There are many mini laptops on the market right now, such as the Asus Eee PC (which I have reviewed previously). A while ago I started looking for the best one. As stupid as it sounds, the 15"inchDell Vostro has to be my pick of the litter. Why you might ask? Because it is a budget laptop with no signs of cheapness.
The build is sturdy enough, nothing feels like it is about to snap off, I would go as far as saying that it has been carefully and thoughtfully designed.The keyboard is also magnificient, which has hardly any flex at all.
Like all Dell products, this can be customized to have light energy use and large battery life or vica versa. So it can be as portable as you want it to be, as long as you can lift it, which I don't find too bad at all, my 5ft tall girlfriend tells me otherwise though. So please take into account on how much you can carry, as they are on average 3Kg.
The amount of customizable features is quite limited, compared to the American site anyway. The basics such as the processors and hard-drives are the same, but in America you can get larger batteries and even such things as finger-print readers. I wouldn't need most of this but I would still like the option.
Currently I have a duel-core 1.8Ghz processor, 1 Gig of RAM. An integrated video card and a 160Gb (7200rpm) Hard-drive. All this is great for me, I need decent processing power, some RAM but not much (it can be updated cheaply anyway) and a decent, fast hard-drive. So it's difficult to say, most people looking at this laptop would think It was rubbish but for me it's perfect.
Of course you get the usual Dell customer support, which is very good, as long as the person on the other end of the phone can speak English that is. I would love to learn hindi/urdu (really!) but I can't, so I want customer support that I can understand. I did buy this laptop in Britain after all I have the right to expec the same from my customer service.
My main problem with the Vostro is that it costs extra to have Xp installed over Vista. I laughed with curiosity as I read this, how can they charge more to install and (technically) inferior and CHEAPER! operating system. It's beyond me. Luckily I had a spare copy of windows though, so I soon got over this.
I don't know why Dell recieve such a bad rep. This is my first Dell and it's really good, and best of all, it was cheap. I'm beginning to think the only reason Dell is in a bad light is because so many computer illiterate people use them, and don't understand that actions have consequences. I know to install AV, and that I should download music from certian P2P programs. But some don't. And because Dell advertise so much a lot of beginner PC user's will buy them. So Dell really are the Harbinger of their own doom.
Since I bought this Dell it has been nothing but great. The few problems are with he lack of customisation (compared to America). It doesn't bother me that much though, especially since my laptop should be worth a few hundred pounds more. It's also better than any lightweight pc on the market for around the same price. It's the shrew user that buys a Dell.
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Jul 15th, 2008
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