Dell Inspiron 700M - Taking the Widescreen Display to Ultraportables

Construction - Usability in the Field

Fan

The system's CPU fan is on only when it needs to be, as it is initiated at particular thermal points. So as usage goes up, the fan will in turn be activated or the fan speed is increased. At the maximum speed, the noise is distinguishable, but not so much that it would annoy you or the person next to you on a flight. We would compare the volume at the max similar to the sound of a second hand in one of those old-fashion wall hanging clocks.

More often than not, the fan just cools the CPU just enough so that it is tolerable and then cuts out, which is what you want to see in a multimedia notebook, to eliminate any disturbance while watching movies. Since the CPU fan is on the left side of the system, it is more audible on that side. Actually, if the optical drive is being accessed, the fan's noise will be drowned out or matched if it is at max.

I would say that more than 90% of the time, even with the CPU at over 70% utilization, the fan is off, basically dead quiet.

Heat

This is one of the coolest notebooks in terms of heat, or lack thereof, even more so than the HP DV1000 or the Asus S5200N. It is cool to the touch, basically everywhere. When we were running MobileMark 2002, even past the two-hour mark, the notebook doesn't feel as other reviewed ultraportable notebooks do. Granted, this is a much heftier ultraportable.

The only spot that felt warm was the upper right hand corner on the bottom of the notebook, which is where the CPU is located. However, it is just about as warm as touching your toaster after it has cooled down for a few minutes. The nice thing is that the keyboard doesn't feel warm from the hard drive or CPU, which is sometimes an annoyance. Interestingly enough, the hard drive doesn't feel warm, even after hours of use.

Keyboard

Click to enlarge.

One of the big shortcomings for the 700M is the keyboard. Unfortunately, it isn't a full-sized keyboard like the IBM X31, nor does it use the standard-sized keys. Personally, I use an Asus S52000N, which doesn't feature a full-sized keyboard, but the alpha character keys are the standard size or just slightly below. So basically, the Dell keyboard is that much harder to use with smaller keys, as people with average to large hands will see.

The layout for the arrow and function keys are in the correct places, but the page up, page down, end, and home keys are not in their typical places. Instead, the left arrow key plus function key equates to the page up key, and the right arrow key and the function key results in paging down. The home and end keys are placed just to the right of the F12 key. In comparison to other ultraportables, the 700M is shorter in width, which accounts for the need in shrinking basically all of the keyboard buttons. Other than the size, there is a good amount of tactile response similar to other mainstream ultraportable notebooks (e.g. Latitude X300, Asus S5200N), but it feels like there is a shallower "click" to pressing any keyboard button compared to the regular-sized notebooks.

TouchPad & Buttons

The touchpad has a texture and feel very similar to the silver malleable-plastic casing of the notebook, so it already lacks the same kind of traction that we are used to seeing from other Dell notebooks. And this brings us to the problem of the wear and tear. The best notebooks that we have used are those with more hard plastic, like that of the IBM ThinkPad series, Dell Latitude, and HP/Compaq Presario notebooks. After some time with the 700M, the texture of the touchpad seems to smooth out completely, due to repeated use. We should note that wear and tear is normal after sometime for even heavy notebook users, but the hardier notebooks that we have used haven't had their touchpad severely smoothed out until after a year, at minimum.

Click to enlarge.

We have similar concerns about the touchpad buttons, since they are also made of a similar malleable-plastic like material. Though, this wouldn't feel slightly awkward if there was a more fluid "click". As it stands, the buttons are kind of like those on a cheap mouse where a light tap doesn't "click" the button, but it does press it slightly.

The glide aspect feels less than what we have seen on Dell's Latitude line, and actually, we feel more comfortable with the glide aspect and texture of other consumer notebooks, particularly other Inspiron and/or those from HP/Compaq.