Question about dell vostro and laptops in general.

[Maximilian]

Hey, im getting myself a laptop for uni this year, my desktops just getting too heavy to lug about, add my weights and a Z5500 speaker system to that and its pretty unmobile.

So i saw someone mention dell vostro on this board and since im confused as hell about laptops i decided to look it up. So i got a few questions, the first relating to the vostro.

1. I chose to configure a vostro 1700 on dells website, for what ive put in it compared with other laptops with a similar spec £724 seems very decent, but there is no mention of a network port. I believe its called RJ45? Not sure, but its not mentioned in the specs, do these laptops come with a network port?

2. Is there anywhere else i can configure a laptop like i could with the vostro and keep it pretty cheap?

With the vostro ive got a:
2ghz C2D 4mb cache
2GB RAM
17" screen
8600m GT 256mb
160GB hard drive.
9 cell 85whr battery

This is all for £850.70 inc vat. Compared to what ive seen on other sites ocuk, and komplett.co.uk this seems cheap. Am i getting a good deal with this?

3. How is the 8600m GT 256mb for games? All i want to run is starcraft (easy heh) halo 1, c&c 3 maybe, and battlefield 2. Maybe in the future starcraft II. Will this card be up to the task?

4. Whats the difference between a core duo and core2duo. At 2ghz they will perform similarly i gather, is there any difference in power savings or anything else?

5. Is there anything else i should know?? I know these are for "small businesses" so is there a lack of USB ports? or anything severely different than a laptop designed for home use?

 

[TheStu]

delldd

Originally posted by: Soviet
Hey, im getting myself a laptop for uni this year, my desktops just getting too heavy to lug about, add my weights and a Z5500 speaker system to that and its pretty unmobile.

So i saw someone mention dell vostro on this board and since im confused as hell about laptops i decided to look it up. So i got a few questions, the first relating to the vostro.

1. I chose to configure a vostro 1700 on dells website, for what ive put in it compared with other laptops with a similar spec £724 seems very decent, but there is no mention of a network port. I believe its called RJ45? Not sure, but its not mentioned in the specs, do these laptops come with a network port?

It's not in the specs, but it has a 10/100 port on it, so that should be fine.

2. Is there anywhere else i can configure a laptop like i could with the vostro and keep it pretty cheap?

With the vostro ive got a:
2ghz C2D 4mb cache
2GB RAM
17" screen
8600m GT 256mb
160GB hard drive.
9 cell 85whr battery

This is all for £850.70 inc vat. Compared to what ive seen on other sites ocuk, and komplett.co.uk this seems cheap. Am i getting a good deal with this?

3. How is the 8600m GT 256mb for games? All i want to run is starcraft (easy heh) halo 1, c&c 3 maybe, and battlefield 2. Maybe in the future starcraft II. Will this card be up to the task?
It will run all those things just fine. Someone on another forum I go to was able to run FEAR on his new MBP (128MB 8600GT) at native res, with great frames.

4. Whats the difference between a core duo and core2duo. At 2ghz they will perform similarly i gather, is there any difference in power savings or anything else?

The main difference is that the Core 2 is 64bit, maybe ever so slightly better power savings, but nothing significant. I think that the Core 2 is faster in certain tasks, but for most things they should be pretty similiar.

5. Is there anything else i should know?? I know these are for "small businesses" so is there a lack of USB ports? or anything severely different than a laptop designed for home use?

The 1700 appears to have 2 USB ports on it, and only 2. So if you are thinking that won't be enough, either get a hub or choose something else.

 

[Maximilian]

Thanks, i found a "tech specs" bit on the website and it says the vostro 1700 has 5 usb 2.0 ports though. Maybe its the other vostro models that only have 2?

Anyways ive got a new question, its about sound. I want to take my logitech z5500's with me and hook them up to the laptop. Is this feasible with a vostro? The z5500 has a green cable, yellow cable and a black cable, do these laptops come with yellow and black ports for the rear speakers and subwoofer?

It says on dells website "Two channel high definition audio codec; Two stereo 2 watt internal speakers with HD Audio 2.0 software standard" Will this be enough? If not, is there any solution to this? Do inspirons come with better sound? They are practically the same except for price it seems.

EDIT: Less important question here, but might as well know before i buy. Would it be ok to install a copy of vista ultimate 64 bit on a vostro/inspiron laptop? There wont be any complications with 64 bit no?