Vostro 1500 Review

Well just got my Vostro yesterday, specs in my sig, but seems to be bout the same as lot of people. Didin't have to much time to do a lot, but I figured I could start here and build upon this as I get some time.

Packing:
System came nicely packaged, altho i did NOT receive a OS disk with my system (Drivers and the Media disk), unless the driver disk had them (didn't check). But it only took 5 minutes on chat to get one sent, so thats not a big issue. But other than that, everything was packed nicely and looked undamaged.

Initial look:
Man that black is nice. The lid did get some smudges on it but i dont really see how you could avoid it except wearing gloves when u handled it. The rest of the case didn't seem as receptive, but its not bad really. My one concern after reading, was battery wobble. Now idk what the extreme of the wobble was, but if i put my hand on the battery yeh there is a little movement, but I would hardly say a wobble. If I shake the system, i don't hear it hitting or making noise, but I suppose wobble is subjective, and to me it doesn't move more than i would expect.

My intel sticker is a bit off center, which is a small moot lol. The rest of the system looks good. The keyboard looks almost like the keys have a little black shadow to them but I think its a new keyboard thing.

First run:
Well i only bought the system with 1gb and had the second gig to put in, but I did run the system once to be sure it ran ok, It does take longer to boot the first time, but other than that it ran at a good clip for 1gb on vista. No wierd software on it, altho there is one or 2 dell things that i think i can live without. I was pleased when the backlight had very little bleed to it, there is some on the bottom and it would be the worst there, but it doesn't protrude up the screen more than a couple CM, and isn't noticeable unless its very dark. The rest of the screen has normal amounts of bleed.

i never knew how bright my 20 inch monitor was until my laptop was next to it. I almost wish i could get the screen brighter but its not a issue either. I think i do have a little grain to my screen (truebright 1440x900) but its hard for me to tell since i have nothing to compare to, but i don't think it takes much away from the picture.

Upgrades:
Installing the 2gb of ram was fairly simple, that front cover is a little scary to take off the first time. Just a note, if you pop the ram in after you turn the system on once, the system will sit at POST a long time, and the system will tell you he ram has changed, but its only the first time it will do that.

Performance:
This I will have to add to, haven't gotten 3dmark on the system yet, was having some issues with my network (trying to download 500mb files while transferring 1gb over wireless = bad) But once I get it set up then it should be fine. It did score 4.9 i believe on Vista score, that was with stock drivers and the 2 gb ram installed. hadn't tried since installing new drivers.

System ran WoW 59-60fps max settings, which was better than my old system by bout 25 fps and all settings lol. Didn't try Supreme Commander yet.

System boot is fast, but I guess I would always want faster as well haha, but it shuts down quick.

Only see 2 partitions, OS, and Recovery. But I would imagine the Media partition is hidden, I believe there was 2gb for recovery, 100-120 for OS (didn't pay much attention) and the rest would be media I guess.

Weight:
I did have a loaned 15 inch dell which is a couple years old, so its not widescreen. It weighed 6.4 lb. The vostro can't weigh much more than that, it does have a 9cell so i would expect it to be beefer. But its nothing that would really bother me to carry around. id rather have it feel sturdy, and it does.

Gripes:
The one thing that sticks out in my mind is the buttons with the touch pad, they have a lot of movement to them, and didn't seem like it had much response. There are times I am unsure if I clicked or not. Hadn't put the system on my lap yet, but it did feel warm, but I attribute that more to the installing of a ton of software right now.

Props:
System is fast, and looks great. Keyboard has a good feel to it, which is important.


I will take some pics if theres something that someone would like to see. At this point most people know what it looks like, plus its not with me right now to take pics of. Once I get 3dmark going I can post that as well.

If anyone is wondering anything about it let me know and I can give you info, I know each system is a bit different so if you trying to get info on those specific parts let me know and I can throw my input in.

 

How much do you get out of your battery?

 

I will give that a run soon, have had it plugged in for most of this while I was downloading patches and stuff. Should be taking it around today, Will let you know. The battery when I checked said 4 hours. Will see if I can give you a more real world estimate

 

I was wondering: is nVidia's PowerMizer an app that can be manually set by the user to increase battery life when there is no need for 3D performance, or is it a totally transparent layer whose guts are not tweakable?
Do you have a PowerMizer app, somewhere, than can be fiddled with?

 

I hadn't heard of PowerMizer before, I will check to see if I have it, and if not i will see if i can download it and play around with it... it does seem like something that would be useful for the gaming i would like to do on occasion

 

Yeah, googling! Why didn't I think about it before?
From what'Ive read here it seems to be something implemented in hardware, not accessible to the user.
Correction, from an nvidia paper:

In the Windows XP operating system, PowerMizer 7.0 provides a simplified user
interface for power management settings..
In the new Windows Vista operating system, PowerMizer7.0 control has been
directly mapped into Vista’s Power Options Menu. There is no need for the user to
manage the power from multiple control panels. With PowerMizer7.0, the user has
streamlined control topology along with the knowledge that PowerMizer is always
working in the background; adaptively adjusting its power consumption based on
utilization


So, my new question is: will RivaTuner interfere with PowerMizer optimizations?

I'd like to lower the 8600's clock in order to maximize battery life when I do not need its power.

 

Does anyone have decent photographs of it? They seem hard to come by.
Also, does anyone have the dimensions of it?

 

I can take a couple photos when i get home, there are some photos floating around with other reviews tho as well.

Ill measure it as well, its not huge, but the widescreen does make the case a bit bigger