Vostro 3700 Owner's Lounge

Recovery worked to a usb drive.

Wiped the drive and reinstalled. I ordered with 64 bit Ultimate so I used that disc to reinstall, and it is pre-activated so I didn't have to use the original activation that I backed up.

I will say my room temp here is really very warm, probabaly 80 degrees F. The left side of the unit, the edge where it's the aluminum, is pretty toasty right now. I'm sure in a normal environment things wouldn't be quite so hot. I'm also plugged in and running 100%, so that's not helping. I'll experiment with battery life in the coming days.

I'll tell you one thing - backlit keyboard is now a must-have on my list.

The display is certainly bright enough, and it's pretty crisp, but the vertical viewing angle is the weakest point. Horizontal angle is not great either.

When I updated Win 7 it installed the Intel HD video drivers. I don't plan on playing any games right now, so I'm going to leave the Nvidia drivers uninstalled to see how it effects heat and battery life.

I don't hear any issues with the fan noise, or the fan cycling on and off.

Intel Advanced 6200 installed without any issues. Used the drivers from Intel, as the drivers on the Dell site are for the 6250 WIMAX card, not the 6200.

Keyboard is mushier than my D620, but it isn't bothering me. After just a few hours of darkness, I can't believe how useful the backlit keyboard is for me (sort of half touch typist and half hunt and peck).

My current verdict is that this laptop is a keeper, but I have 29 more days to make sure.

EDIT TO ADD: the A07 BIOS finally showed up for download and I installed it. Hard to believe the shipped BIOS was A04, not even the until-today latest A05. No problems upgrading, A07 is working fine for me.

 

kgriffin,

I am getting mine in South Africa later this week--by what you say, I am already regretting placing an order for this machine. On paper this laptop is truly value-for-money, but i guess in reality it is far from the truth.

Has Dell used second-grade products on this machine to save costs at the expense of quality.

If you could also further the evaluation of fan noise and heat issues on idle and on full load, please report back.

When I get mine I will post my experience as well.

S

 

At idle in normal temps, the machine is cool. Like any laptop, at full load it's going to get warmer but it's not worse than any average laptop and a lot better than some others. Fan noise is not an issue, as I've stated.

Remember this is a 17" laptop with a partially aluminum case, backlit keyboard, 1GB dedicated graphics card, with an good warranty for $700US plus taxes. Is the keyboard as stiff as iron? No.

Any laptop has some flaws, and I think the Vostro 3700's are acceptable because it seems to meet all my other needs - lightweight 17", powerful, backlit keyboard.

Once I got past the stupid Dell Recovery software, everything's been fine as far as using the machine.

I tried the DVD tray test on my D620 and it does move around a fair bit as well. Not as much as the tray in the 3700, but it does wobble back and forth. I will almost never be using the DVD drive anyway (and I'm sure Dell would replace it if I asked).

Again, right now from what I can see I will be keeping this laptop, so any problems are outweighed by the positives.

 

Just to summarize

PROS
17"
just over 6lbs with 6 cell battery
solid build quality for the most part
backlit keyboard
1GB dedicated graphics
pretty inexpensive for a business class laptop

CONS
keyboard is a little mushy (not a real problem for me)
trackpad buttons could be considered a little mushy (not a real problem for me)
dvd tray seems to wobble too much
built in speakers are below average for laptop speakers (use headphones or if this is a true desktop replacement, plug in speakers)


Still to be determined: battery life

Heat and noise are generally very acceptable. I can't really count that as a PRO since laptops really shouldn't ever get too hot if designed properly, but it's not a CON either. Yes, if you have this on your lap and in a room that is 80-85 degrees, it's going to feel hot on the bottom in the area of the CPU. So will every laptop currently for sale anywhere in the world.

 

video of my dvd tray:

YouTube - ‪Vostro 3700 dvd tray‬‎

is everyone's like this?

 

Thanks for feedback kgriffin6979:

I haven't tried Dell recovery tool because I reinstalled OS and used norton ghost to backup my drive. I had to repartition recovery drive to something bigger ( extra 50G) to save the image. Note that after your increase your recovery drive, windows 7 will fail to reboot. Just put the Win7 CD in and hit Repair and it should fix it. The image was only 11GB though with max compression..

Noise:-
I haven't heard any coming from the drive. It is pretty quite in my opinion.

Heat:
It does get warm during initial boot.

DVD drive:
It does move up and down but this is laptop slim dvd-drive, did you expect anythign else ?

Battery Life:
To conserve disable wireless and bluetooth. I haven't tested batterly life but I think it is little over 2hours based on windows estimate.

Bios:
Haven't updated yet, will do it tonight ..

The only issue I have so far that is annoying me is the speakers ... It should be alot louder than what it is now... I don't want to wear headphones or get speakers !!!

Ps, how did you get this laptop for $700 ?

 

I think the config I chose was $901 and then 25% bing cashback. I'm not including the OS upgrade and warranty I had to buy for work purposes...

 

Ah after bing cashback !! Mine was 600+tax after bing ..

 

Hi kgriffin,

Could you say a little more about this? Does it blow all the time or only on CPU stress? Can you hear it when on idle? Can you feel the air blow (on palm of hands) when on idle? Does it quieten down after load or does it stay on after CPU spikes?

I am interested in this because my previous notebook (HP nw8240) just kept blowing all the time (in idle and on stress it was just worse) and was such a miserable experience just switching it on.

Appreciate your response.
S

 

OK, fan noise - I believe it's on pretty much all the time, however at idle and even during very light usage it is so low that I haven't even checked to be sure it's on. In other words, I don't even think about it because it doesn't give me any reason notice it. I greatly prefer a fan to be on all the time, but very low. The on-off-on cycles would be much more annoying to me.

Currently I am doing a battery life test. I am in the office, so there is some normal background noise (air conditioning system, people talking, etc). I am running on battery and playing a loop of an HD video in Windows Media Player. I have to put my ear down near the left side of the laptop to hear the fan noise. If I put my hand near the vent, I can feel a small amount of warm air being pushed out. When I first loaded the HD video, it spun up faster and audibly for about 10 seconds, but that was it.

As I've said, if you have it on your lap in a room that is 80-85 degrees F (no air conditioning), it is going to get warm and you will feel the fan and hear it more. I believe this would happen with pretty mcuh any laptop though. I know it happens with my old Dell D620 and my wife's Compaq.

Does that help? I can perform specific tests if you've got something in mind...