Help choosing. Vostro vs Latitude

thoughts on this config:

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i5-450M Dual Core 2.40GHz 3MB edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Professional, 32-bit, no media edit
OFFICE SOFTWARE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 edit
WARRANTY & SERVICE 3 Year ProSupport for End Users and 3 Year Next Business Day On-site Service edit
Service blurb goes here.
SYSTEM COLOR Slate Silver, Mobile Broadband ready edit
LCD PANEL 14.1" UltraSharp™ WXGA+(1440x900) Anti-Glare LED with Premium Panel Guarantee edit
GRAPHICS AND EXPANSION SLOT 512MB NVIDIA NVS 3100M discrete graphics with PC Card edit
MEMORY 4.0GB, DDR3-1333 SDRAM, 1 DIMM edit
BACKLIT KEYBOARD OPTIONS Internal English Backlit Keyboard edit
CAMERA/MICROPHONE Light Sensitive Webcam and Noise Cancelling Digital Array Mic edit
SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT No Intel vPro™ Technology’s advanced management features edit
PRIMARY STORAGE 250GB 7200rpm Hard Drive edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio and Cyberlink Power DVD™, no media edit
WI-FI WIRELESS CARD Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 802.11a/b/g/n Half Mini Card edit
BLUETOOTH WIRELESS Dell Wireless® 375 Bluetooth Module edit
MOBILE BROADBAND Verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband Built-in (Gobi 2) edit
MODEM Internal Modem edit
FINGERPRINT READER & CONTACTLESS SMARTCARD READER No Fingerprint Reader and No Contactless Smartcard Reader edit
LATITUDE ON No Latitude ON edit
SYSTEM RECOVERY OPTIONS Recovery Media for Genuine Windows® 7 Professional,32bit,Multiple Language edit
SYSTEM RECOVERY OPTIONS Recovery Media for Cyberlink Power DVD™ and Roxio Creator Dell Edition for DVD+/-RW edit
SYSTEM RECOVERY OPTIONS Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers edit

 

Check out the dell outlet. Prices are too good there. I got m4500 with corei7 720QM for $969+tax+ship=$1087

 

If I was going for the i5, the best deal used to be the i5-520M, which was the standard processor until a couple of weeks ago. I mostly see the -450M in consumer notebooks sold at big box stores.

I'd go for the base display, at least if you ever plan on using an external monitor. The upgraded WXGA+ caused a tremendous number of graphic driver error messages but the WXGA is fine. Go for the base screen resolution.

As far as the limited vertical viewing angles, there isn't much to chose between the WXGA and WXGA+. Both are viewable outdoors, even in direct sunlight. The WXGA+ is just slightly brighter, perhaps annoyingly bright in a dark room with the ambient light sensor disabled.

First of all NVIDIA has an awful reputation in recent years. The integrated Intel graphics are more than capable of streaming 1080P output. Unless you need a dedicated graphics card for work, don't waste your money.



Second of all, are you already using some sort of PC Card adapter? The PC Card is supposed to be supplanted by the Expresscard standard.

This is a really bad combination. A 32-bit operating system can't fully utilize 4 GB or RAM. Basically, for 32-bits, anything over 3GB is wasted.

It occurs to me that if you're getting a single 4GB stick, you might be thinking ahead of an eventual upgrade to 8GB of RAM. In that case, go with a 64-bit version of Windows.

If you really need a 32-bit operating system, don't go with more than 3GB.

This is another waste of money, assuming that you can type. Actually, a lighted keyboard is only useful for FPS gaming.

Do you enjoy the noise and vibration from a 7200rpm HDD? If not, go for the standard 5400rpm drive.

Do you own a 3 antenna wireless N router? If not, this is a waste of money and you'd get the same performance from the 6200 for $20 less.

 

The Dell Outlet is a great place to purchase refurbished and returned computers, assuming of course that you're looking refurbished and returned computers. Personally, I'd pay the price for a new computer as opposed to a used computer.

 

[re backlit keyboard]

I gotta disagree with this. I'm a pretty fast 10-finder typist but there are
a very few characters that I'm not 100% accurate on, like obscure symbols.
I much prefer to turn on the keyboard when it's gotten dark instead of
getting up to switch on a light.

My E6410's multilingual keyboard has five levels in four colours. It's pretty
cool when lit up.

 

The HP Envy line was sort of inherited from Voodoo PC, a formerly independent company similar to Alienware. Basically, they're gaming PCs that look like MacBook Pro clones -much thinner and less bulky that the Alienware notebooks.. My dark suspicion is that they share most of their internals with HP's consumer line. Having looked at the HP DM4, I wouldn't touch an Envy 14 with a 10 foot pole.

 

I'm not saying there isn't a time and place for a lighted keyboard. If I didn't type, or if I was doing spreadsheets all night long, or if I was a serious FPS gamer, I'd go for lighted keyboard. I can really understand why every Alienware notebook has one.

However, for wordprocessing, all need to do is feel the F and J keys, and I can type for hours without looking at the keyboard.

 

What do you mean by that?

 

the 450m is the only one in the i5 they are showing.

 

I thought that might raise an eyebrow

I'm in Quebec which is mostly french speaking. Up until fairly recently we
made do with a bilingual keyboard that only had one accented character
on the keyboard (e with acute accent), the other accented characters we
had to construct with two or more keystrokes ; for example, we'd type a
non-spacing accent then hit the letter and the proper letter would appear
on the screen.

Now we have a new, standardized keyboard that conforms to the Canadian
standard CAN/CSA Z243.200-92. There are five levels in total and on Dell's
implementation the normal keys are white and the three other levels are in
red and green and then there are the Dell function keys in blue. The levels
are reached through the shift key, the AltGr key, the right Control key and
Shift+right Control key. The symbols that replace the words on the keys
are also standardized (but I just noticed that Dell missed the Enter key).

​

The nice thing about this keyboard is that it has characters for many other
European languages, Spanish in particular which is useful in North America.
Windows supports this keyboard as the "Canadian multilingual standard"
keyboard layout.

Now the funny part : no representative at Dell, and I've talked to many
recently, has ever heard of this keyboard. I have gone around in circles on
the phone (some of you must know what I'm talking about) and through
email, trying to find out which laptop models are available with this keyboard.
No one that I can reach has ever heard of it. The fact that the government
of Quebec, which is a large customer, requires this keyboard on all computers
it buys means that somewhere there are representives who deal with them
and must be aware of this keyboard. I have not been able to break through
the wall of incompetents at Dell customer support to reach them. My quest
is ongoing since I want to buy a laptop for my daughter and an E6410 is
too much for her needs.

The only mention of this keyboard I've found on the dell.ca website is in
the french configuration page for the Latitude E6410. There are two
options, the previous Canadian bilingual or French keyboard and the new
one which Dell calls the 'Quebec' keyboard but most other people refer to
it as the "clavier ACNOR" that being the French acronym for the Canadian
standards body.

Paul P

----------------
Edit : (thanks Robin24k) The Dell part number for this keyboard is 330-7360
"Clavier interne rétro-éclairé Français Québec, Dell Latitude E", from my invoice,
but it shows up in the system configuration as TTRPD "MODULE..., KEYBOARD...,
84, FR-CAN-P, BLACK..., EMDB2"