Dell Vostro 1000

Review of Dell Vostro 1000

A couple of years ago a middle weight business laptop would have cost you over a grand. Today less than 500 dollars will snag you an Athlon dual core powered Vostro 1000, sporting a 15.4 inch wide-screen display and some quality touches like a mylar sealed keyboard and magnesium alloy chassis. Laptopical's Todd Gold offers his opinion on this discount offering from Dell.

Dell Vostro 1000 Technical Specifications

Processor

1.9GHz AMD Athlon 64 Mobile TK57, 667Mhz FSB

Memory

2GB 667 MHz DDR2

Harddrive

120GB 5,400rpm SATA

OS

Windows Vista Business

Weight

6.26 pounds (2.84 kg)

Screen

15.4 inches

Screen resolution

1280x800

Graphic Card

ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 IGP

Battery Life

1-2 hours

Pros

• Bargain priced
• Solid build
• Respectable performance

Cons

• Non-descript design
• Short battery life

Full review of Dell Vostro 1000

I own two laptops. My favorite is a 17-inch core 2 duo Macbook Pro, the other, I like to call it my backup laptop, is a Toshiba Satellite P10 with a Pentium 4 processor I bought back in 2003. I use the Toshiba on the road, its battered blue lid and weathered chassis far less attractive to thieves than my shiny Apple Macbook. That stays parked safely on my desk at home, connected to an external keyboard, mouse and 24 inch monitor.

A few months back the two fans on my Satellite P10 began whirring loudly, the notebook began overheating and switching itself off. I've cleaned out the heatsink and fans but the problem is persistent. So I decided to start hunting for a cheap backup laptop as a replacement, and Dell's new Vostro line, particularly the Vostro 1000 caught my thrifty eye.

Vostro means YOUR in Italian, and for $499 it's not expensive to make the Vostro 1000 "Your" laptop. The Dell Vostro 1000 is being billed as a bargain priced business notebook. The 6.26 lb black magnesium alloy chassis appears very solid. A thoughtful feature is the mylar sealed keyboard. This will be a crumb and spill safety net for road warriors eating baguettes and drinking at wireless coffee shops while they work.

What's under the bonnet? Well for less than 500 bucks you get an Athlon 64 bit X2 AMD processor, a 15.4 inch Widescreen WXGA (1280x800) widescreen, 512MB of RAM (1GB for another $50), and a 60GB hard drive (up to 120 GB available for extra $70). Wireless comes in the form of a Dell 1390 802.11g Wi-Fi card. For our UK readers a laptop with similar specs is available for the discount sum of £239.

If you're still unsure about Vista, you can always ask Dell to install your Vostro with good old Windows XP. Or if you're an open source fan why not experiment by installing a Linux operating system? Dell have preinstalled Ubuntu on their Inspiron 1420 N to a chorus of approval from Linux aficionados. However, just because Ubuntu runs smoothly on the Inspiron doesn't mean it is guaranteed to work on this Dell. Indeed, I have heard whispers of wireless compatibility issues with Ubuntu on the Vostro 100. Not to worry though, it appears Gentoo Linux works fine on the 1000, check out Tuxmobil for the installation guide.

As for me, all the files on my Toshiba are backed up, and I'm ready to swap them over to a new notebook. If/when the P10 succumbs to the dreaded blue screen of death, the Vostro 1000 is definitely being considered.

Dell Vostro 1000 Product Photos

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