Those of you who read Techmeme noticed we unveiled three new Inspiron laptops yesterday on Dell.com—the Inspiron R family, with 14-, 15- and 17-inch models. From my personal perspective the "R" stands for Redesigned – which these are with the new "hinge forward" design that bring the display at tad closer for better viewing. The new Inspiron R family members also feature new colors in a finish that resemble brushed aluminum (but it's not): an eye-catching Tomato Red, a polarizing Peacock Blue (either love it or you don't – I fall in the former camp), Lotus Pink and Mars Black (I am still looking for the background story on that name – Mars = Red in my book). While the chrome accents are a nice touch, I am a bigger fan of the smudge-proof palmrests. Yes – I have seen these in person and I can attest that, unless you are eating some unnatural orange-colored snack food, it's really not that easy to leave your fingerprints on the palmrests of the Inspiron R laptops.
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As the primary tech enthusiast in my home and as a parent – I really like these laptops. By day they are the sidekick that helps students and families stay on track – organizing calendars, storing research, accessing class assignments via the web, etc. After the homework is done they assume their alternate identity, entertainment central: streaming movies stutter free, uploading photos to social networking sites, playing internet radio and the like. With the Intel Core i3 /i5 processors, they've got more than enough horsepower to handle just about any of the daily activities that come their way, and then have a few standard "delighters" like SRS Premium Sound, and an HDMI port that connects to HDTVs and optional features like Blu-Ray and Intel Wireless Display Technology. When I was recently asked who would use the Wireless Display feature, I immediately thought of the group projects my daughter has been involved in the last couple of years. Numerous times I've walked into our dining room to see 3-5 girls gathered around one laptop screen, building slides by committee for school – when they weren't watching YouTube videos. With wireless display technology, the content on the laptop screen can been projected on the bigger TV screen so everyone can see what's going on and contribute.
So if you are in the early stages of prepping for the next school year, I definitely recommend you check out the new Inspiron R laptops -and of course by shopping on dell.com we've made it that much easier. You can call or chat with a personal shopper 24/7 and they will help you figure out what model best suits your needs at a great price, and even suggest some accessories like a wireless printer, a new backpack or maybe theft-recovery software like Lo-Jack.