Vostro 3400 - who else?

tinker, are you considering a Studio 15 by any chance?

 

the wifi is included but he bought it through a sales person that he said apparently messed up if you read all of his comments. honestly i would recommend at least the i5 as they get turbo boost.

 

just thought i'd post a reply since quite a few of your responses did help in my decision to purchase this laptop

my specs:
core i5-430m
3GB DDR3 RAM 1333 running @ 1066
Geforce 310M
320GB HDD
fingerprint scanner <- came as a default option
vista home premium, changed to windows 7 pro

build quality is absolutely solid. i don't know what the whole lid flex thing is about, but i have to push REALLY hard, to the point that i'm afraid i'm gonna permanently damage it. maybe i was lucky and got a good unit, but it seriously feels sturdy, especially at this price. no dead pixels, thankfully. screen's got a matte finish, which is a major plus in my book. colours do look slightly washed out at lower brightness settings, but i didn't get this for gaming, so its no biggie. the colours and brightness on the highest setting is just AMAZING. its not really comparable to my dell IPS panel, but its pretty damn good compared to the washed out colour reports i'd been hearing about concerning the vostro series. the resolution is kinda bothering me though, coz its pretty low. i wouldn't have minded ponying up an extra 50 or something for a 900p display. hint to those on the fence between the 3400 and the 3500: get the 3400. the added weight may not be alot, but the added screen size might degrade picture quality further. battery life seems to be a hit and miss. i managed to get ~2h45m - 3h outta it, but i'm only on my third charge right now. not sure whether it'll increase with time, but even if it doesn't, i'm alright with it. performance is pretty sweet, with minimal lag when switching between applications. oh yeah and the keyboard flex issue. i kinda feel it, but it feels alright coz i tap the keys pretty hard while typing so the flex sorta "dampens" the noise and pressure. touchpad is pretty alright. textured, which means parts of it are gonna wear out sooner or later. buttons are kinda bad though, they have a really mushy feel to them. or maybe its just me being used to regular clicky mice. the whole multitouch thing is gimmicky IMO, didn't work for me like 60-70% of the time.

all in all, i'm pretty satisfied with my purchase. cost me around 1.2kSGD in total with a 3 year extended warranty, which is about 850USD for you americans who are comparing.

ps anybody else noticed a SIM card slot behind their battery? i wasn't given an option for a WWAN card while ordering online, but i would like to get one. any idea where i get one from ? and cost ? TYVM

 

Just to clear up somethings. I have the 3400, been using it for over a month. Wifi is obviously standard, the one i got did not have it and that was a mistake. A simple call to dell and my wifi card was sent to me free of charge with in a week. Keyboard flex is due to the fact that the keyboard is spill resistant so there is a rubber pad underneath the keyboard. The lid flex is minimal the lid actually seems quite solid with the aluminum backing. Plastic on the back cover seems pretty thick and solid as well. I love the fingerprint reader, no more typing a password to log in. One or two swipes of the finger and I am logged in. Over all, am very happy with my purchase. Just remember, this is a business level laptop for a tight budget, its not meant to impress anyone, its meant to be utilitarian and serves my purposes flawlessly.

 

Is there a picture anywhere of the 9-cell? I couldn't find one. Is it bigger? And how much heavier? Can't decide! I'm about to pull the trigger on the security related one on dell.com [i3 + finger print reader + encrypted hdd]. (I own a sony cw & the 9 cell is bulky)

Thx.

 

The 9 -cell battery adds about 1/2 an inch to the bottom kindof like the XPS m1530 with the 9cell. and it adds a few OZ's to the computer but not very noticeable.

 

hi, forgive me if this has already been discussed, but I dont really want to go thru 21 pages of posts. I saw on page 10 the windows base score of 4.9 for the 310. I know the base scores mean sfa but I currently have a SXPS13 and my score is bigger then that with a 9500. I was thinking about upgrading to the 3400 for the i5 cpu but it doesnt seem the difference would be much. thanks!

 

here is my Vostro 3400 system with the Core i5-430M, 4GB RAM, 320GB HD and GeForce 310M.

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh285/emacs/Clipboard02.jpg

 

Hi all, well I didn't really read the whole 21 pages, but just wondering any new hardware refresh will be coming to V3400? New cpu, graphic card etc I should know before ordering? I can wait, may til december.
I did read the reviews and mostly complain are the screen being too thin and flexible. Just want to know what are the problem you guys are facing.

Btw, I have XPS M1210 with high spec at that time of their last production, and now using E6400 (HATE IT!!) would I be happy with V3400 (high spec) in terms of performance, Now I'm back to my xps, and seldom use my E6400, to me my xps is as fast as the E6400, even thou it's years apart.
TQ.

 

Btw, anyone tried the HDMI to big screen tv yet? What is the max resolution on the HDMI? Thx guys.