Legacy Dell Inspiron 4000

The Dell Inspiron 4000 from March of 2000 is distinguished by the 2 external module bays located at the front, where the battery and any one of the compatible drives are located. The back side is more interesting, sporting a whole range of Legacy computer ports, including PS/2, serial, and parallel. The left and right are pretty standard, filling the rest of the necessary I/O.

Flipping it open we see the outlined power button above the keyboard arrangement, with the Dell-E support button to the left of that. Below the keyboard is the touch-based track pad, between 2 pairs of buttons that replicate mouse control (left/right click, etc.). The palm rests on both sides of the track pad assembly can be replaced with any of 4 colors Dell had available (this is purely cosmetic, the protection doesn't change).

Bottom and top only have a few distinguishable features. The bottom has a metal hatch which can be opened with a coin, revealing the RAM sticks, CMOS battery, and PCI card for Internet communication. The top has a large, semi-circle panel with a shimmery Dell logo in the middle, which can be replaced similarly to the palm rests (Refer to Accessories list for more info).

Brand: Dell

Manufacturer: Compal Electronics

Model No.: PP01L

Weight: 2.66kg with floppy drive, 2.8kg with CD ROM drive

dimensions: (WxHxD) 319.5 x 254.0 x 37.4mm

Processor: Intel Pentium III 750 MHz with 'Intel SpeedStep'

• Caches: 32 KB L1, 256 KB L2
• External bus frequency: 100 MHz

Other Processor Options: Available to Official buyers from Dell at the time

• Pentium III 600, 700, 800, or 850 MHz
• Mobile Celeron 600 MHz

Memory: 128MB SDRAM (upon first purchase)

• expandable up to 512MB

Graphics: ATI RAGE Mobility M3* (*graphics chip)

• Integrated 8MB RAM
• AGP 2x

Internal Storage: 12GB ATA-33 hard disk drive

• capacity options*: 6GB, 10GB, 20GB (*for official Dell buyers)

Audio:

• two built-in 4-ohm stereo speakers
• 16-bit stereo analog-digital/vice versa conversion (ESS Maestro 3i)
• Built-in microphone* (*located on the right hand side of palm rest)
• 20-voice 72-operator FM music synth

Compatible OS:

• Windows 3.11 to Millennium Edition* (*can be upgraded to XP SP 1-3)
• Linux Red Hat 7.0

Software Disks:

• Re-installation disk for Dell Inspiron 4000 system software
• Back-up disk for Dell's pre-installed programs
  • Dell-E Software for quick assistance and troubleshooting

Display: 14.1" XGA TFT active color matrix

• Display modes: All use 32-16 bit colors
  • 1024 x 768
  • 800 x 600
  • 640 x 480

Supported Media: (these can be swapped around in the right side modular bay)

• 8x DVD-ROM with built-in software encoding
• 24x CD drive* (*optional)
• 20x CD Re-Writable drive
• 3.5" floppy drive
• ZIP 100 drive
  • A second battery can be used in the bay to double battery life
  • A second hard drive can also be used in the bay for extra storage

Input/Output:

• USB: 1 4-pin (USB 1.1)
• Serial: 1 9-pin
• Parallel: 1 25-pin
• Video connector: 1 15-pin
  • Supported resolutions: UGA, SXGA, XGA, SVGA, VGA
  • there's also an S-video out port on the right side
• Remote control: 1 IR reciever
  • Speeds: Slow 115 Kbps, fast 4 Mbps
• Microphone-in*: 3.5 mm mini jack (*mono only)
• Headphone-out: 3.5 mm mini stereo jack
• External mouse/keyboard: 6-pin mini-DIN PS/2 port (uses both mouse and keyboard)
• Docking Station: Bespoke 200-pin* (*see below for compatible docks)
  • Family Advanced Port Replicator
  • C-Dock Expansion Station
• dial-up & local internet:
  • internal RJ-11 V.90 56K data/fax modem* (*a standard telephone/line cable and port)
  • 10 or 100Mbps RJ-45 LAN jacks* (*A standard Ethernet cable for local networking)
• *The above 2 ports were optional when buying an official product, covering one or both with a door if they aren't wanted by the buyer* (See bonuses and Accessories for more details)

PC card slots:

• Bottom slot: Compatible with Windows OS 95, 98, 2000
• Top and bottom:
  • two 32-bit Type-II
  • one Type-III
  • Card bus-compatible
  • Zoom video support

Keyboard & pointing devices:

• 19 mm keys, 3 mm spacing, 101/102 functionality, 87 visible keys
• IBM analog pointer joystick and touch-sensitive track pad

Power requirements:

• Cable: Bespoke AC adapter
• Battery: removable 8-cell 'smart' Li-ion with 53.0 WHr capacity
  • Located in the left side modular bay, which is only for the battery
• Charge time: 1/1.5 hours charging if the computer is off
• Battery life: 3.5 hours per full charge* (*according to manufacturer's claim)

Swappable LCD back plate and palm rests

• Colors: Tahoe Blue, Storm Gray, Royal Purple, Golden Yellow

Carrying case with internal straps and pockets for serious businessmen

If your unit has no internal modem:

• V.90 56K modem+fax PC card (any brands that makes these at the time will work)

Official Inspiron 4000 support from Dell

Inspiron 4000 Set-up video from Youtube (*Have some water when watching this, it's very dry lol*)

Byte my VDU's blog post on modding and retro gaming for this machine

Reviews:

ITPro's Laptop of 'that' month: Dell Inspiron 4000

HardwareZone's precise specs and testing of the Inspiron 4000 (archived review)

First impressions from TheVooner (Images here are broken from the site's age)