Any ideas, reviews about Dell Vostro 5470 Ci5 4210u model?

Hi,
I did returned my Vaio Flip 13A to service and waiting for full refund. It is confirmed from Sony.
Now I was looking again an ultrabook with less money and also have external graphics.
I found Dell Vostro 5470 series and liked it.

But could not find any topics of owners.
Can any body who experienced tell me about Vostro 5470?
BTW I already purchased an mSata 240gb Mushkin SSD for it I will remove the hdd coming with dell for external use.

What made me choose it;
1.53kg with mechanical hdd -no need for dvdr/w
14" screen size -Res is not important for me
external gpu chipset 64bit but enough I guess (just for basic games when on vacation)
double fan for air flow
it come with 4gigs but I can replace it with an 8 gigs later.
Fingerprint is a Plus.
there is a subwoofer at rear but i am not sure how it sounds.

 

Hi there.

It seems I'm in the same boat. I'm choosing between Vostro 4570 and HP ProBook 430 G2. I've heard lots of bad stories about HP build quality for their budget laptops and now I'm leaning more and more towards Vostro.

Currently I don't like two things about it: glance screen - maybe this can be worked around with some antiglare screen protector - and the bottom cover which is in single piece and thus I have to completely remove it to detach the battery or replace HDD or RAM. But maybe the fact that it is one piece makes it more robust? I'm not sure. I didn't have a chance to hold this Vostro in my hands and check its hinges and flexing.

The closest reviews I could get are the following:
Dell Vostro 5460 Disassembly | LaptopUltra.com
It's not 5470 but 5460, still they seem really similar. I guess, 5470 is just an Haswell upgrade for 5460, so you can expect the same build quality.
Some more useful links I found:
Dell Vostro 5470 - Notebookcheck.net External Reviews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoPn6MUgMR4
Dell vostro 5470 - www.hardwarezone.com.sg

The problem with all these reviews is that they do not compare the laptop with some other well known model to make buyer's choice easier. It doesn't mean anything to me if they mark the laptop with 5 stars for bad display or keyboard if I have no idea whether my chosen alternative product has better or worse display/keyboard etc. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to find comparative reviews for budget laptops because they are not that popular and there are too many of them to compare exactly the models I am choosing from. It becomes even harder because of various configurations - there are so many variants of Vostro 5470 out there...

As I'm good with Russian, I find this review to be really valuable: http://www.ixbt.com/portopc/dell/dell-vostro-5470.shtml
You can run it through Google translate and I can help you understand it, if you like.

 

Thank you for your reply and review links.
I finally decided and purchased Vostro 5470.
It is quite slim, Screen glare does not bother me at all. brightness level is fine.
Remove back cover is very easy. Retailer had told me how to remove it. Near the ethernet port you need to use a credit card to make it open after screws are out.
I directly insert an SSD Samsung 840 evo 250gigs and a memory that has 8gigs and 1600Mhz Low Voltage 1.35.
After first load of battery at power saving mode battery lasted nearly 9 hours with %40 brightness and wifi connection was on. I was surfing on web all this time period.
Keyboard is good to type on it. only thing I wonder why there is not a led for CAPSLOCK ON/OFF.
Before Vostro I had used Sony vaio multiflip 13". At first I had chosen silver case and at its keyboard because the keys are nearly same color to the backlit alphabets are barely visible. It had Wifi problems, fan noise and extreme warming problems. Battery was lasting 4-5 hours in all power modes. Track pad was very low quality. By chance its Mobo failed and I replaced device with black case model. It also had same problems. The only better thing was keyboard. A month ago when I was looking for Vostro I gave sony to its service and they were agree with the issues I mentioned. After 20 business day at repair center I returned it and asked for a refund according to our IT Laws.

I tried a game I always play. League of Legends. It was working without any lag at performance mode. at other balanced and power saver modes it works but freezes sometimes at some frames.

when you are not playing a game or not doing any hard work that needs performance, Fans seems not working. it is very silent. But in game especially fan at right side of device starts working a bit loudly. and after game closed fan still work separately till the device cools down.

Wifi Connection is successful. After vaio it is amazing. Connection is as powerful as an external wifi card with antenna.

According to me it was a very good choice after use of many different Ultrabooks.
I know it is not an Ultrabook and no touchscreen. But for the rate of Price/Performance it is perfect. In my country it costed me 715$ for device and 190$ for SSD. Ultrabooks here with lowest configure starts from 1100$.
Its software support is also quite well. After I installed my MS Operating system it worked correctly with all peripherals. And got all updates correctly also.
Why did I mention that? I had bought Lenovo Yoga 13 to my dad a couple of months ago. It comes with MS windows 8 SL. And fails at Windows updates every time I try then needs to use recovery to make it work. Tried Lenovo support help and they also could not fix and I just turned updates off. Cant make my dad to agree to send device to service for Software issue.

If you have any questions please ask. I will try to set on reminder for this topic.