Thinking of getting a vostro

witnessmenow

Hey, my mam is in the market for a laptop and i was thinking of giving her mine and getting a new shiny vostro 1400 for myself! I've a couple of questions and if you could help me out i'd really appreciate it!
Heres the spec:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7500 Processor (2.2GHz,800MHz,4MB L2 cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Business - English
Base Warranty - 1 Year Business Hardware Support
14.1" Wide Screen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display with TrueLife™
Matte Jet Black with 2.0 mega pixel camera
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024)
120GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
128MB nVidia® GeForce® 8400M GS with 90 watt AC adapter
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Software
Primary 9-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (85 WHr)

Ok firstly does anyone have this laptop and what do they think?

Is this graphics card ok for light gaming? just stuff like pro evo, half life 2 etc.. doesn't need to be full settings or anything. Would it be an improvement on my current laptops 128mb x700xl?

If i select blutooth is it built in or is it a dongle, as far as i can tell its built in?

It says on the dell website that i can select it with XP but i don't seem to have an option to do it, can anyone shed some light on the subject?


Lastly, does the 9 cell battery stick out from the rest of the laptop?

If any one wants to suggest another laptop fire ahead, but i definatly dont wanna go bigger than 15.4!

here a link to a review i found , diffrent spec Vostro 1400 review

Appreciate any advice you can give cheers

AlmightyCushion

Bluetooth is integrated. You can actually buy the bluetooth modules on ebay and do it yourself. It doesn't work out any cheaper though.

The 9 cell battery will stick out a bit from the laptop. Someone posted up pics before, I'll try and find the link.

The graphics card is really bottom of the barrel stuff. You may want to go with the 8600gt. For this you'll have to go with the vostro 1500. It's a 15.4". This has an 8600gt. It also has the option to go with xp. The 9 cell battery will still stick out of the 1500.

Edit: Found the pics. Here they are.

witnessmenow

Thanks almighty cushion! I'd live with the battery sticking out i think! Yeah ... i'd definatly go for the 8600gt if it was an option on the 1400. but sadly thats not the case! its a pity about vista only on it.. might vista on my current laptop and use its xp key for the new one. When you say bottom of the barrrel... how bottom of the barrel.... it will run most games in some manner or form right? See i'd really like the a smaller screen for college, and i have a pretty decent gaming desktop so i wouldnt be using the laptop for games all the time. ( plus im doing electronic engineering and have no life !) Thanks for the info on the blutooth
Appreciate the reply cheers.

btw the above laptop with blutooth will only cost me E870 as its free delivary at the mo i can buy it through my dads company. Seems amzing to me but can anyone do any better?

TerrorFirmer

8400GS will run Half Life 2 on high no problems, run any current Pro Evo game at high though I'm not sure about the very latest one, I heard it uses a new engine which would probably be much more taxing but even that said I just looked at the minimum requirements - 8400GS should smoke Pro Evo 8. It'll run any game currently released on above lowest settings and some at medium, if that answers your questions, and is excellent for older titles. Though the 8600Gt is much better you have to get a bigger laptop and it's more of a performance part.

The X700 is actually faster but has less memory and lacks newer features needed to run newer games so all in all, the 8400Gs is a better all rounder. But aside from being able to run newer games, in those that run on both cards, the X700 will probably take the edge (faster card, and a 128-bit bus).

edit: even a small overclock will probably bring the cards closer and negate the 8400gs' 64 bit bus

Conor108

I just got a Vostro 1000 and can someone tell me whats with the HDD? When I got it there were 3 partitions. The OS (Vista biz.), Recovery (10gb) and one unlabelled partition which was 118mb. All were Primary. Can I merge the 118mb with the OS? Is it important? And would I be able to just have 3 primary partitions that are Vista, XP and Ubuntu and just have all my data in a logical partition?

Thanks

Iguana Bob

i got my vostro 1500 couple weeks back same preformance specs as the one you quoted except 2.0 ghz not 2.2 its good no problems yet slight bit heavy but dont mind. its pretty good at doing everything no probs yet and would recommend it

remus808

Hey witness, I have a 1400 with the exact same specs as you listed.

Personally I think it's great, and the gfx card has been alot better than I expected! I havent put it under any major strain, but it ran COD2 and full specs with no problems whatsoever.

As for XP, no they don't offer it for the 1400. And it is a ***** to put XP on it. I'v a dual-boot with Vista now, but it took forever to set up. Finding drivers for some of the stuff can be a major problem. The whole process is on the tricky side (when you try to install XP it won't recognize your HD untill you change something in the BIOS.. this took me several hours to figure out)

But once you've gotten it set up with XP it's hella fast. It's unbearably slow to boot etc. with Vista (blame Dell!). It's very heavy for a 14" once you've got the 9-cell in though! It actually feels much bigger than a 15.4" inspiron for example.. I wouldn't let that put you off though, it's a lovely laptop. Has replaced my desktop!

Dunno about Bluetooth, never tryed to get it working!

witnessmenow

thanks karmabass, you couldn't tell me more about that option in the bios could you? The first thing i plan to do with the laptop is reformat and put windows on instead! If you remember where you got any of the drivers either that would be great. Appreciate it!

TheDriver

question about getting it with vista, if i reformat and put on xp that I own, do they give the discs etc to put vista on at a later date should i wish to do so?

TerrorFirmer

Yes you get the disc.