As one of the first of the mainstream computer manufacturers to develop a laptop around the new Intel Core Duo processor, Dell has much riding on the success of the new Inspiron 9400. The 1.66GHz Core Duo processor will either sink or swim in Dell’s mainstream portables depending upon its reception here. Matched with 1GB of PC2-5300 DDR2 that promises to run even the thirstiest applications with aplomb, the major yardstick is not whether Core Duo can keep pace with the Pentium M (Dothan), but whether it can perform without reducing battery life to minutes rather than hours.

Yet having said that, it is easy to think that the Inspiron’s sole point of interest is the aforementioned CPU. You see, this is Dell’s attempt at an all-in-one laptop: a workhorse that sits as comfortably in office attire as it does in casuals. With fast-access email buttons, ample memory and a weight of 3.6kg, it’s a suitable office-based and on-the-go machine. Yet with Media Center bundled in, to give the control buttons at the foot of the casing something to do, and a 17in widescreen display, the Inspiron seems built for handling movies as comfortably as Excel spreadsheets.

Visually, the arctic silver and white casing is an interesting reworking from Dell. The colour scheme and layout of the keyboard and tracker pad hint at a classiness that some might dismiss as tacky trend-chasing. But it actually works rather well, giving the screen a comfortable border in gentle silver rather than harsh black. The build quality, however, doesn’t quite follow suit. The bottom side corners of our review machine became tainted and scratched after just a few days of use, and the worrying bend elicited from applying the lightest pressure to the casing beneath the screen is a further point of concern. The display is far sturdier, but lacks the crispness and clarity needed for design work or decent movie viewing.

The Inspiron ships in a variety of flavours – one of which is the WUXGA (1,920x1,200) UltraSharp option – but our test machine’s WXGA+ (1,440x900) seemed dull and polarised. The Intel GMA 950 subsystem underperformed in our 3DMark test, but again there’s the option of an NVIDIA Geforce 7800 to spice things up – at a price.

Connectivity options
The Inspiron’s connectivity options are well stocked, however, with a single FireWire port, four USB 2.0 ports at the back and a further two on the side, a five-in-one memory card reader, analogue output, DVI port, ExpressCard slot, Gigabit Ethernet support and S-Video output. From a media-machine perspective, the Inspiron has it all covered, yet is let down by the harsh speaker output, whose integrated subwoofer lacks the bass modelling one would expect.

A further dent in the appeal of the Inspiron from a media centre point of view is hard drive capacity. The 80GB SATA drive is more than enough for trundling documents between the office and home, but because the Inspiron options include an external USB TV tuner, it wouldn’t take long for a decent collection of music, TV, movies and photos to start maxing the drive out. The Inspiron comes with an 8xDVD±RW, which goes some way to extending your backup capabilities. But with many comparative systems now shipping with 7,200rpm hard disks, the Inspiron’s 5,400rpm still seems like an misjudgement for a machine designed for media centre use.

Still, all of these are niggles rather than flaws, especially at this price. When it comes to multimedia capabilities, the Inspiron can deliver, and does so without killing the battery. In SYSmark performance testing, the Inspiron clocked in 3.5 hours’ battery life – hardly stunning, but not awful for a machine of this size. Wireless networking is catered for by an in-built 802.11a/b/g chipset, and Bluetooth’s on show too. The matching silver trackpad and buttons are practical, if a little twitchy, and the full-size keyboard offers plenty of resting space either side.

There are obviously better all-out gaming systems and dedicated office-orientated machines available, both from Dell’s own higher ranges and from the likes of Gateway. But for a touch of both worlds, and on a tightly-reigned budget, the Inspiron represents a well-rounded dual-core multimedia system.