Vostro 3700 weight and proc

Hello all. I know there are a couple of 3x00 Vostro threads, but some are very long and the other did not seem to have an answer for this question.

First, I am very interested in this new Vostro. It seems a good configuration and design for the price. I especially love the 17" screen at < 6 lbs. Seems too good to be true.

Does anyone have experience with this machine? Is the weight including the battery and everything? It is a pound lighter than the 16" Sony F I am using. I like the F, but this Vostro seems a little more in line for me (PhD, heavy stats and datasets). My wife woul appropriate the Sony if I were to pull the trigger on the Dell.

Also, the i5-520m to i7-???qm (dual to quad, differing clocks and all). I am thinking the i5 may be the way to go. Most of my stuff is not designed for 4-cores, 8 threads, etc.
Anyway, verifying the weight is my main goal. Thanks!

 

The Vostro 3700 is very lightweight compared to my other Notebook, a Precision M6400.
The Precision is more than 4000 g, the Vostro is below 3000 g.

More significant is the difference regarding the power supply units:
The Vostro's weighs just 264 (or so) g, the Precision comes at over 1000 (!) g.

Sorry, I don't have the exact weight of the 3700, but for a notebook of this size, it is very lightweight.

 

Maybe you are interested in a real-life benchmark I did this week:

Large Excel sheet:

Old Samsung Notebook (singlecore, 2 Ghz): 38-45 seconds, CPU-usage: almost 100%
DELL Precision M6400 (quadcore, 2.53 Ghz): 23 seconds, CPU-usage: 25%
DELL Vostro 3700 (dualcore with turbo boost, Core i5-520): 20 seconds, CPU-usage: 40%

This was very enlightening for me - my colleague's new Vostro 3700 beat my own Precision M6400 by a few seconds, for a fraction of the cost (1000 Euro compared to 3000 Euro, bought in November 2008).
This seems due to the Vostro's higher CPU frequency, boosting from 2.4 to 2.93 (?). The Precision's quad core is slightly slower, but has more power reserve.

If you are using the Vostro's Core i5 for standard applications, you will be more than happy. Only a few applications can make use of more expensive quadcore (for me, only my virtualisations and SQL server).

 

I've heard many mixed reports of the resolution of the Vostro 3700's. Dell's web site says 1366x768, but I find it hard to believe they'd build a laptop with a 17" screen and put such a low resolution screen on it. Every time I've asked Dell, however, they confirm it's 1366x768. I'd buy one in a heartbeat if I KNEW it had a higher res screen.

 

What is the meaning of "17.3" (44 cm) High Definition+ Wide LED Anti-Glare Display" listed here, in particular the "+"? My guess is 1600 x 900.

John

 

I suffered from the same "display-resolution-confusion".
On the website, the Vostro had no information about its display resolution. The scant information would suggest a resolution of only 1368*768.
My DELL representative told me, the resolution would be 1440*900.
When the Vostro 3700 arrived, fortunately the resolution was 1600*900.

It seems that nobody really knows - and the information is still missing on the DELL website (at least here in Austria).

But I am pretty confident that your standard resolution will be 1600*900, like mine.

 

I've heard reports, and read a review, outside of the US where the resolution was quoted as 1600x900. I've not heard a single person INSIDE the US say anything about the resolution, which makes me wonder.

If I order a 3700 from Dell, with the hopes that it is 1600x900, but instead arrives with a 1366x768 screen, I would have no recourse to return it since it would match the specs on their web site, correct?

Thanks!

 

Contact DELL by email and try to get a confirmation about the resolution by email. So that you have a written statement in case it is the "wrong" lower resolution.

 

Which I've done, but haven't gotten a reply yet. It shouldn't be this hard to confirm hardware specs for a laptop, but maybe I'm naive.

 

Half the problem is that there's no standard nomenclature for this intermediate size of widescreen display. It is neither of the standard resolutions but something in between. However, it shouldn't be beyond Dell's capabilities to put the resolution on the information even if they aren't sure what sort of HD it is.

Personally I don't like WXGA being used for 1366 x 768. WXGA is 1280 x 800. What's wrong with WWXGA?

John