Dell Inspiron 8600

1/20/04 - Dell's Inspiron 8600 looks very much like the 8500 and that is no accident. The 8600 is essentially an upgrade of the 8500 to use the new Intel Pentium M CPU. This gives the 8600 a big advantage over the 8500 and other desktop replacements because of its very long battery life.

Overall system performance is very good with the Pentium M 1.4 GHz CPU. This performs roughly between a Pentium 4 2.4 and 2.6 GHz desktop processor. This means computing will be slower than most desktop replacements with high end Pentium 4 processor, but the power savings allow the 8600 to last sometimes more that twice as long on a single battery charge.

Graphics are headlined by a 15.4" wide screen LCD display with a very good viewing angle. The low end versions of the 8600 come equipped with an NVIDIA GeForceFX Go5200 video processor with 32MB of memory. While it is DirectX 9 compatible, the performance is very lacking when it comes to running 3D games, particularly with the low memory. There is an option for the ATI Radeon 9600 Mobility which offers excellent performance, but it costs more.

Probably the biggest problem with the 8600 is the expansion capabilities. Most desktop replacements offer 3 USB 2.0 ports and some even 4. With the huge number of USB devices available, it is a shame that there are only 2 USB ports on the 8600.

So in the end, the Dell Inspiron 8600 is a very good computer if you are willing to wade through the customize options and can live with only two USB ports.

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