Vostro 1700 Reviews... with lots of pics

Okay, got my Vostro 1700, using it to type this up. The keyboard seems okay, it seems to flex a little whenever I type but nothing too noticeable. It's my first laptop so I have no benchmark to compare it with. Typing is pretty comfortable and silent, and I can definitely get used to this keyboard without much trouble.

First time starting it up was a pretty sluggish. For something bloatware free, it had a still impressive amount of pre-installed programs... all cleared away with a quick reinstall. I didn't find a need to reinstall drivers except for touchpad (for the scroll-areas) and the graphics. Everything else worked pretty well.

Right now with a few programs installed, it's about 38 seconds from bootup to the login screen, including about 3 or so seconds for the vista logo to flash.

From people saying it's too big to be portable, I expected this thing to be much more of a monster. I was surprised at how much lighter it was than I expected, and it wasn't that big. It's still too big to fit into a normal bookbag in my opinion, but it's not meant to be ultra-portable. And even with the 9-cell battery, it's not that heavy; both me and my girlfriend were able to use it on our laps without any heat or weight problems. BTW, she's only 5'1-2", so that's another size comparison.

Using the 163.14 drivers, I was able to get a 3dmark06 score of 2911 without any kind of overclocking on any component. I was able to play Counter-Strike Source smoothly at 1920x1200 with 0 AA, 16x AF, and the rest set to high. I have yet to try out other games, but I do expect very good results.

And there is some kind of interference from the sound. When I have my earbuds on (EP-630s... wonderful little things) and nothing is playing, I hear random beeping noises... very low pitched, kinda sounding like an old 56k modem except a lot more muted. I think my computer's trying to communicate with higher intelligences.

Updates and other information:

EDIT: More thoughts on the Vostro... I'm wondering where 20 gb of my hdd space went... I have the 40gb primary, 100gb secondary = 140gb... out of 160gb. And if I free up that 20gb, will I have to format my secondary partition to merge it back to 120gb space?

Also, Vista seems to be very bloated... it takes forever to start up and load programs, although once they are loaded they run extremely fast. Anyone know how to fix this? And on Flip 3d or whatever they call it... I don't see what's so special about it... it's just a 3d alt-tab device... to be honest alt-tab worked quite fine for me.

EDIT 2: I got Pinnacle Studio 8 to work by both making it run in Administrator mode and compatible with XP SP2. Haven't tried that with Nero yet. I have just brought down the might Vostro by telling Studio 8 to load my 1000 or so photos from my Hong Kong vacation. As of right now... it's being unresponsive, and I don't know whether to interpret that as a crash or just long loading times. I'm not sure whether it's Studio 8 that's causing the problem or just that my system's STILL not enough to handle it, but we'll see.

Anyone else need any other looks or pictures feel free to comment. I will respond ASAP. Sorry for not posting this sooner but having the gf over for the day kinda prevented this review from going up earlier.

More pictures...

And a few more.

 

nice review, love all the pics

+rep4u

 

lol thanks... I promised lots of 'em. XD

But I hope I'm not breaking any rules by making three posts.... why limit it to only 6 pics per post??

 

lol I was wondering why you did that, its fine, why do they have that limit anyway?

 

Great pics! Loved the dvd case comparison pics.. gives a very precise way to see just how much of a behemoth this bad boy is! lol

Hope you enjoy it, looks like a great computer!

 

Nice pictures!

I think the 6 photo limit is caused by the software running the forums rather than any permissions or rules set up. Mods can manually merge the posts together so I did that for you this time.

Nothing wrong with three posts in a row if you have to get 18 things up
You could always try ImageShack or something and put in a thumbnail/link.

 

lol... well I found out that it was twice as long as two dvd cases and twice as wide as two dvd cases... so DVD cases and inspirons/vostros have the same length/width ratio?

There's no such thing as coincidences.

And thanks Greg for merging the pictures. In the future I'll probably turn to imageshack as my attachment limit is nearly full after this anyway. The only problem with imageshack is slow site response.

 

how did you get on with battery life? did you do any tests for this? really interested as some people are quoting different times. just wanted to check a real world example?

thanks so much!

 

Well, I haven't really tested it, but I have checked the battery meter, and at times it would say a full charge at 4 hours. I haven't tested that out yet... since I was mostly running different tasks and processes and that would change the battery life with each task. Maybe when I have the time I'll just leave it playing a movie and seeing how long it lasts realistically. Otherwise, I'm going by about 3.5-4 hours.

 

Liked the pics a lot , btw how many secs does it takes to boot vista completely

 

thx for the review, personally i am only getting a bit sad because of this:

shipped in 3 days? i am waiting now 44 days still nothing.

 

the vostro's are shipping within 10 days from what i was told.... this is of course in most cases

man makes me wish i ordered the 17" now.. its really not that big seeing on her lap... i def think i could have dealt with the size of that not bad at all imo...

 

btw for size comparsion the 1500 just shy length wise of 2 (about 1.5" shy) blockbuster dvd cases... and width wise the 1500 is about 1.5 of 2 dvd cases..

 

Looks good although WUXGA is too painful for my eyes unless I bump up the dpi (which I believe is 'done' better in Vista), which I did when I had a Tosh with 1600x1200.

 

Just timed start to login... about 38 seconds including 3 or so seconds for the Vista logo to flash.

WUXGA is good for me... I like the size and it's pretty much perfect for me. And if WUXGA is too smal... why not just buy a 1440x900 screen instead?

And joco... where do you live? It shouldn't normally take that long to get a Vostro. Most I see ship out within a week.

Oh, and for size comparisons my girlfriend is only about 5'1-2", so the laptop might look a bit bigger.

 

Hey congrats dude!

I was wondering why you mentioned your GF's height, till I saw that pic. Looks mahoosive! (edit: the 1700)

That all blacks looking pretty slick. I've only seen pics from Dell, google only ever brings up "DELL PRINTERS" so it doesn't look "cheap" as I have read on some posts. Actually it looks really good, way better than the 1710 (which I've finally redecided on ...)

That's pretty quick shipping; the alternative inspiron 1720 apparently would take 6 weeks.

Have you got a carrying case for this yet?

 

Not yet... I really need to get one as this thing refuses to fit into anything else...

And yeah, this black doesn't look too bad at all... in fact now that I'm taking a closer look... the black plastic on the inside has a little sparkle to it. Neato.

 

The cases/rucksacks Dell sells are way too expensive and more importantly way too ugly. (£80!!!) I'm either gonna get mine from eBay or just use one of my old converse Satchels - I'm not going to be moving it around much anyway, but just in case I need to...

Didn't realise that it was also "just" 3 DVD's in thickness. Not bad.

Oh - what's the speakers like on this thing?

 

The speakers are actually pretty amazing. They have no bass but otherwise are pretty clear for built in speakers. The quality is amazing... I wouldn't mind using them normally but I bought the EP-630s... which are even more amazing. And it's cheaper to buy through dell than outside. Or get it as part of the webcam package on the inspiron.... they're worth the price!

 

Yup, the EP-630 seem to be a pretty decent pair of earphones, esp for the price. (A lot of in-earphones look like that, no?)

If you could have gotten your Sunshine yellow 1720 with the same specs as the 1700, at the same price, woud you swap?

The other things I'm interested to know is gaming performance/multitasking/how it copes with the more demanding programmes...the other vostro thread I found was too big and confusing so I stopped reading after the first page.

 

Kinda... don't know. I like the yellow but I don't know how much I would like the silver inside. I like this black... it's nice. Thing is... with the coupons and all... the inspiron would pretty much be the same price/less than the vostro... but savings don't matter if you never get your laptop anyway.

Let's see... right now I haven't put it to the test with multitasking... gaming-wise, it runs CSS at 1920x1200 fine, with no dips below 30fps. Photoshop CS2 runs fine.

I want to run Nero and Studio, but I only have older versions of them and they refuse to install on Vista. Nero 7 won't install completely, and Studio right now isn't even starting up. Right now I'm in the process of "procuring" more up-to-date version... but yeah...

 

If only I had that option here. We don't get the coupons that I keep hearing members in the US discussing.

Yeah, it'll probably take a while to gauge multi tasking. Like how it'll perform once it's bloated with all the software you'll install.

I'm gonna put XP on if I can't get certain software on my requirements list to install/work properly. I would have chosen XP anyways but it wasn't an option.

 

Yeah... just be warned that older versions of Nero will probably screw up mid-install, leaving a half install that will refuse to be removed and then cause you tons of headache having to manally remove every reference to it.

 

i run nero lite works great

 

When I try to configure one today, it looks like the only 2 choices are 1920x1280 with TrueLife or the 1440x900 without TrueLife. I like the TrueLife.

 

I haven't seen any matte screens yet, but the truelife is fine... it's noticeable how glossy it is. My girlfriend was using the screen as a mirror...

 

only 30 fps in css? r u runnin everything on high

 

Well, that's the lowest... as in with dips in framerates. I'm averaging at about 50-60.

1920x1200 res, 0x AA, 16x AF, High settings for everything except shadows, no vsync, HDR on if available.

 

Grats on the new 1700. Almost the same config I have.

After playing any game for longer than say 30 minutes have you noticed frame rates dipping? My 8700 runs very hot and will cause the CPU to throttle. Which is strange since the CPU is fairly cool. Dell is sending me a new card. Their main suggestion was to buy and XPS, lol.

Anyway, just wonder if you had noticed any strange behavior.

 

8700? I assume that's a typo?

But I haven't had a long gaming session yet... the most I've played was for 15 minutes so far.

Right now I'm trying to find a way to make Nero and Studio work...

 

Okay, I don't want to double-post but I do have an update on things.

I got Pinnacle Studio 8 to work by both making it run in Administrator mode and compatible with XP SP2. Haven't tried that with Nero yet. I have just brought down the might Vostro by telling Studio 8 to load my 1000 or so photos from my Hong Kong vacation. As of right now... it's being unresponsive, and I don't know whether to interpret that as a crash or just long loading times. I'm not sure whether it's Studio 8 that's causing the problem or just that my system's STILL not enough to handle it, but we'll see.

 

i just disable uac permanently by becoming the "Real" administrator of vista.. no more pain in the neck questions all the time.. i only recc this if you know what you are doing and are more careful about you comp security.. i.e. no dangerous surfing or having great firewall/virus software installed.. i.e. not windows stuff...

 

For Windows Vista Home Basic/Home Premium:

1- Click Start, and type "cmd" in the search area, right click on "Command Prompt" and select 'Run as Administrator".

2- In the command prompt type "net users Administrator /active'" (Note the capital "A" in Administrator) and press Enter, you will get a confirmation as "The command completed successfully".

3- Click Start, and type "regedit" in the search area and click Enter, navigate to: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
Double click on "FilterAdministratorToken" and set it to "0"

*************************************

Now log-off, and you'll see new account named "Administrator" is available, click on it to login.

Now you are the master of your domain! I recommend if you're going to use this method is to apply it as soon as you do a fresh install of Windows, so you can simply delete whatever administrator you've created in the setup process, and make this one the "real" administrator for your PC, also you can rename this new admin account or change its password like any other account from "User Accounts" in the Control Panel.

A last note: Please apply this procedures only if you know what you're doing. Disabling security features in the operating system is not something recommended to the average Joe, and for sure I won't be held accountable for any damaging happens to your system or files resulting from running a full administrator account all the time.

Enjoy!

1- Click Start, and type “secpol.msc” in the search area and click Enter.
2- You may receive a prompt from UAC, approve/login and proceed.
3- In the left list, choose “Local Policies”, then “Security Options”
4- Set “Accounts: Administrator account status” to Enabled.
5- Set “User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account” to Disabled.
6- Now log-off, and you’ll see a new account named “Administrator” will be available, click on it to login.

 

wait man.. u're vietnamese also? i see a dictionary in viet. Nice review. Good job. Vostro does look professional in black.

 

lol... I'm chinese but my mom speaks Viet (and thus the viet dictionary). So in some ways I'm part viet lol.

 

yeah def i like the all black much better than the black silver combo i have coming for the inspiron.. id get a color if it wasnt for delays.. im gonna try to get white added tomm.. depends if it delays my order any and then cross my fingers after the one i saw today lol

 

Nice review. I'm debating whether or not the $150 upgrade to WUXGA from WXGA+ is worth it on the 1700, as I'll be using an external monitor 90% of the time. Seems like there will be a 16 day delay if I go with the cheaper screen. Any Suggestions?

 

Well, if you have an external monitor it may not be worth it to upgrade- plus, the Vostros ship fast enough anyway so I don't think it'll be delayed by that much. However, I found the WUXGA to be an amazing screen, so I don't even need to have an external monitor.

Plus, I don't know of any 1920x1200 resolution screens that are smaller than 24".

 

clean up your desk!!!!

 

ha ha yeah!! that laptop is suffocating

 

lol... it was a quick fix because I needed room to put the laptop. It's usually a lot cleaner.

In an update... the c key has fallen off. The problem I found is that the key is held on by two latches in the back... the left one is now loose and won't grip, so if I hit the c key on the right edge, it'll flip.

 

wow make them send you just the keyboard it a super easy replacement

 

Yeah, I'm going to call them up tomorrow as I've been a bit busy today. Are they going to send me an entire keyboard or just the key?

But it's amazing. Of all the things that could go wrong with this laptop, it's the keyboard.

 

they should send the whole keyboard.. takes maybe 5 min to replace it

 

great review. one question > what is the onboard sound card like? I heard it was terrible and bad for playing css. btw where did u get that custom designed mx510 mouse from? Im also planning on playing CSS and its great news to hear HDR is on and your getting 60FPS

 

For tiny little laptop speaker they aren't bad. I heard them on the Inspiron 1720. It was right next to a 17" xps laptop. I couldn't really tell a difference.

I ordered my vostro 1700 2007-08-17. Est ship date 2007-09-17. Still in "production". I can't wait anymore!! It is probably because school just started.

I'm glad to hear that someone actually likes this laptop. From the other comments I've read, I was getting a worried that I made the wrong decision. I am concerned about the heat issue everyone keeps mentioning. You say you haven't had any heat issues yet? I'm going to buy one of those laptop fan pad things. Can someone suggest a quiet one?

The negative comments about the size/weight buggs me. There are plenty of small light portable laptops if that is what someone wants. What do they expext with a 17" laptop? I expext it to be big. That is why I ordered the 1700. Thanks for the size comparison!!

What wireless option did you get. How does it perform (speed / range)?

Thanks for the review and the pics!!

Vostro 1700
T7700 2.4GHz
UXGA
3GB DDR2
256MB 8600M GT
160G 5400RPM
Vista Business
8X DVD+/-RW
Intel 4965AGN
9-cell
355 Bluetooth Module (2.0+EDR)
Intel Turbo Memory 1GB

 

Did anyone else get the 1gb turbo cache? I read it is supposed to help w/ boot time and battery life. I'll let you know how it is when mine gets here (when ever that is).

 

Nice review xScorp1on!!

Good Luck!

 

Very true - I'm not used to the oddball sizes from widescreens. The use of DVD cases has allowed me to make an accurate comparison of the actual size of the screen compared to my 20" desktop monitor. Seems very similar in width, but around 1.5-2" less tall. I've been toying with whether the 15" or 17" is the way to go, and I think I've made my mind up from your pics.

Thanks!

--Rich

 

Did you figure out how the "C" Key fell out? I bought a Vostro 1500 last year when they were first introduced. I thought the laptop was nicely built and it was a good looking laptop as well.

I was disappointed to find my left mouse button fail 10 days after I bought it and so I sent it back for a refund. I'm actually leaning on buying a Vostro 1700 and taking advantage of the $500 off deal going on right now.