A good laptop for basic usage but you get better features at the same price range from rival products.

Sum and Substance

Thumbs Up

Great battery life, thin, touch pad supports gestures, multi touch scrolling, comfortable keyboard.

Thumbs Down

Too slow, only 802.11b/g Wi-Fi

Inside the Trunk

Power cable, software disc.

The Whiz Kid Speaks

Processor
Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 / 1.3 GHz, L2 cache, 3 MB, Data bus speed 800 MHz, 4GB DDR3 SD RAM 4 GB (not expandable), Hard disk 320 GB, Serial ATA-150, 7200 rpm, DVD±RW speed – 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD), 1.3 mega pixel camera, Graphics Processor Intel GMA X4500HD Dynamic Video Memory Technology 5.0, Altec Lansing speakers

Display
14 in TFT active matrix,1366 x 768 ( WXGA ) Wide screen, LED-backlit
Supported flash memory cards – MMCplus, MultiMediaCard, SDHC Memory Card, Memory Stick, SD Memory Card, xD-Picture Card, Memory Stick Pro

Memory Interfaces
3 x Hi-Speed USB – 4 pin USB Type A, 1 x Display/video – HDMI output – 19 pin HDMI Type A, 1 x Network – Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-TX – RJ-45

Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition, Other software – Microsoft Works

Data link protocol
Ethernet, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11b, Gigabit Ethernet, Fast Ethernet
Networking standards – IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g

Razzle Dazzle

Even though Dell Inspiron i1470-3282CRD is not so good in speed, it looks quite attractive. They say, first impression is the last impression, and Dell has made every effort to make this laptop good looking so that it will make a good impression when you see it. The cover is deep, glossy red with a small Dell logo in the center. The keyboard is silver and made of plastic and the screen bezel is black. The screen has LED backlighting which gives very good display. The laptop is very thin; it is only one inch thick and weighs 4.6 pounds. This is much lighter than laptops that we have tested in this range. If you want portability and hate to carry weight, this is a good option.

Inside Dope

There is a thin line between notebooks and netbooks. This notebook falls into that category. While the slow processor will make it almost a netbook, there are some more features which will drag this device out of netbook category.

Now, a net book is the most basic computer that you will ever get. All it can do is surf the net and send mail and other few functions. They are very tiny as compared to a notebook. But a netbook will start howling if you try games or high end applications. Such computers are preferred by people who travel a lot (because it is quite small and light weight) and need a computer for basic applications.

A notebook is made for people who need all the functions that a desktop computer can offer plus mobility. And so notebooks are costlier than netbooks. Dell Inspiron i1470-3282CRD has best of both worlds, it has a slow processor which will give you a longer battery life and offers some features that netbooks don’t offer.

The slower processor has been put in to increase the battery life. The battery is slated to run for about six hours which is pretty good six cell battery. Most six cell batteries run out of gas in three to four hours. We were quite impressed with the battery life.

But a slower processor means that applications will be slow. You cannot run high end applications on this computer, forget high end games. Gamers stay away from this notebook! We had problems even with the applications on the computer, they took awhile to start. The OS bundled along is Windows 7 and it ran fine.

The slower processor is made up for by plenty of RAM. Dell Inspiron i1470 has 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM, which is not expandable.

The hard disk of the Dell Inspiron i1470-3282CRD is 320 GB and we were surprised to see the 7,200 RPM rating on it. The notebook has been made for longer battery life and a 5,400 RPM would have increased the battery life even more. But we are glad that it is fast, transferring files within two drives on the disk or copying files will be faster as compared to a 5,400 RPM hard disk.

The 320 GB space must be enough for you to save all your data. You can buy external hard disk for more space, but we very much doubt if you will need an extra hard disk. You won’t store much videos on Dell Inspiron i1470-3282CRD because the display is not one made for video viewing.

The display of the screen is 14.1 inch big and has a wide screen aspect ratio of 16:9. The screen will give you a display resolution of 1,366X768 which is what is expected for a screen of this size. Tiling 2 windows of word documents is not easy on this screen and you will have to scroll the sides. The screen has a glossy coating and reading is a little struggle.

The one thing that we were glad was the speaker department. Altec Lansing speakers sound great and you won’t stop listening to music on these babies. The speakers are loud enough too.

The Dell Inspiron i1470 has an optical drive built in so you can burn DVDs and watch movies on DVDs. HDMI is also present, but there are no eSATA and FireWire ports. There is no ExpressCard slot either. There is no Draft N Wi-Fi so you’re left with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi

The keyboard of the Dell Inspiron i1470 is quite good. Typing on these keys will not be a problem. We have reviewed quite a lot of notebooks and we came across products where everything was great but the keyboard was let down. A comfortable keyboard goes a long way in keeping you mentally calm if you are the kind of person who types for hours. This is a great ergonomic keyboard and we must say that is best among what we have tested so far.

The touch pad of the Dell Inspiron i1470 supports multi touch, just like multi touch mobile phone screen. The touch pad was very comfortable to use.

Dell Inspiron i1470 doesn’t have any media keys instead it has the F keys for volume, mute, play/pause, fast forward, and rewind functions. You don’t need to press the Function key to perform these tasks, you have to press the Fn key and then go to functions designated at F1, F2, etc.

Nitty Gritty

This laptop is good for basic computing work. A great battery life and features like optical drive will go well with a basic user. But this is certainly not a notebook for gaming enthusiasts.

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