Several message boards where people complained of sparkles and glare scared me away from the hi-res screen. The screen I got does seem to be not as bright as a typical LCD (neither is the hi-res one).


Here are my 9300's specs:

• 1.86Ghz Pentium M 750
• 17 inch Wide Screen XGA+
• 512MB Dual-channel RAM
• 8X DVD -/+RW
• 256MB GeForce 6800
• 60GB Ultra ATA 7200RPM HD
• Integrated 10/100 NIC
• Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 Internal Wireless (802.11b/g)
• Internal Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth
• Windows XP Professional SP2
• 80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (longer life than standard battery)
• 90 Watt Spare AC Adaptor (great for travel)

Total Price (including tax & shipping):
$1,925.62


I had also been looking at Pentium 4 based notebooks, which offerred HyperThreading but weigh over 10lbs and last 20 minutes on battery. So I had to sacrifice the extra power for less stress on my shoulder and more fun on long flights.

The Pentium M is a mixed bag, however. It does last a long time (4 1/2 hours), but performance is not quite what I expected. I use a lot of graphics-intensive applications, and it seems to get choppy too easily with motion on large parts of the screen. I could have gone for the 2Ghz chip, but it was way too expensive for just a few more gigahertz. It's not a total loss, but it could be better.


For its size, the 9300 is surprisingly light. You can lift it up with one hand from the end. The thing looks like a surf board, but it weighs less than my 15" 8200 did.

The 9300 has an excellent array of ports:

• 6 USB 2.0 (why the heck do you need that many?)
• 1 Firewire
• VGA, DVI & S-Video (cool!)
• 1 SD card slot
• Standard audio in/outs
• 1 PCMCIA card slot

Of course right after I got my 9300, Dell came out with the XPS M170 and now the Inspiron 9400 with the new Intel Core Duo. Both reminders that the computer industry is still moving pretty fast and your PC really is obsolete the moment you open the box. :-)


If my 8200 hadn't bit the dust, I would have held on to it a bit longer until the Core Duo units were out. Maybe a bit longer, but hey that's life.