Dell Vostro 1500

I've never really used a laptop as a main machine before so it will take me some getting used to.

At the moment, I think Vista's bloat and the 5400rpm drive makes the system seem particularly slow at booting up. My Nan's HP notebook with only a Celeron and 512MB RAM boots up quicker for some reason. I wonder if the Ultimate edition (as opposed to her Home Basic) has tons more services to get going...

The glossy screen (TrueLife display) is a bit annoying in bright conditions. I find myself squinting through my own reflection to see what's on the screen. Much better in ambient lighting.

Some of the games I've tried don't work. The Lost Planet DX10 demo and BioShock demo (both off Steam) crash on start. Probably caused by Dell's own 8600M GT drivers. Played GTA: San Andreas and Dawn of War and both work lovely. Computer is probably best suited to playing games that are a couple of years old now.

I like the buttons on the front for controlling volume, playback, etc. Beats faffing about with the volume slider in Vista. The speakers actually are quite loud on the 100% setting. 20% is more amiable to my ears.

The machine is very quiet even with the fans going ten to the dozen. After a bit of gaming, you can feel the very warm air coming out of the vent on the side.

That's all I can think of for now.
 
Can anyone else confirm that the 8600M GT GFX card in the bios is described as a NB8P GS but the OS reports it as an 8600M GT? I haven't had time to bench mine yet to check out performance, but I'm just double checking I've the correct GFX card. I don't want the 8600M GS.
 
ic1male said:
I've never really used a laptop as a main machine before so it will take me some getting used to.

At the moment, I think Vista's bloat and the 5400rpm drive makes the system seem particularly slow at booting up. My Nan's HP notebook with only a Celeron and 512MB RAM boots up quicker for some reason. I wonder if the Ultimate edition (as opposed to her Home Basic) has tons more services to get going...

The glossy screen (TrueLife display) is a bit annoying in bright conditions. I find myself squinting through my own reflection to see what's on the screen. Much better in ambient lighting.

Some of the games I've tried don't work. The Lost Planet DX10 demo and BioShock demo (both off Steam) crash on start. Probably caused by Dell's own 8600M GT drivers. Played GTA: San Andreas and Dawn of War and both work lovely. Computer is probably best suited to playing games that are a couple of years old now.

I like the buttons on the front for controlling volume, playback, etc. Beats faffing about with the volume slider in Vista. The speakers actually are quite loud on the 100% setting. 20% is more amiable to my ears.

The machine is very quiet even with the fans going ten to the dozen. After a bit of gaming, you can feel the very warm air coming out of the vent on the side.

That's all I can think of for now.
Click to expand...
Cheers,
Im not going to be using this as a replacement to my desktop, just wanted a reasonably cheap but powerful laptop for work and the odd game. Been playing Bioshock on my Shuttle, runs fine although a bit hard on the eyes after a while :eek:

So the TrueLife screen has a shiny surface - would the normal one have the matt surface then? If so would you now go for that instead?
Looking forward to a notepad with loud speakers, my acer was so quiet.

My acer would expel extremely hot air from the side - very handy for heating up drinks :p
 
anyone got the 1700 vostro? can you comment on the screen! the 1500 screen is not very nice :mad:. Im sure its normal or better than normal for a laptop but it is terrible compared to what im used too on my desktop
 
I'm still faffing about with mine trying to get everything 64-bit. Going to try some HP Vista drivers tonight for the GeForce card off their website. It's for a 6800M GS card but with a modded inf, it should work for the 6800M GT, too.

Something I've discovered for those thinking of reinstalling with the non-Dell Vista DVD - you will need to load the drivers for the AHCI SATA spec/Robson Turbo Memory at the point where you choose where to install Vista or else it will tip over on first startup.
 
Just got back from my break and its still humming on any other brightness setting other than max.

Adjusting it in the control panel kind of fixes the problem but its no good for me. I'm currently recovering from having my eyes lasered and while I'm on the laptop, I'm regularly adjusting the screen brightness on the fly depending on how sensitive my eyes are.

Glad I didn't delete the Media Direct and Recovery partition now! Otherwise there may have been an issue will Dell honouring the warranty.
 
It's some kind of low powered mode that the CPU goes into when it's idling. Going into this mode it what is causing the CPU whine that some users have.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom