Dell Vostro V13

[kazryv]

I am going to be going away for about 6 months for some training for work and I was thinking about getting either a netbook or a 13" notebook. I was doing some searching around and the Vostro V13 caught my eye, it's only $529 Canadian right now from Dell with an intel SU3500, 2GB DDR3 1066 MHZ ram, 320GB 7200 RPM HDD and it seems to fit the bill as far as size and portability. I don't really want to spend too much money as all I am really going to be using it for is web browsing, some movies and perhaps light gaming (think WoW, Starcraft 2 at medium graphics).

Prior to looking at this I was thinking about getting an HP DM3 with the AMD processor but I saw one of the Adamo's in store yesterday and have read this is fairly similar. Anyone have experience with it or a reason I should avoid this laptop?

 

[TimeKeeper]

I am going to be going away for about 6 months for some training for work and I was thinking about getting either a netbook or a 13" notebook. I was doing some searching around and the Vostro V13 caught my eye, it's only $529 Canadian right now from Dell with an intel SU3500, 2GB DDR3 1066 MHZ ram, 320GB 7200 RPM HDD and it seems to fit the bill as far as size and portability. I don't really want to spend too much money as all I am really going to be using it for is web browsing, some movies and perhaps light gaming (think WoW, Starcraft 2 at medium graphics).

Prior to looking at this I was thinking about getting an HP DM3 with the AMD processor but I saw one of the Adamo's in store yesterday and have read this is fairly similar. Anyone have experience with it or a reason I should avoid this laptop?

Just replace your HD w/ Intel X25 and you are set. ( well, I am using it w/ X25-v for that matter ) The reason I am using X25 vs Vertex 2 is the battery power consumption - I don't expect to do much disk writing.

I have installed same Win7 64bit / background program - mse, office / 20% brightness/ bt off/ wifi on / USB optical mouse/ on Vertex 2 and X25-v. At full charged battery, win7 64 show X25 with 6 hours 30 min idle. Vertext at 5 hours 40 min.
( of course, we know this "idle" battery indicator does not reflect real-world usage, but by comparing to its OEM 5400rpm HD at 3 hours 50 min, that's impressive )

 

[kazryv]

What about the SU3500 is it decent? From what I read it seems to be better than atom processors, there doesn't appear to be the option to change to the SU7300 on the Canadian Dell website at the moment unless I am missing something.

 

[TimeKeeper]

What about the SU3500 is it decent? From what I read it seems to be better than atom processors, there doesn't appear to be the option to change to the SU7300 on the Canadian Dell website at the moment unless I am missing something.

I can't answer that question for you.
My M743 is more than adequate and reponsive enough w/ SSD, since I only using my laptop for MS office, web, little youtube, few online board game, minor PS editing and "coffee shop" skype. ( unfortunately, I don't watch hulu on little laptop screen so I can't comment on it. )

 

[richierich1212]

Timekeeper, you get 6 hours with your Vostro V13 with an Intel X25-v and Celly 743?

 

[TimeKeeper]

Timekeeper, you get 6 hours with your Vostro V13 with an Intel X25-v and Celly 743?

To avoid any "confusing", that 6.5 hours estimate is from Win7 64's own calculation during idle with full charge. ( Of course, compare to Original 5400rpm HD's, Win 7 64 only estimate at 3 hours and 50 min. )

Yes, I have celly 743/ 2gb ram. ( I am sure if you have the SU3500, you might even get a longer "estimate" )


This is IDLE:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_V4jY5Exq0eE/TCA3OgEEUuI/AAAAAAAABmE/2HrV1m4DBb0/idle.jpg

This is while watching 720P Halo Reach youtube:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_V4jY5Exq0eE/TCA202l5VTI/AAAAAAAABl8/FXmvfvVEHK0/youtube.jpg

 

[Zap]

What about the SU3500 is it decent? From what I read it seems to be better than atom processors, there doesn't appear to be the option to change to the SU7300 on the Canadian Dell website at the moment unless I am missing something.

These CPUs are higher performance than the Atom. I have an Atom netbook and if I have a few IE tabs open with flash stuff on them, things can start to lag. I tried Hulu once and HD stuff was unwatchable. WoW isn't that great of an experience either. I posted benchmarks somewhere around here just over a year ago and IIRC I was getting around 12-25FPS depending on the area, and I didn't even go to known laggy areas like Dalaran. I'm also scrolling quite a bit to read web pages with the 10" screen at 1024x600, and I'm always hitting F11 in the browser to go full screen just for the extra pixels. My netbook weighs 3.2 pounds and gets 5 hours on a 6 cell battery (original MSI Wind). If I could trade someone for a Vostro V13, I'd do it in an instant.

Oh yeah, to change the CPU you may have to choose a higher base config. I would highly recommend the dual core as WoW is dual threaded (not sure about SC2).

 

[tuskers]

SU3500 is slower than dual-core atoms. It is the slowest non-atom chip you can buy from intel right now.

WoW actually can spawn many more than 2 threads, it just reaches its peak performance in the 2-3 core area (the overhead of multi-threading negates more performance advantage).

Think of it as a fast, slightly larger netbook.