Dell PP29L Review

Hardware wise, the Dell Inspiron is the most solid low end laptop I've owned.  Fan noise is minimized by use of a heat pipe to critical chips needing cooling.  Hardware diagnostics are preinstalled on the hard disk, and also available on a bootable CD.  There are 3 mini-PCI slots, accessible under the same cover as the memory modules.  All components are snug, and while the case is plastic, all screws securing components go into metal theads to minimize stripping.  My Inspiron 1525 has Intel wireless - which is vastly superior to the cheap but unreliable Broadcom wireless commonly installed.  The wireless is on a replaceable miniPCI module just in case (using up one of the 3 slots).

But software is the main reason why I won't buy anywhere else at present.  I used to buy Compaq/HP, and still have four of their products.  However, installing a non-Windows OS voids the warranty on HP.  Only 1 of our 5 laptops runs Windows.  Dell not only supports your choice of OS, but offers a choice of Vista, XP, or Ubuntu preinstalled (although the Ubuntu models are on a separate area of Dell.com from the Windows models).   I run the preinstalled Ubuntu on my 1525 (saving time), and Fedora 10 on 3 Compaq laptops.  Unless you have a mission critical Windows only app (like the Epson printer utility I keep Win 98 around for), a Linux distro like Ubuntu or Fedora is so much sleeker, smoother, and capable.