My Vostro 1500 Review + Comparison with Inspiron E1505 (Warning: LOT of pics!)

I purchased the Vostro 1500 from Dell Small Business for a total of $896.58 and $76 extra for the 2 GB of RAM that I purchased from Fry’s. The order was placed on 8/01/07, shipped on 8/10/07, and received on 8/13/07. To my surprise, DHL actually asked for an signature without leaving it outside for once.















Specification:
· Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5470 (1.6GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
· Operating System: Windows® XP Home Hard Drive: 160 GB SATA @ 5400RPM
· Screen: 15.4" WSXGA Widescreen (1680 x 1050) /w TrueLife
· Graphics: 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GT
· RAM: 512MB Shared Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 1 DIMM (Immediately replaced with 2 x 1 GB @ 667MHz)
· Optical Drive: 8X CD/DVD Burner w/ double-layer DVD+R write capability
· Battery: 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
· Wireless Card: Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Wi-Fi Mini Card
· Hard Drive: 120G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
· Web cam: Integrated 2.0 Mega Pixel Web Camera

Intial Reaction:
Display: Bit of smudges on the screen when it I first took it out.
Touchpad: Looks a bit small (Looks smaller than my E1505’s)
Weight: Seemed the same as my old E1505, not too heavy in my opinion
Keyboard: First thing that I had noticed was the page buttons to the side of the keyboard and how it was moved down from the LCD. Personally, I preferred the page buttons where it originally was. Also disliked what they did with the startup key, looks like it was put in the paint program and inverted.
Build: The build didn’t look cheap at all, even when you push it down, still feels pretty strong.

Design:
The Vostro 1500 has an excellent design, the body is quite strong and does not feel cheap in any way. The top does attract little smearing marks though. Fully black body of magnesium alloy. It shows several changes over the E1505, most of the ports, drives, etc were moved to different locations. One complaint is the moving of one of the RAM slots to the bottom of the keyboard, putting in one of my sticks in there was one creepy adventure, hopefully one I won’t have to go through again.

Changes in the Keyboard/Touch Pad

Vostro 1500




Inspiron E1505






Screen:
For the screen, I picked the Vostro 1500 SXGA+ screen, which has 1650 x 1050 resolution, and it’s glossy. The screen on my first bootup wasn’t all that impressive due to the default DPI and Icon size that Dell had it set at. The huge font and icons didn’t seem to fit in with the other small icons of windows. Windows looked pretty nice once I changed it to normal icon size and DPI. It was quite an noticeable amount brighter than my old E1505 XGA+ (1280 x 800 /w TrueLife) screen. Putting them side-by-side, you could easily notice the brightness of the new screen. There is absolutely NO graininess on my screen or any bleed, I may have just been lucky and gotten one of the better screens though. The maker of the screen is LG.

Inspiron E1505 Left - Vostro 1500 Right








Vostro 1500




Inspiron E1505




Graphic Card:
For the graphic card, I picked the Nvidia 8600M GT. The card is the DDR2 version despite it saying DDR3 in RivaTuner, it shows it as DDR3 as RivaTuner was intended for desktops and not notebooks. My initial 3dMark06 test with the stock drivers and couple background applications open was 2970. After I installed newer drivers (163.14) that were recommended, I reran 3dMark06 and achieved a score of 3051. Both of them were ran with the free 3dMark06 at 1280 x 1024 resolution.

Stock Drivers


163.14 with Modified Ini


Sound/Multimedia:
The sound on the Vostro 1500 just sounded much better than my old E1505, more clear, louder and seemed to be surround sound like. Few complaints though, the sound is not as configurable as the E1505, there’s only 21 sound levels on the Vostro 1500. The CPU also makes very noticeable noises. Plug in the headphone and you’ll also notice the static. There’s also the multimedia buttons in front of the Vostro 1500, the quality of the buttons feel cheaply built in my opinion, seems to be an downgrade from the E1505’s buttons, you can’t feel your position on the controls on the buttons.

Vostro 1500


Inspiron E1505


Processor:
The processor T5470 is quite sufficient enough for me. To my surprise, the T5470 was an noticeable improvement over my old T2400, although it’s Core Duo 2 instead of the old Core Duo, the old one was 0.2ghz faster. It seems to multitask well but the noise is makes is quite annoying.

Battery Life:
While typing this review, I was using my new Vostro 1500 on battery. It had over four hours of battery life on the meter on the start and seemed pretty accurate. After 30 minutes, the battery dropped 12%. After an hour and thirty minutes, it was at 66%. This is with basic Internet browsing, instant messaging programs open, and Microsoft word. I believe the battery would probably be able to achieve a little over four hours of life. The nine celled battery does stick out in the back but it didn’t bother me much.

Heat:
The Vostro 1500 gets quite warm while you have it on your lap. The CPU, memory, hard drive, and graphic card temperatures were around 120F (49C) idle. CPU goes to approximately 160F while gaming. The graphic card goes to around 140F. The cooling system is a great improvement over my old E1505’s cooling system. The E1505 has the same temperatures as the Vostro 1500 (Gaming) while it’s on idle.

Bloatware:
The computer came with no software that I haven’t requested. I did request PC Tune-Up and the Network Assistant, I disabled it immediately when I had the chance. For anyone planning to purchase a Vostro 1500, I’d recommend not choosing them unless you don’t know about networking at all.

Problems/Complaints:
- Screen doesn’t reappear after closing of the lid and reopening. You have to reopen it multiple times to make it work. I assume it’s an driver problem though.
- Resolution changes after closing lid. Again, probably a driver problem.
- Loud DVD drive, I think this is normal though. Seemed to be that way on my E1505 also
- Static from the headphone jack
- CPU is quite noisy while functioning
- The CPU high pitched sound, it’s pretty hard to hear but you’ll notice it if your looking to hear it
- Web cam angle can’t be adjusted.

Conclusion:
Overall, it seems to be a great purchase. I managed to sell my old E1505 for $650. It was a good improvement for around $330. Better processor, RAM, graphic card, and a bigger hard drive. It did come with all the CDs needed, that being the OS, drivers, etc. The Vostro 1500 is just the twin of the Inspiron 1520 but in all black.

Other Comparison Shots:
Inspiron E1505 (Left) and the Vostro 1500 (Right)

Bottom


E1505 Bottom


Vostro 1500 Bottom


Vostro 1500


Inspiron E1505


Inspiron E1505 (Bottom) and the Vostro 1500 (Top)


Right side of laptop


Left side of laptop


Back of laptops

 

Thanks for the pics!

Good ol' paint! lol

 

that is a fantastic review, and wonderful pictures

 

Nice review and good comparision shots!

 

nice review :O

 

Wow - Great review and tons of good photos - Thanks for taking the time for the review and uploading the photos. I'm now pretty sure I'm going to get a Vostro rather than the 1520 - the silver coloring on the 1520 looks cheap to me anyway. I didn't see any comment about the latch - does the screen latch work OK - any wobbling or anything? TIA...

 

Yeah, the latch works fine. Doesn't seem to wobble or anything. Closed quite tight.

 

Nice review. Good work.

 

I agree great review and nice pics

 

impressive review... nice photos..

 

Thanks for the great review. I don't use headphones too often, but I think that CPU whine might really get under my skin once I noticed it. But I didn't notice it with the T7300 Inspiron 1520 I had for a couple of weeks. I'm wondering if it's all the Core 2 Duos or just some, like the T5470.

 

Thanks for the review. You might try pressing the FN + F8 Key when returning to windows after closing the lid. This was also a problem i encountered sometimes with my Inspiron 9300. Always got a black screen.

 

Wow!!!, when you said lot of pics, it is indeed a lot of pics..... Nice comparison.....

 

Mmmm...no luck AiA. Probably driver issue, I had the same issue on my E1505. Just have to wait for a new driver from Dell =/

 

Ok, too bad. I will probably be installing Xp on my machine when i get it on Friday. So I'll see if I encounter the same problem.

 

Great review ! thanks

 

Good review, Nice pictures. Thanks

 

great review, very thorough. With all the pictures, the Vostro is now on my laptop shortlist.

 

nice review, short/sweet!

 

Great review and pics.

 

Great pics and review. Thanks.

 

Thanks to the OP for an excellent snap-shot review (WITH PICTURES).

How do you find the resolution of the WSXGA+ screen ? Too small... just right ?

 

I adjusted to it from the XGA+ (1280 x 800) pretty easily. Seems to be about right. Going back to XGA+ is much harder to do for me then going from 1280 x 800 to 1680 x 1050.

 

Maybe I didn't notice it before but today my lid was indeed wobbly. Was pretty sure it wasn't there before...

 

My lid is also a bit on the wobbly side when it is in the closed position.

 

Odd, was it like that when you first received it? I'm pretty sure mine wasn't.

 

just ordered my vostro1500 cant wait!

 

my lid is a tad wobbly...but not at all a problem

 

your laptop looks pretty slick. i have a question about the warranty though. did you void it when you opened it up to throw in your ram?

 

It looks like the Vostro 1500 is "higher" than the Inspiron E1505?

Or are they the same?

 

bump - great stuff

 

Great review, very informative for someone seriously considering ordering a Vostro 1500 this week.

Significa or AiA (or anyone else), do you guys continue to have the problem with the screen not coming back on when you open the lid?

I ask because I just sold my Inspiron 8100 because of a similar problem... when I would close the lid the machine would lock up for about 5-10 seconds and if I had music playing it would skip like crazy. Then, when I reoped the lid, the same thing would happen, and the screen would also go black for about 5-10 seconds as though it were changing resolutions (although the resolution remained the same). I use my computer to DJ parties, so this is really going to decide whether or not I buy this model.. I need to be able to close the lid and have absolutely nothing happen... if I ever had to restart the machine due to black display I'd have to stop the music, which is obviously not an option if I am DJing and people are dancing.

It may be worth mentioning that I would be ordering the machine with XP Home, and I plan to reformat with XP Pro SP2 (I will slipstream the SATA drivers on Dell's site into my installation so it recognizes the hard drive)

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

 

ubs - I use to have the problem, seemed to have went away when I installed new graphic drivers.

Elmo - I think it's a bit taller due to the webcam being there. The E1505 didn't have an webcam

dave.mcdaniel - I'm almost 100% positive I read somewhere that it doesn't void your warranty to install RAM.

 

The 1505 is the predecessor to the 1520/1500 (Inspiron/Vostro)

 

Thanks for the quick response!

Were they just the drivers on Dells support site?
Do you think the issue is resolved then and not something to worry about?

 

i must say this is really great of u to compare both laptops ^^ good job...its just great that you are posting so many pics it just makes me want my laptop even sooner lol

 

awesome review, thanks ...might be ordering a vostro 1500 within the next few days too

 

I used the ones at laptopvideo2go or something. Also yeah, it's no problem. Even if it doesn't turn on, if you close and open the lid a few times it'll go back on.

 

wait, so the entire body of the Vostros are magnesium alloy? even the bottom? color me impressed (kinda).

 

Even though it's almost twice as thick?

How heavy is a fully loaded (2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, GF8600M GT) Vostro 1500 in terms of actual weight? 7lb or 8lb (while it may seem very minor 1lb difference can be quite huge for laptops...)?

 

I think the outside is all magnesium alloy, not entirely sure

I can't tell the actual weight of my vostro (I only got an crappy scale >_<) But the package it came in was a total of 13 pounds according to DHL. I'm pretty sure it's around 6-7 pounds though. It's the battery that really affects the weight.

 

Huh... Okay. Since I got a 6-Cell battery, it "should" be teetering on the lighter end of the scale, eh?

Just a question, though, what's the average weight of 15.4'' laptops? Anyone know?

 

Since people say the Vostro/Inspirons are on the heavier side, average is around 5 pounds. The battery isn't that much heavier, and besides the fact that it protrudes out the back, it's negligible.

 

Just noticed it didn't have an xD card slot >_< My old E1505 did, why would they downgrade the card slot?

 

Uh, the Vostro 1500 has a 8 in 1 card reader, are you sure your "xD" card format isn't supported (What is that format anyways?)?

 

It's used by my Fuji camera and yea, I tried it, doesn't fit. It says SD/MMC - MS/Pro on the reader.