Dell M101z Review
I had been on the lookout for a nice netbook since a couple of months, but I wanted something much more powerful than the cheap Atom powered ones which are commonly available now.
I had three options
Dell M101z
Asus EEE PC 1215T
MSI x340
After about a day of research, I decided to go with the Dell M101z. I ordered the base version of the Dell M101z (with Windows 7 Home Basic) for Rs 22265 on December 28, 2010 and it was shipped to me in about 15 days.
Dell M101z Specifications
Display: 11.6 inches, 1366 x 768 pixels
Processor: 1.7 GHz AMD Athlon II K125 Neo
RAM: 2 GB DDR3 RAM
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225
Hard Disk: 250 GB SATA, 5400 RPM
OS: Windows 7 Home Basic
Other Features: 3 USB ports, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, HDMI, VGA, Mic, Headphone, Ethernet, 1.3 MP webcam
Battery: 6 cell 56 WHr Li-ion battery
Price: Rs 21,800 (Base) + Rs 465 (Windows 7 Home Basic)
I have been using it for about 2 weeks now, and finally have time to post a short review.
Dell M101z Review
Design
The Dell M101z has an excellent design with a glossy black look. The build quality is great and it is quite light and portable at just 1.56 kgs, despite having a 11.6 inch display. There is no flex near the keyboard or the display area and the chassis is very sturdy.
Display
The Dell M101z has a nice 11.6 inch display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 display. The resolution may seem a bit high for such a small display, but in time, you will get used to it. It’s perfect for watching movies. The brightness and contrast are great, but the viewing angles aren’t very great.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The Dell M101z has the best keyboard I’ve seen in any netbook. It has a chiclet style keyboard which is almost full-sized. The typing experience is awesome; I get a typing speed of about 65 WPM, slightly more than on my desktop. The arrow keys are a bit weirdly shaped though, but they hardly takes 2 mins to get used to. The touchpad is also very responsive and the mouse buttons below it are perfect.
Performance
The Dell M101z offers much better performance than standard netbooks. It is powered by a 1.7 GHz AMD Athlon II K125 Neo processor and comes with 2 GB DDR3 RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics chipset. It has a 250 GB SATA, 5400 RPM hard drive. It comes with Windows 7 Starter but I upgraded it to Windows 7 Home Basic. It also has Ubuntu Light, an instant-on OS pre-installed.
The performance is very good. It is very fast once you remove the crapware that Dell bundles it with. Windows 7 boots in about 25-30 seconds. The processor is quite fast and the RAM is more than adequate for basic computing. I can easily play Counter Strike and Warcraft: DoTA, and many old games, without any issues. It’s perfect for watching movies, browsing the web, video conferencing, working on Office and some light programming. It handles 720p videos with ease. I get a Windows Experience Index score of 3.4 on my Dell m101z.
Other Features
The Dell M101z comes with 3 USB ports, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, HDMI, VGA, Mic, Headphone, Ethernet, 1.3 MP webcam and a card reader. It is powered by a 6 cell 56 WHr Li-ion battery which lasts for about 5 hours with casual usage. Watching videos drains the battery in about 3.5 hours.
Should You Buy It?
Hell yeah! It is the best netbook I have used in ages and offers much more than a standard netbook. It is almost like a laptop, only much more portable, much cheaper and much more awesome. I would definitely recommend it.
If you are looking for a full-sized, desktop replacement notebook, I would suggest the Dell XPS 15. It is much more powerful than the Dell M101z and a bit more bulky.
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