Vostro 1220 Owner's Cafe

Would you like me to buy you a camera and surface ship it to Florida Z ? ....might be quicker!

Nah seriously, sound's very nice so far, it's great there's a matt LED option on it, which still seem's to be missing from the 13" vostro.......whats the heat management like when you play that game? the vostro 1310 I sold a while ago was amazingly noisy if you started stressing it's GPU, but perfectly fine normally.

 

haha....hey Weegie...I happen to have both laptops with me right now AND my Sony camera....maybe I can......
This one is quiet, and while gaming it get a little warm under the left palm, but not enough to be annoying....I use Belkin notebook coolers on my laptops also btw. I'm on the Vostro now...let me haul out the Precision.....

 

Here's a pic of the Vostro 1220 next to the mighty Precision m4400. Ubuntu Studio x64 up on the Vostro, Win7Pro x64 up on the Precision.

 

You sure? I had Win 7 64bit on the machine before, I changed it back to 32bit, there were quite a few compatibility issues with my existing hardware and software. It is just not worth it. There wasn't any speed advantage with the 64bit either.

 

Interesting, you actually have one more sticker on your Vostro than mine does. Mine does not have that Windows sticker.

 

That's good to know....I was leaving it at 32 bit anyway for windows. What compatibility probs? I have everything except a fingerprint reader...but I use linux on this mostly, 64 bit Ubuntu Studio and everything including multimedia keys work great.

 

Mine came with a 250 GB WDS drive, I upgraded to a 320 WDS drive and after a week the system constantly hanged giving a hdd controller error in the log. Tested the drive was working fine. I stuck in a 500 GB tosh and its working fine now.

Of all the Dells I have had/worked with it must be the hardest to replace the HDD. The wifi cables have to be unrouted, keyboard and palmrest removed. Its a real pain.

Other that that happy out with the laptop. Only complaint is lack of HDMI or Firewire but not a big concern.

LOVE the matte screen, its one of the main reasons I went with it. One of the few Dells you can get with matte. Hate all glossy screens.

 

Johhny T dropped me a note to ask about my thoughts on my 1220 and I will share what I sent to him.

Actually very happy with it. I had looked at several 11 inch note/net books and they all seemed pretty flimsy. Not so the 1220; very solid. I tried the screen (matte) outside in the direct sunlight and it was still quite readable, a glossy screen would not have allowed that. Plus, an actual DVD drive. Vista is okay for me as I have used it for two years on my desktop and never had any problems. About the battery, after I ordered and read the posts here about the battery life I called Dell and they said that the 9 hour claim should not have been put on the website. They further said that if I wished I could send it back at no cost (no restocking or shipping fee) within 2 weeks. I said I would give a trial and let them know. I used the 1220 extensively when I was loading new software etc and there is no way 9 hours was going to be possible. BUT, when I used it as I intend to do in the field (wifi off, intermittent use of excel for several hours) I would bet that I could get 8-9 hours. So it meets my needs. BTW Dell even called back at the end of the two weeks and asked if I wanted to send it back. Nice customer service touch! I have not tackled the undervolting yet.

And I will now add that the 9 hour statement is still on the Dell website -

 

I can echo the sentiment voiced by kdviner70.

After I realized the severe limitation of Netbooks even for some very basic computing needs and sold my Asus 1000HE, I started looking for a ultra-portable laptop that can do some real work yet is still thin and light. Vostro 1220 is the best choice out there.

 

hehe, I like it, the screen look's very nice in that pic[nice unusual desktop pic btw], do the corner's of the palm rest's dig into your hand's when typing for a bit?

Seeing your nice clean notebook's has motivated me to clean my own messy thing today haha

Thanks for the pic and comment's,seem's like it was a good decision to buy this over a netbook with an overclocked pocket pc cpu in it

I might buy one next year for site manual reference, have alway's used windows mobile device's with doc or pdf, but I don't like the consumerist direction WM look's like it's going to head next year, so will see.