Dell Inspiron M501R

Good build and aesthetics, but you can get much better performance at the same price

Great aesthetics, solid build, WLED screen is bright and vibrant, full sized keyboard, four USB ports

Mobile Phenom II X4 is not much faster than a Core i5, runs really hot, average battery life, no express card slot

Expert Rating :

   

It was ironical to have dull looking and plasticky notebooks from Dell under its Inspiron series because despite its nomenclature there was nothing inspiring about it. After the refresh though, the new Inspirons live up to their name with a completely overhauled design and feel. We already covered the new Inspiron 14R a while back and now we look at the recently launched AMD powered Inspirons that fall under the new M501R brand name.

There are currently two CPU options available, a triple core Phenom II N850 and a Quad N930. Today we have the latter configuration, which is the full blown version with 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD550v with 1GB memory.

Previously AMD based laptops were notorious for burning your lap, which is why we stayed away from them. Also, the performance wasn't anything to write home about either. Let's see what's changed with the new Phenom II chips and if they are able to deliver better performance without stinging your thighs.

Bundle
The standard package includes;

• Charger
• Driver disk 
• Design and Build
  
  
  
  The blue colored version is visually appealing and stands out from the rest. The surface is glossy, which means fingerprints are unavoidable. The notebook has a slight brushed aluminium look.
  
  
  
  
  
  On the left is a large exhaust vent, a USB port, microphone and headphone jack and an HDMI port. At the back there are two more USB ports; VGA port and a charging port.
  
  
  
  
  
  The right side features a LAN jack, an ESATA/USB combo port , memory card reader and an optical drive. The ExpressCard slot is missing for some reason, as there seems to be ample space on the left for it. I guess since it is not used often Dell decided to leave it out altogether.
  
  
  
  
  
  The silver on the insides has a nice bluish tinge which complements the lid. You'll be happy to know that the trackpad is sufficiently large with very easy to click mouse buttons. The surface is smooth and does not leave any greasy fingerprints behind.
  
  You also get a full size keyboard, thanks to the capacious 15.6" WLED screen. We found the response of the keys to be satisfactory even though it's not a chicklet keyboard. There is a lot of unused space on the top above the keyboard, which would have been the ideal place for some shortcut buttons like volume, etc. Instead, the function keys now act as secondary keys, so if you hit F5 directly you'll increase the brightness, which is handy. But if you're someone who uses keyboard shortcuts a lot, you'll have to hit the extra Fn key as well, which can get a bit annoying each time you want to close a window with Alt+F4.
  
  Overall we quite liked the aesthetic of the M501R, which is a marked improvement over the older Inspirons. Next let's see how it performs. Performance
  PCMark Vantage
  
  
  
  
  3DMark Vantage
  
    
  
  
  SiSOFT SANDRA 2010
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Analysis
  First, lets start off with the CPU, which although is a quad core, doesn't really pack much of a punch. The Mobile Phenom II N930 is built on the same 45nm fabrication like its desktop counterparts but lacks the L3 cache that gave the desktop Phenom IIs their edge. Also, there isn't any Turbo Core either, so if we had to compare it to its desktop brother then it should be along the lines of an Athlon II X4. Even so, in most tests that require pure CPU usage the Core i5 is a bit faster.
  
  Now coming to the GPU, the Mobility Radeon HD 550v is nothing but a rebranded HD 4650 sporting exactly the same specifications but instead runs at a lower clock speed, which frankly makes no sense. Don't be fooled by the 550v name, it's not based on the newer HD 5000 series. This is clearly reflected in the scores as well.
  
  General and Multimedia performance  
  The notebook is very responsive for daily tasks like internet surfing, watching videos, etc. Multitasking is really not a problem here, thanks to four physical cores. A small warning though, the M501R runs pretty hot even with Power Saver Mode - On and just browsing. You'll feel the heat instantly on your leg, which can be really uncomfortable. The CPU does scale down to 800MHz on low load but even so with our room temperature at 22C, it was still quite hot. The keys and trackpad don't cause much fatigue even with prolonged use.
  
  Movies look good on the screen, thanks to the glossy screen. The resolution could have been a little higher for such a large screen but it's still not too shabby. The speakers are quite loud with warm sound rather than being thin and shrill. The speakers face outwards, so they aren't blocked when you place them on your lap. The ideal place would have been above the keyboard. In Dirt2 at the native resolution and with everything set to high, we managed to get a solid 35FPS, which is very good.  
  Battery life
  Under normal usage with the Wi-Fi on and power mode set to 'Balanced', the notebook lasted for two hours, which is strictly average. Actually with the quad core running, this is better than I expected, but still not great.
  
  Pricing and Verdict
  This configuration of the M501R will cost you Rs. 40,900, which is not a bad price for a quad core notebook. The build and aesthetics are appealing and the 15.6" LED screen is great when it comes to watching movies or even just surfing the net. My major problem with the M501R is the Phenom II X4 CPU which isn't much powerful compared to the Corei5 450 that is faster and does not heat up as much. In fact, you can get this exact same configuration with an Intel Corei5 460M that not only runs at a faster 2.53 GHz but can also TurboBoost up to 2.8GHz; all this for the exact same price.
  
  
  
  
  Overall, we weren't too impressed with AMD's mobile chips as they don't seem to provide any advantage over Intel's offering. We haven't tested the Triple Core variant yet but if the quad is anything to go by then I'm pretty sure it's not going to be much exciting either.
  
  We say skip the Mobile Phenoms for now and stick with the Core i3 and Core i5, as they offer better performance without setting your pants on fire.
  
  
  Test unit sourced from 20.20 Media