Dell Vostro 1500

the39steps said:
This is the spec that I'm looking at:

T8300 (2.40 GHz, 3 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows® XP Professional - English
3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (1x1024 + 1x2048 MB)
256MB nVidia® GeForce® 8600M GT
320 GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive

All that for £580.45 including VAT! One thing I haven't looked at is the option for bluetooth. I've never really thought about it. Is it only good for transferring stuff from your phone without a cable? No idea how much extra this would cost (not much I'd imagine). I'm just wondering if its worth getting for future use.
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The bluetooth is £15, it's not much if you have the money to spare. But you could probably buy a dongle for £10.
 
I didnt get bluetooth with mine, and like it says above dongles can be had for cheap, but I kind of wish I did have bluetooth now, but dont want a dongle sticking out, I wish I had gotten it inside my vostro.
Only use would be for phone transfers, But i take my laptop for weekends away or if i go to see the mrs, or family, and it comes to uni with me.
 
I'd definately get the built in Bluetooth even if you can't see yourself using at the moment. The horrible thing about buying a dongle is that you just end up losing them, and of course they stick out of the side of the laptop.
 
Captain Planet said:
Guys Im having issues with my Bluetooth receiver. I have the driver installed and the unit enabled in the bios and when I flick the wireless/bluetooth switch a dialogue pops up saying hit Fn+F2 keys to activate bluetooth, except this doesnt work :( Help?
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On a Vostro 1500? Unless they've changed the design since I got mine, the Fn + F2 keys don't do anything. The wireless/Bluetooth switch is on the left hand side.
 
I think it is about time I upgraded my laptop, as it was old and second hand when I bought it a year ago, and was only supposed to be a stop gap.
I'm going for;
BASE Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.40 GHz, 3 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Business - English edit
SUPPORT SERVICES 1Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day Included - No Upgrade Selected edit
LCD 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™ edit
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Matte Jet Black with 2.0 mega pixel camera edit
MEMORY 3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (1x1024 + 1x2048 MB) edit
HARD DRIVE 250GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive edit
GRAPHICS CARD 256MB nVidia® GeForce® 8600M GT edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive edit
PRIMARY BATTERY Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)
With the bluetooth module also

Is there anything you would change to this spec? Currently £545 inc vat etc, but I can go up to £600
 
Captain Kirk said:
I think it is about time I upgraded my laptop, as it was old and second hand when I bought it a year ago, and was only supposed to be a stop gap.
I'm going for;
BASE Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.40 GHz, 3 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Business - English edit
SUPPORT SERVICES 1Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day Included - No Upgrade Selected edit
LCD 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™ edit
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Matte Jet Black with 2.0 mega pixel camera edit
MEMORY 3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (1x1024 + 1x2048 MB) edit
HARD DRIVE 250GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive edit
GRAPHICS CARD 256MB nVidia® GeForce® 8600M GT edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive edit
PRIMARY BATTERY Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)
With the bluetooth module also

Is there anything you would change to this spec? Currently £545 inc vat etc, but I can go up to £600
Click to expand...

Possibly bump up the res to 1440x900 ... will make it look nicer :)
 
not sure if its the same for the 1700 here but the 1500 has bios options which allow you to set it to do bluetooth aswell, hence why some are suggesting you use that.

Are you using XP? Think there was a well known problem with people downgrading from vista to XP and bluetooth not installing correctly.. cos I wondered why mine wasnt working and come across it..then realised i didnt have it :D
 
My Vostro 1500 turned up today as expected (specs are a few pages back). Very impressed overall. I might post a fuller review at some point in the future but here's my initial observations-

Pros-
Super-quick 2.4 C2D, does super-pi 1M in 20s :eek:
Very good viewing angles on my 1440*900 screen
Very nice keyboard and touchpad IMO
Feels solidly built and decent quality
Good speakers
Price, spec and quick delivery (7 days)

Cons-
Heat when gaming, and when doing CPU intensive tasks, it's a bit much
Headphone noise issue (mentioned many times already)
Backlight bleed along the bottom edge of my screen
8600M GT performance maybe just a tad less than I was expecting (3900 3DMark06)

Also a few issues I have to resolve, like speedstep isn't working at the moment, and I still haven't got rid of all the bloat after 5 hrs.
 
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peetee said:
not sure if its the same for the 1700 here but the 1500 has bios options which allow you to set it to do bluetooth aswell, hence why some are suggesting you use that.

Are you using XP? Think there was a well known problem with people downgrading from vista to XP and bluetooth not installing correctly.. cos I wondered why mine wasnt working and come across it..then realised i didnt have it :D
Click to expand...

I have it enabled in the bios and I'm using vista. :confused:
 
Any ideas anyone about why speedstep might not be working? It's definitely enabled in the bios, and I've tried every power profile, but the CPU remains fixed at 2400 MHz (according to CPU-Z) all the time, even when CPU usage is 0%. Checked the intel website and there doesn't seem to be drivers for intel cpus, so I'm a bit stumped. Also looking at device manager there's no obvious problems.

I hope Dell haven't somehow disabled it due to the whine people keep mentioning, because that would really kill my battery life. Having said that I haven't tried the laptop on battery at all yet, but that's not really relevant since speedstep should work on AC too.
 
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