No Reviews of 1525n on Dell Site?

[pablo180]

A couple of months ago I was looking at getting a Dell 1525n and went through all the reviews on the site for information about the product, about 300 of them. A couple mentioned that they had bought the Vista version and then installed Ubuntu but there wasn't a single review of the n version.

I bought the laptop anyway, and have been checking the reviews regularly, but still no reviews. Does this mean that the 1525n isn't selling well? That Ubuntu users just don't leave reviews? That there is a separate section and I missed it? Or that Dell aren't putting them up on the website?

I am sure that it would put a few people off trying Ubuntu if they are unable to read reviews from others in a similar position that have taken the plunge.

Incidentally I added a review about two weeks ago, it still hasn't appeared, has anyone else added a review about the 1525n (it seems to be fairly popular here)?

[karasuman]

I have a 1525n with Ubuntu installed, and I didn't write a review. :) If they don't get posted, I'm not going to write one, either.

[aysiu]

Why not post your reviews here?

[pablo180]

I have a 1525n with Ubuntu installed, and I didn't write a review. :) If they don't get posted, I'm not going to write one, either.

Doesn't look like they do, 339 reviews and still no n series ones.

[pablo180]

Why not post your reviews here?

I did think about posting here but I thought that might be a bit like preaching to the choir, after all anyone on here is likely to either be an Ubuntu user or someone that is seriously considering using it.

I thought that a review on the Dell site might sway those looking at the cheapest option but are unsure of Ubuntu or who have never heard of it.

Dell did have the site set up so that if you selected the usage as email, surfing and word processing it came up with the Ubuntu option on top. I thought that was pretty good, but I think that without any reviews non Ubuntu users are unlikely to take the chance, which is a shame as it is certainly well worth it.

[aysiu]

If people haven't heard of Ubuntu, their likelihood of finding the 1525n on the Dell website is pretty darn low (not to mention the fact that Dell tries to scare them off by saying Not sure Open Source is for You?
The main thing to note is that when you choose open source you don’t get a Windows® operating system. If you’re here by mistake and you are looking for a Dell PC with Windows, please use the following link. The way Dell has "marketed" the Ubuntu Dell computers, I think the most likely potential buyers would be people on these forums.

Please, post your reviews here.

[mtrompeta]

It'd be great if anybody w/ this laptop posted a review about it. I've been thinking about getting this laptop as opposed to a macbook and wanted to see why I should go w/ a dell instead. I'm almost sold in terms of value (feature wise the dell has more of what I want). I'm also a developer, but wanted to look into developing for apple which is why I'm considering a macbook).

[sistoviejo]

Please do post it... I was looking for the review on google and ended up here.

[pablo180]

OK I have changed it around a bit but this is basically the review that I posted on the Dell website that never appeared.

I was looking for a low end laptop as I already have three desktops PCs in the house, and just needed something for word processing, email, surfing etc and that was portable.

I'd used Ubuntu before and went for the 1525n basically because it was the cheapest option and just went with the basic set up.

Looks

I have the basic black matte version which looks pretty smart, although I do sort of wish that I had paid the extra and gone for the blue or the green one now.

The laptop itself is quite stylish, nice silver interior and very smart looking LED Media Buttons and sound buttons. It certainly looks good for a cheap laptop, everyone is quite surprised when I tell them how much it cost.

Hardware

The basic option has or had a 1.8GHz CPU and just 1GB of RAM, less than my oldest desktop PC, but it is really fast. It boots to the login screen very quickly (about 30s - 1min), in fact it boots up almost as fast as it boots from hibernation.

I don't use Wifi but I have tested it, it finds my neighbours networks quickly and easily. The Wifi has a handy switch on the side so you can just turn it on or off when needed to save battery life. Even when already booted up the Wifi just works and finds the nearest networks when turned on.

Ports wise there are 4 USB slots, a HDMI slot (which was a surprise), Firewire, S-Video, VGA and a couple of others that I am not sure about plus two headphone sockets and a mic socket, which will come in handy. It also has an 8 in 1 card reader on the front, which was also a surprise, and this seems to work really well. It is cleverly concealed with just one slot for all eight card types.

The DVD drive is excellent and I haven't had any problems, I purchased Nero and that works perfectly with this drive and have burnt lots of DVDs and CDs pretty fast and without any coasters.

The glossy screen is excellent, although a decent screen cleaner is worth getting as it seems to attract finger prints. Movies and photos look brilliant on the screen.

The scroll sections of the trackpad are very useful, especially as the horizontal one can be used to go Back and Forward when surfing the web too.

The battery life was excellent for the first couple of weeks, averaging three and a half hours. Although that has now dropped to 2 hours 45 mins to 3 hours max now, still pretty good.

Others have complained about the fan but it only kicks in occasionally and it isn't really that loud, even at full pelt.

Having used Ubuntu before I was well used to having hardware problems, such as the mouse not working properly, screen resolution problems, no sound (never managed to get the sound working on my IBM Thinkpad 600) and other hardware problems. I was very relieved when everything on this laptop just worked straight out of the box. I've always liked Ubuntu, just hated having to spend hours trawling for answers for simple things that I just can't get to work.

This was definitely one of the main selling points for me and it delivered.

Features

Mine came with Gutsy 7.10 and LinDVD and everything worked perfectly from first boot. I've played a few DVDs, including the latest ones and never had a problem with LinDVD, it's a bit basic compared to PowerDVD and other DVD software on Windows but it does the job well.

The only downside is that for some reason, that I presume is to do with LinDVD, I cannot rip DVDs, nor can I encode them. Other types of video work fine, but I have downloaded countless ripping and encoding software and none of them work. Not too much of a problem as I'd rather be able to play all DVDs than have the ability to rip one every now and again.

Cons

Suspend doesn't work it crashes when resuming from suspend. Hibernation works most of the time, in fact I have only had it fail to resume from hibernation twice. Although I do get a message pop up occasionally saying 'Failed to resume from sleep' or something, even though it has resumed without any problems.

Dell are apparently working on a fix for the suspend problem, but as this problem has affected this laptop from BIOS A09 and mine is A14, they're not getting anywhere fast with it.

The graphics card is a bit basic, you would have thought that in an Ubuntu laptop Dell would have fitted one that works with Compiz. Dell has a workaround on their Wiki page (http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu_7.10/Issues/Compiz_Fusion_965GM_Incompatibility) for getting it work with full effects and it seems to work fine except it won't play video with full effects enabled but it is simple enough to turn the effects on and off again for this. The sound buttons also don't work properly under full effects.

Never having used a trackpad before I found it very annoying at first. But it is OK once you get used to it. The trackpad also seems to stop responding for a few seconds every now and then, usually when browsing so not sure if this is something to do with Firefox.

When I first switched it on there were quite a few updates, I downloaded those fine, installed them and then did the same again with a few more. A few weeks later I realised that I wasn't getting any update notifications. For some reason the update manager had disappeared, I reinstalled it but now I have to check for updates manually. Don't know whether this is a general Ubuntu problem or just specific to this laptop, I searched the forums but only found similar problems with Hardy.

Again not sure whether this is an Ubuntu problem in general or specific to this laptop/graphics card but occasionally my windows get stuck between desktops on full effects and no amount of moving or minimising and maximising corrects it. I have to switch effects off and then on again to get the window back.

Overall I am very happy with my purchase, it looks great, is very powerful for the price and is more than enough for my needs. I wanted a good laptop that would last several years and I seem to have found it. Because of the quick boot time of this machine and it's overall speed I have found myself using this more and more rather than my desktop PCs as I can't be bothered to wait for them to boot up and get annoyed by their sluggishness.

Delivery was also very quick, I had the laptop in three working days.

[pablo180]

If people haven't heard of Ubuntu, their likelihood of finding the 1525n on the Dell website is pretty darn low (not to mention the fact that Dell tries to scare them off by saying The way Dell has "marketed" the Ubuntu Dell computers, I think the most likely potential buyers would be people on these forums.

Please, post your reviews here.

I see what you mean about the way that they are marketing it.

When I bought it I had no problems finding it. At the time they had it in the tick boxes on the side of the UK site "Ubuntu Open Source Laptop" on the main laptop page, as well as the usage section that I mentioned before.

It was also listed as the cheapest option on the main laptop page.

Now it isn't on the main laptop page at all and all reference to it has been removed in the tick boxes.

I only managed to find it today by digging through the menu's and going to the special Ubuntu page.

A real shame as it means that only people specifically looking for that laptop will ever find it and buy it.

[OhioLen]

I would agree with just about everything above, with a few added comments.

I got the base model as described above, except I also got the default battery (which is not as described above). After using it for a few weeks I updated to Hardy, which seems to work as well as it does on any other machine. Before I did the update, I decided to test the system restore function, and it works like a charm. It puts Gutsy back exactly the way it was right out of the box just like it should. It of course wipes out the drive and data, but I didn't have anything important on it anyway, in preparation for the update.

If you paid extra for the LinDVD software, you will probably need to call Dell's tech support (not cust.svc) for help with reinstalling the package after a distro update; mine certainly acted flaky. It's no big deal, but they keep a semi-tight lid on LinDVD since it's commercial software. It only takes about 5 minutes once you get a rep on the phone.

With Hardy, there are a few bugs but those are mainly software issues in Compiz, PulseAudio or what-have-you. There are fixes and/or workarounds for most of those here in the forums anyway, and they don't seem to have anything to do with Dell's hardware.

If you're considering buying a 1525n, definitely upgrade from the default battery. I didn't, and it only gave me about 1:30 off the grid when new. 3 months later, I get 1:05 if I'm lucky. Buying a longer cable for the power pack is only $1.99, and highly recommended. That will give you a total of roughly 12' (3.6m) of power line if you need it, then the battery life might not matter quite so much.

Outside of the fingerprint-magnet thing (and the weight), I have few complaints. Although I have no idea what it is about people's need to TOUCH the damn screen. "Just point and keep your grubby paws off," I tell people. I've even had to slap people's hands away from it because I didn't have a way to clean it handy. The screen is just so crystal-clear and shiny that people can't resist. I was actually afraid to clean it until I called Dell and asked what to use. Microfiber cloth and LCD cleaner are Dell's ONLY recommended cleaning method; if you use something else you run the risk of ruining that oh-so-shiny finish on the screen. For the keyboard, touchpad and outer case (powered off, of course), I just use a Lysol wipe after squeezing out the excess liquid.

It's a very good laptop overall, and I doubt you'll find anything better for the price. If you're thinking laptop + Ubuntu, buy one.

Did I mention that the screen is really shiny? :lolflag:

[Gaudentius]

Dell Inspiron 1525N
Intel Core 2 Duo T7250, 2GHz 800MHz, 2MB L2 Cache
4GB DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
120GB 7200RPM SATA HD with Free Fall Sensor
Ubuntu 8.04 with DVD playback
Integrated 10/100 NIC
8X DVD+/- RW Dual Layer Drive
Intel 3945 WLAN (802.11 a/g) Mini-card
6-cell Battery

All for ~$870 shipped (using Dell coupon code for systems over $999). How'd I do? :popcorn:

Complete n00b on Ubuntu or any Linux distro. I haven't touched Linux in over 6 years. Used it to build a server for my senior project in school. Rock solid, but left a bad taste for Linux afterward.

After reading up on some of the reviews of the latest versions of Ubuntu, I'm actually looking forward to really making use of this lappy for work and media. If it doesn't work out, I've always got a copy of XP just sitting at home unused. But realllly don't think it'll come to that. This'll be fun to learn how to master.

GD

[OhioLen]

All for ~$870 shipped (using Dell coupon code for systems over $999). How'd I do? :popcorn:

Not bad at all. After shipping and the university discount, mine was $750 with extra warranty options and the low-end battery. The battery upgrade was around $200 or so, if I remember right.

Buy LCD cleaner :biggrin:, enjoy your machine and bookmark these forums, they're a great resource.

[aysiu]

Does resume-from-suspend work on Hardy?

[OhioLen]

Does resume-from-suspend work on Hardy?

Like a charm for me. Everything goes down and the blue power LED pulses on and off once every few seconds. I press the power button, a very few seconds later I enter my password, and it's ready to roll. Hardy's power manager seems to work pretty well on the 1525n, and is easily configurable (including lid-close behavior) both for AC and battery scenarios.

I don't ordinarily use hibernate so I just now tested it between paragraphs. Seems to work just fine. It completely powered down (no pulsing LED) and when I hit the power button it looked like a normal Ubuntu boot for a few moments, then the password prompt came up. The Ubuntu splash screen's progress bar animation did hang briefly, but that was probably just boot-up CPU load.

Come to think of it, you might not get that prompt if your screen saver isn't password-protected (as it should be IMHO).

[Rallg]

May I ask, is the WiFi capability built into the basic model? Nowadays I would expect it, but the Dell site doesn't say. I would hate to have to buy a separate card.

Has anyone tried adding a partition, for potential use experimenting with other distros (such as Ubuntu Ibex when it comes)?

The as-shipped starting screen: Is it a Grub-type boot, or something else?

Can the computer boot from USB?

[OhioLen]

The WiFi is integrated and as I said earlier, I got the base model. It works flawlessly (depending on the access point's signal strength, of course). At my university, I can access the network indoors or out. At home, I use CAT5 cable because my ISP can be flaky sometimes. The hardware default seems to be that a wired connection takes priority over wireless. If you unplug from the CAT5 (and you haven't turned off the WiFi switch), the WiFi will immediately start looking for a signal. You will NOT need a separate WiFi solution.

I've installed GPARTED because I like to have the option to make adjustments to the partition table if I want, but I haven't actually made any. The last time I needed to use GPARTED was in Gutsy on my old tower; I doubt there's much (if any) functional difference in Hardy.

The boot screen goes by fast, but it uses GRUB. If you want to change the boot options, you have to be pretty quick on the draw but getting into the BIOS or changing boot options is not a big deal.

I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure that with it being a modern BIOS, the option to boot from USB media is available. No guarantees though, as I have not tested it. That might be a question for Dell's tech suppport.

It's really a good laptop; I use it almost constantly every day and other than some minor software bugginess in Hardy and/or Firefox3, I am very pleased with its performance. It gets a little warm with extended use, but the fan does a good job of venting it out the back.

Hope this helps!

[pablo180]

Can the computer boot from USB?

I have never tried it but it's one of the boot options in the BIOS, 'boot from USB storage device', not sure whether this means USB HD, USB Flash Disk, USB CD/DVD Drive or all of them.

[Ichido]

I have a couple of 1525n's.
I did post a review which did get posted.

[rafaelrc]

I have an Inspiron 1520n with Ubuntu pre-installed from about a month now. It is sweet, I have to say. It came with 7.10 so I didn't do much with it before upgrading. The process was pretty painless, but then a series of issues started to appear, all of those documented on the Dell Linux Wiki so I could sort them out without much hassle.

This computer looks great and delivers flawlessly, I can't tell you enough how happy I am with it...

[Ichido]

May I ask, is the WiFi capability built into the basic model? Nowadays I would expect it, but the Dell site doesn't say. I would hate to have to buy a separate card.


Has anyone tried adding a partition, for potential use experimenting with other distros (such as Ubuntu Ibex when it comes)?


The as-shipped starting screen: Is it a Grub-type boot, or something else?


Can the computer boot from USB?



My 1525 has 802.11g, built-in Mini-card.

Yes, you can have up to 5 Partitions.
I have used Ubuntu 7.10 and a back up Ubuntu 8.04, it comes with 8.04.1 now.
Kubuntu does not work on mine, but Puppy 4 works great.

It uses GRUB, the the GRUB Start Up is Hidden.

Yes, The BIOS can be set to boot from a USB Drive.

It does come with a nice diagnostic software, just press 'Fn' key and the 'Power On' button when you boot up.

WARNING: Dell Tech Support is poor.
Any emails or Calls, KEEP COPIES !!!

That Shiny Screen is good for seeing if anyone behind you is watching for Logins and Passwords as you type!

[Anditsu]

If people haven't heard of Ubuntu, their likelihood of finding the 1525n on the Dell website is pretty darn low (not to mention the fact that Dell tries to scare them off by saying The way Dell has "marketed" the Ubuntu Dell computers, I think the most likely potential buyers would be people on these forums.

Please, post your reviews here.

Hello Ubuntu Users,
I just got a Dell Inspiration 1525 about a week a go. So I'll share my experience with every one. My over all Impression is good. Every thing works like a charm with Ubuntu,all needed drivers and plug ins are included. The only thing is that the speakers are not real great,but thats really a small thing.