Review: Dell Inspiron 700M/710M (CNET Asia)

Dell Inspiron 710m
CNET Asia has a new “review” out of the recently announced Dell Inspiron 710M, however this is slightly misleading. The review covers the Dell Inspiron 700M (the 710M is not currently shipping, although it’s supposed to ship this month), however it applies to the 710M as well, since the only differences between the 700M and the 710M are different case colorings, slight CPU speed increases, and additional multimedia-oriented software.

The 700M/710M is Dell’s entry-level ultraportable – they have a 12.1″ widescreen display, and are powered by Pentium Ms. In addition, they have internal optical drives.

As there is little difference between the 700M and the 710M, CNET Asia’s bottom-line about the 710M (which they gave a 7.4. out of 10) was: Once a ground-breaking design, Dell’s thin-and-light laptop is well overdue for a makeover. – I could not agree more. I understand that this is their entry-level ultraportable, but it’s a very dated design and configuration. The 700M is scheduled to be phased out during the early part of 2006, and with new Intel chips around the corner…