But the true defining differences between notebooks come in the details, and that is where the Dell Inspiron 4000 excels. As we mentioned, it comes with removable palm wrests and a removable backing, all of which can be replaced with $19 color panels. This allows you to customize the look of your notebook as well as pick it out of a line-up. This is not an idea original to Dell by any stretch, but it is nice to have the customizability.

For pointing, the Inspiron 4000 comes with both a trackpad and a pointing nub between the 'g' and 'h' key. The trackpad has the nice additional feature of programmable macro corners. You can program a tap on the corner to do things like page up and page down as well as right clicking or any string of commands. The little nub controller has the nice feature of allowing you to click by tapping it. We much prefer the trackpad, though we were disappointed to find that it did not like us pointing with our knuckle.

The keyboard is better than most notebooks we have used. It is about as good as our Gateway Solo, and much better than the last Winbook Si we used. We would appreciate a lighter key feel though. There is a full-size inverted T for the arrow keys in the lower right, which are very useful and, we think, are a must on all notebooks. All the normal keys are in their proper positions and the spacing is excellent. The only odd part of the layout is that the pageup, pagedown and other similar keys are located in a row above the F-keys on the right hand of the keyboard. Since these keys are not used constantly, we think this was a good sacrifice to make in order to keep the often-used keys in their proper positions. Good call, Dell!

The audio from the Dell Inspiron 4000 is good, though not great. Watching a DVD with the external speakers is more than doable, but you will get the best performance with a good pair of headphones. If you ever give a presentation including audio with this notebook, unless you can guarantee a quiet environment, we recommend you bring external powered speakers.

One thing Dell was eager to point out to us was their inclusion of 3D audio for DVD playback. Since this is essentially a software function, we were far from bowled over. My personal comment was something along the lines of, "Oh, it's got that standard Dolby surround sound feel." OK, so I'm a cynic and you might be impressed, but software surround sound is a feature in no way specific to Dell notebooks.