Dell Inspiron 3500 C300XT

Dell Inspiron 3500 C300XT

SUMMARY

PRO: Modular bay accepts range of devices, AGP graphics bus for peppy presentations CON: Awkwardly placed AC adapter jack

High-quality business notebooks don't always cost upward of three grand. Consider the $2099 Dell Inspiron 3500 C300XT: This month the C300XT reclaims the budget Best Buy from its neck-and-neck nemesis, Gateway. The latest version of Gateway's Solo 2500SE, champing at the bit in second place, bests the C300XT in battery life and uses more on-board cache for greater speed. But the C300XT slips ahead with lighter weight, a bigger screen, and a better company reliability score.

Compared to its bigger sibling--Dell's hulking 10.4-pound, $3529 Inspiron 7000 A366LT (in third place this month on our power chart)--the C300XT makes a better choice for the average business traveler or budget buyer. It's much thinner, lighter, and cheaper than its behemoth kin. And though the larger Inspiron does manage to turn in a much longer battery life, the C300XT endured for a tolerable 2 hours and 45 minutes in our tests.

The C300XT's modular bay accepts the same array of devices as its big brother--one at a time, of course. These include the bundled floppy and CD-ROM drives, and such extra-cost add-ins as a second battery ($119), a DVD-ROM drive ($249), and a Zip drive ($139). Only the location of the AC adapter connection, which Dell decided to group with all the audio jacks on the right side instead of isolating in back, struck us as an unwise design choice.

The C300XT has a comfortable keyboard and lets you reprogram its mouse buttons to launch applications. Dell's beautiful manuals and generous support policies, including around-the-clock toll-free phone lines and three-year warranties on parts and labor, complete the package.