I'm about to order a Vostro 1500

Hi

I'm about to order a Vostro 1500 with 3gb ram (includes 1gb free upgrade), Nvidia 8600M GT, 160GB HDD, 9 cell battery but and have 2 questions.

1. I am pretty interested in getting one with the WSXGA+ screen. If by chance I find everything too small, can this be remedied just by simply increasing the DPI?

2. Is it advisable getting the T7300 over the T7100? It's a AUD $143 difference.

 

if its too small you can up the dpi in windows (makes icons and such bigger)

I went for the WSXGA+ screen, thourght it was worth it overall for the higher resolution.

John

 

Hey mp3man
"Delivery 7th September."
what day did you order your vostro on?

 

1. Increasing the DPI will make some things bigger, but it will distort some others. I would go to a store and check it out to make sure you want the higher res.

2. It is a bit faster, I had the 7100 and returned it, on my re-order I decided to go for the 7300 and it was faster - I expected to be little or no difference.

 

ordered on the 14th.
looking forward to receiving it.

 

I also ordered mine with the WSXGA+ screen because i needed more work area, My monitor at home is wsxga+ and sits a little far from me but I felt that setting the font size to Large under the Appearance tab and increasing the icon spacing horizontally worked out great so I plan on doing the same with my new Vostro.

 

The T7300 is a worthwhile upgrade; it's the optimal price/performance ratio of the options. I'd stick with just 2gb RAM, 3gb is right now a bit overkill and it's unnecessary for most tasks. And I would go around and check B&M stores for screen sizes, just to be sure you're actually comfortable with whatever screen you're getting.

 

The 3gb of RAM is due to a free 1Gb upgrade deal that Dell Australia had. So I'm not paying for it which is a plus!

I'm going to try and check out some stores and see if they have a notebook with a WSXGA+ display.

Edit: I just went and viewed a WSXGA+ display and its perfect. It's not even remotely unreadable. So I'm going to go with that.

 

Yes - increasing the DPI will certainly make it more readable, and will likely make the difference between a gorgeous screen and one that's virtually unusable.

Upscaling (or downscaling for that matter) will not affect how the icons and text look, probably because the screen is "drawn" on a Vista machine, as opposed to using bitmaps such as on XP. They always look ok in my opinion, regardless of the DPI setting.

Like others have said, it would be best to go your nearest brick & mortar and sample a WSXGA+ screen for yourself - everyone's mileage always seem to vary case to case.

Regards,
P

 

I had to ring a few stores to find a place that stocked a notebook with a WSXGA+ screen, and managed to find one. I went in and viewed it and prerty much fell in love with it.

I think everything is just the right size.

I was tossing up between purchasing a Vostro 1500 or an XPS M1330, but I considering how I will be essentially using the notebook as a desktop replacement, I think the small screen on the XPS M1330 will begin to bother me after a while, plus it doesn't have that good a resolution.

Considering the upgrade to a T7300 is AUD $143, is there any chance that I may be able to get a Dell salesperson to upgrade me cheaper?

 

I ordered my Vostro 1500.

What I ordered:

• Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
• Operating System: Windows® Vista Business
• Screen: 15.4" WSXGA+ Widescreen (1680 x 1050) /w TrueLife
• Graphics: 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GT
• RAM: 3GB ( 2GB + 1GB FREE!!!)
• Optical Drive: 8X CD/DVD Burner w/ double-layer DVD+R write capability
• Battery: 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
• Hard Drive: 160G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• Web cam: none (as there was a 4 week delay)
• Extras: free Bluetooth mouse , free Nylon Carry Case, free delivery

Cost: $2223.10 AUD less 10% discount coupon = $2000.79 AUD

They said roughly 10 business days delivery.

I also got this with the package: 3 year next business day onsite response & 1 year complete cover - does anyone know what this is???