Dell Vostro 1510 Review Part 1

The time has come for me to purchase a new laptop. My previous machine was a Dell Inspiron 6000 which served me very well over the past three years. I did some quick research and found it tough to get the specifications I wanted from a retail store (most notibly the high resolution screen) so I opted to order another laptop directly from Dell Canada.

Specifications of my New Dell Vistro 1510:
Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 at 2.1Ghz
3 Gigabytes of Ram (DDR2 at 667Mhz, 2 DIMMS)
160 Gig Harddrive
Integrated Graphics Accelrator X3100
15.4" WUXGA (1900x1200)

This machine is has been built for work as apposed to gaming and the specifications reflect that. I will be installing my complete suite of development tools onto this laptop and I'll write about those experiences in Part 2 of this review.

Build Quality / Exterior

This is the first laptop I've owned that has really wowed me out of the box. The laptop is very well built and the shiny black plastic shell is honestly quite impressive.

Periferals

The speakers are adiquate but by no means impressive. I am happy to report the the touch pad works very well, this was a sore spot on my old Dell Inspiron. And finally the screen, I was concerned this resolution would be problematic on a 15.4" screen but its simply stunning. The reflective coating does pick up more glare than standard screens but the clarity and vibrancy of the colors more than makes up for it.

Windows Vista

This machine shipped with Windows Vista Home Basic (32 bit) which it handles very well. It gets a Performance Rating of 3.3 but this is due to the graphics card. All other components scored a 4.9 or better.

Installed Software

I ordered my laptop with Office Basic 2007. An additional $150 to receive Word, Excel and Outlook seemed to be an excellent value.

I was also pleased to find Acrobat Readed 8.1 and Google Desktop pre-installed.

Part 2

I'll be putting the Vostro through its paces as a work and development computer over the next 2 weeks. Part two of this review will be up before the end of the month.