As some of you already know, I have recently had the chance to get the feel of a 5150 while I set it up for a coworker. Since I kept the machine at the office I really didn’t get a chance to run any benchmarks for you number lovers out there (have to do some work during the day) or take any pictures with my 8600 for direct comparison (the confidentiality policy at my office makes cameras taboo).
Here are the specs of the 5150:
Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor at 3.06 GHz (512KB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB)
15” SXGA+ (1400x1050)
64MB DDR NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX Go5200 AGP 4x Graphics
60GB Hard Drive at 7200RPM
256 MB + 512 MB crucial for 768 MB ram
XP Pro
My 8600’s specs are in my sig.
Initial impressions:
Size and weight:
The 5150 appears smaller than the 8600 at first glance, as it’s footprint is not as large. The 5150 has a width of 13.1” (335mm) while the 8600 has a width of 14.22” (361.2mm). This can be attributed the 8600’s widescreen. The difference in depth is not noticeable (~1mm). After picking up the 5150 however I quickly realized that is heavier than my 8600. The 5150 weighs in at 8.25 lbs (3.59 kg), while the 8600 weighs a noticeably lighter 6.9 lbs (2.96 kg).
After getting the 5150 out of all of it’s various shipping materials the next thing I realized was that it is noticeably thicker than the 8600. On paper the difference appears small with the 5150 having a height of 1.83” (46.5 mm) and the 8600 having that of 1.52 (38.6 mm). However, having them sitting side by side on my desk made the difference apparent. The 5150 comes off as “short and stocky” thanks to it’s shorter width and beefier height. The 8600 appears more sleek with it’s lower height and wider stance. I think the color had a little to do with this impression as well. The 8600 retains the standard gray shine on the top of the LCD while the 5150 has what amounts to a blue quick snap cover on the LCD panel. Note that it is built into the chassis and not a quick snap.
Size and weight overall:
Even though the 8600 has a larger footprint than the 5150, it more than makes up for that size difference in height and weight. I like the sharp metallic look of the 8600 as opposed to the plastic-y impression that the 5150’s blue panel gives. I would have to give the size and weight (and overall appearance) nod to the 8600.
Build:
It goes with common logic that a piece of material that is longer and thinner than another will inherently have more elastic strain and thus appear to flex or give more than a smaller piece of material. Same applies to laptop chassis’s, when you pick up an 8600 by say the left palm rest corner area with the LCD open of course the chassis is going to bend and flex a little more than a comparable chassis in a taller and shorter laptop. I know that this may not be the greatest explanation but I am trying to convey the idea without going into material science topics that would most likely only further cloud the issue for most.
The 5150 comes off as bulkier and therefore more solid than the 8600. Chassis flex is not as readily noticed, but for reasons stated above I think the 8600 takes an unfair wrap as far as build quality goes. Both the 5150 and 8600 feel okay in the build department. Sure they aren’t IBM Think-Tanks, but they hold up just fine in my experience. Even issues such as LCD “flapping” when carrying the laptop around with the panel open is minimal on both of these systems. Neither showed any bothersome keyboard flex.
Cosmetically the 5150 looks cleaner and less cluttered than the 8600 as the interlay around the keyboard does not contain all the extra buttons that the 8600 does. The buttons I’m referring to are the DVD/CD control buttons on the right side of the keyboard and the volume control buttons above it. The touchpad also looks cleaner as the buttons kind of flow right into the palm rest area whereas the 8600 buttons are raised a bit. After some usage however I quickly decided that the touchpad buttons and surrounding area felt “cheesy”. This area of the laptop by far has the most “plastic-y” feel than any other part. Button clicks are accompanied by an audible plastic click that just makes it feel cheaply made. This was the only area of the laptop that gave me a negative impression in overall look and feel.
Screen:
My adoration for WUXGA widescreen aside, I must say I was impressed by the clarity of the regular aspect SXGA+. No dead pixels and only minimal light leakage.
Build Overall:
I am not going to elaborate as to which system is built better as for reasons already mentioned I feel it is not an apples to apples comparison. Like I said before, they are both ok.
I/O:
The 5150 suffers from the same lack of I/O ports as the 8600c. Which of course means: no card reader, only 2 USB2 ports, and no legacy support.
Performance:
As a lot of the regulars can probably already tell you, I am a strong advocate for Pentium M based laptops. I’m just making that biased clear to anyone else who may not have been aware.
The Mobile Pentium 4 in this 5150 was clocked at 3.06 GHz and did NOT have HT. This is perhaps my biggest beef with this configuration as the rest of it is pretty solid. The user of this system is a graphic arts student who would have been able to benefit from HT apps. But hey, you can’t hold everyone’s hand all the time right? I was not present when my coworker made his final configuration. That oversight aside, the quickness of the system was still refreshing. I set up laptops all the time and the difference in HDD speeds really does become obvious. Formatting and reinstalling windows on a 4200RPM drive can quickly become a laborious process, but a 7200RPM drive makes it noticeably quicker.
The graphics options on the 5150 really can’t compete with those of the 8600 for gamers or otherwise intense 3D applications. That doesn’t make the GeForce in the 5150 bad. It is a very solid card and serves graphic art and other 2D content creation well. I am also known for preaching the reliability and stability of NVIDIA cards. I stuck with the standard drivers provided by Dell as they will serve the expected usage of this machine well.
The ram in the 5150 is PC2700 just like the 8600.
Performance Bottom line:
The 5150 moved pretty quick and was overall pretty responsive. I did not notice any improvement over my 1.7 GHz 8600 during my testing. For the money I’d say the 5150 is a good buy. You can expect similar if not better (with HT) performance than a Pentium M based machine for hundreds of dollars less. Of course you lose all of the other tangibles that come into play for mobile systems, but whether or not they are worth it to an individual is simply up to the person using the machine. Also people planning on putting their systems through the latest and greatest games should know that the graphics options in the 5150 will be a severely limiting factor in performance.
These are just some of my thoughts on a machine that I had for a couple of days. People showed some interest in hearing a little more about the 5150 as no one on the board seems to have one yet. Sorry I couldn’t provide any pictures or benches, but I tried to cover most of the details I thought people would want to know.
Here are the specs of the 5150:
Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor at 3.06 GHz (512KB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB)
15” SXGA+ (1400x1050)
64MB DDR NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX Go5200 AGP 4x Graphics
60GB Hard Drive at 7200RPM
256 MB + 512 MB crucial for 768 MB ram
XP Pro
My 8600’s specs are in my sig.
Initial impressions:
Size and weight:
The 5150 appears smaller than the 8600 at first glance, as it’s footprint is not as large. The 5150 has a width of 13.1” (335mm) while the 8600 has a width of 14.22” (361.2mm). This can be attributed the 8600’s widescreen. The difference in depth is not noticeable (~1mm). After picking up the 5150 however I quickly realized that is heavier than my 8600. The 5150 weighs in at 8.25 lbs (3.59 kg), while the 8600 weighs a noticeably lighter 6.9 lbs (2.96 kg).
After getting the 5150 out of all of it’s various shipping materials the next thing I realized was that it is noticeably thicker than the 8600. On paper the difference appears small with the 5150 having a height of 1.83” (46.5 mm) and the 8600 having that of 1.52 (38.6 mm). However, having them sitting side by side on my desk made the difference apparent. The 5150 comes off as “short and stocky” thanks to it’s shorter width and beefier height. The 8600 appears more sleek with it’s lower height and wider stance. I think the color had a little to do with this impression as well. The 8600 retains the standard gray shine on the top of the LCD while the 5150 has what amounts to a blue quick snap cover on the LCD panel. Note that it is built into the chassis and not a quick snap.
Size and weight overall:
Even though the 8600 has a larger footprint than the 5150, it more than makes up for that size difference in height and weight. I like the sharp metallic look of the 8600 as opposed to the plastic-y impression that the 5150’s blue panel gives. I would have to give the size and weight (and overall appearance) nod to the 8600.
Build:
It goes with common logic that a piece of material that is longer and thinner than another will inherently have more elastic strain and thus appear to flex or give more than a smaller piece of material. Same applies to laptop chassis’s, when you pick up an 8600 by say the left palm rest corner area with the LCD open of course the chassis is going to bend and flex a little more than a comparable chassis in a taller and shorter laptop. I know that this may not be the greatest explanation but I am trying to convey the idea without going into material science topics that would most likely only further cloud the issue for most.
The 5150 comes off as bulkier and therefore more solid than the 8600. Chassis flex is not as readily noticed, but for reasons stated above I think the 8600 takes an unfair wrap as far as build quality goes. Both the 5150 and 8600 feel okay in the build department. Sure they aren’t IBM Think-Tanks, but they hold up just fine in my experience. Even issues such as LCD “flapping” when carrying the laptop around with the panel open is minimal on both of these systems. Neither showed any bothersome keyboard flex.
Cosmetically the 5150 looks cleaner and less cluttered than the 8600 as the interlay around the keyboard does not contain all the extra buttons that the 8600 does. The buttons I’m referring to are the DVD/CD control buttons on the right side of the keyboard and the volume control buttons above it. The touchpad also looks cleaner as the buttons kind of flow right into the palm rest area whereas the 8600 buttons are raised a bit. After some usage however I quickly decided that the touchpad buttons and surrounding area felt “cheesy”. This area of the laptop by far has the most “plastic-y” feel than any other part. Button clicks are accompanied by an audible plastic click that just makes it feel cheaply made. This was the only area of the laptop that gave me a negative impression in overall look and feel.
Screen:
My adoration for WUXGA widescreen aside, I must say I was impressed by the clarity of the regular aspect SXGA+. No dead pixels and only minimal light leakage.
Build Overall:
I am not going to elaborate as to which system is built better as for reasons already mentioned I feel it is not an apples to apples comparison. Like I said before, they are both ok.
I/O:
The 5150 suffers from the same lack of I/O ports as the 8600c. Which of course means: no card reader, only 2 USB2 ports, and no legacy support.
Performance:
As a lot of the regulars can probably already tell you, I am a strong advocate for Pentium M based laptops. I’m just making that biased clear to anyone else who may not have been aware.
The Mobile Pentium 4 in this 5150 was clocked at 3.06 GHz and did NOT have HT. This is perhaps my biggest beef with this configuration as the rest of it is pretty solid. The user of this system is a graphic arts student who would have been able to benefit from HT apps. But hey, you can’t hold everyone’s hand all the time right? I was not present when my coworker made his final configuration. That oversight aside, the quickness of the system was still refreshing. I set up laptops all the time and the difference in HDD speeds really does become obvious. Formatting and reinstalling windows on a 4200RPM drive can quickly become a laborious process, but a 7200RPM drive makes it noticeably quicker.
The graphics options on the 5150 really can’t compete with those of the 8600 for gamers or otherwise intense 3D applications. That doesn’t make the GeForce in the 5150 bad. It is a very solid card and serves graphic art and other 2D content creation well. I am also known for preaching the reliability and stability of NVIDIA cards. I stuck with the standard drivers provided by Dell as they will serve the expected usage of this machine well.
The ram in the 5150 is PC2700 just like the 8600.
Performance Bottom line:
The 5150 moved pretty quick and was overall pretty responsive. I did not notice any improvement over my 1.7 GHz 8600 during my testing. For the money I’d say the 5150 is a good buy. You can expect similar if not better (with HT) performance than a Pentium M based machine for hundreds of dollars less. Of course you lose all of the other tangibles that come into play for mobile systems, but whether or not they are worth it to an individual is simply up to the person using the machine. Also people planning on putting their systems through the latest and greatest games should know that the graphics options in the 5150 will be a severely limiting factor in performance.
These are just some of my thoughts on a machine that I had for a couple of days. People showed some interest in hearing a little more about the 5150 as no one on the board seems to have one yet. Sorry I couldn’t provide any pictures or benches, but I tried to cover most of the details I thought people would want to know.
