Vostro 1500 high quality images and review

Just got my Vostro 1500 with Windows XP this morning. God lord Fedex Overnight was fast.

I'm very critical, so what I may find bad, you may not mind.

Let's cut to the chase. I opened everything up moments ago and took the laptop out. First thing I noticed was the the release for the latch felt like a toy. What a joke. It was plastic and it was wobbly. It was horrid. The laptop IS pretty damn solid. The finish is nice and the material feels like quality stuff. Like a lot of people have already mentioned, the keyboard is excellent. I actually did NOT find the 1500 to be that heavy, I would have no problem carrying this around in a bag. Windows XP Home runs flawlessly on it. Oh! And my 6-cell battery does not wobble at all! It's rock solid.

Pros:
-Good feel, finish, material feels fairly solid and sturdy
-6-cell battery solid on mine
-Keyboard is great
-Touchpad is alright in my opinion (the quiet buttons are pretty cool, albeit feel average due to the plastic)
-I love the way it looks, all business, no bull
-WinXP runs great
-WinXP recovery CD is present
-No grain visible on screen, no dead pixels

Cons:
-Release latch feels like it was put together by a 4 year old.
-Truelife sucks. The glare is unbearable. I regret getting it.
-Static noise is present through headphone jack.
-The overall feel of the build is good, but not wowzers good.
-You guys will think I'm crazy for saying this, Core 2 Duo sticker is slightly crooked (may rip it off later)

Specs:
-Vostro 1500, Intel Core 2 Duo T5470, 1.6GHz, 800Mhz FSB, 2M L2 Cache
-15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD display with TrueLife for Vostro 1500
-1GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 DIMM (plan to upgrade myself)
-128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
-120G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
-Genuine Windows XP Home Edition, SP2
-8X DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+R write capability
-56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery, for Vostro 1500









At the moment, I give it a
4 out of 5 stars

If you have questions or want pictures of any part, post here.

 

I know i can see that reflection with the screen off... could you maybe put something on the screen and take a pic in the same location? so you could see the glare with and without something on the screen? And maybe outside?

 

nice pictures
how bad is the glare on the true life, like what condintions are you using it in when it gets really bad?

 

Hi newton, could you please tell us whether you hear or not the dreaded high pitch noise associated with core duo's frequency down-stepping?
I am beginning to thinks that this affects only the T7xxx family...

Thanks.

 

What would I put?

It's bad in any bright room. I was using it in my kitchen, and I could barely see anything.

I don't hear any high pitch noise. As a matter of fact, my fans are quiet and it seems really quiet. I get the static from the headphone jack though.

 

Did you set the Display brightness to the highest level?!

Could you please set the Vista default wallpaper (the one that consists of yellow, green and blue light) and make a photo in a dark room without flashlight from about 1,5ft distance?

And dont forget to set highest brighness before doing this.

 

very nice pictures

 

Great pictures. In a way they're almost artistic. Thanks!

 

Nice pics +rep

 

Sure, only problem is that I don't have Vista.

 

be damn careful with those latches i snapped one off and boy does it look bad

 

As you don't have Vista I uploaded the Wallpaper for you

Thanks in advance.

 

I gotta tell you, the picture doesn't do justice. It's beautiful in a dark room. Because of the contrast in the picture, exposure proved difficult.

 

People are probably going to get tired of me asking this, but what kind of battery life do you get?

 

I have no idea. I can run it til it dies. Give me like 2-3 hours.

 

With 9-Cell battery Vista reports a maximum of 6,5 to 7 hours, turning WLan off and setting the screen to min brightness.

Thank you for the picture. That's exactly what I wanted to see. I did a screen comparison of my Medion MD96500 and my Zepto 6625WD which has a very good screen.
Well, looks like the Dell is somewhere between the two, (I think about 150cd/m² but we also used different cameras.

All in all, your screen really doesn't look like it allows working outside... I hope the WSXGA+ screen I ordered will be way better!

Here is the screen comparison I did, with the Medion on the left and Zepto on the right:

 

Thanks for the review. Same exact configuration I got. I better get my XP CD, too!

^^ I registered to say that. Really!

 

thanks for the pics. i ordered mine 1500 on 7/30 hopefully i get by 8/20

 

I did some photoshopping and this is my result. Seems like the Dell display is not as bad.
Well you could take some photos in daylight to show your problem.

 

I wondered if you happen to have a Linux live CD at hand, such as Knoppix or Mepis (or any other recent distro). I can't wait for mine to know how the Vostro 1500 behaves with the Penguin.

If you have a fast connection you could donwload a linux distro for free from www.distrowatch.com and burn the iso image on a rewritable CD (to be wiped when you are finished).
Once the CD is done, reboot and make sure the bios is allowing the cd to boot first.

I would not suggest the latest ubuntu since it seems to have given problems with the latest laptops with sata drives (maybe a coincidence, but I'd go with Knoppix or Mepis).

Thanks, and by the way: best pics ever of the Vostro I've seen so far. Dell should use pictures of this quality to advertise their systems.

 

Nice review, is there any chance you can get some angled shots of it shut, just want to see how slimline it really is?

 

any more pics by any chance? maybe of one with the lid closed?

 

nice pictures. what setting is your camera on?

 

Here you go: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=150266

Most of the time I use aperture priority (Av) mode on my camera.