Anyone who has bought the Vostro 1500...

Sweet. That's exactly what I wanted to hear.

 

The Vostro suffers the same problem as the M1530: You occasionally can get stuck with a crappy LCD manufacturer. I have the LG Philips display and it looks amazing.

As for S-Video, one thing people don't usually know/talk about with the Vostro system is that it's not just an S-Video port, it's a 7-pin HDTV out port as well. In other words, buy a $5 adapter on eBay and you can output 1080p component to your HDTV in all the glorious 1920x1080. Sure, it's not HDMI but it's the next best thing.

 

WXGA (1280 x 800) + TrueLife, as per my signature.

Some are good, some are not so good. It's a lottery.

 

Jlbright...you just made me really happy. That's awesome!

Blah...can't rep you again :|

Jlbright...can you let us know the name of such adapter...I want to get one, but I don't want to get the wrong one.
Thanks

 

7 pin S-Video to 3 RCA Component

That's the kind I bought, same seller. I have a small issue with 720p not displaying properly, my HDTV screen goes wonky, but I think that's an issue with my TV not with the adapter. Highest my TV goes is 1080i but the specs on the 8600M GT say it'll output in 1080p, which component does carry. The auction, as well as most ebay listings, incorrectly label it an S-Video adapter, when it is instead a non-standard 7-pin mini-DIN connector. Think of it like calling all RCA cables "composite video", even when it's component, just because the cables are the same. A few sites, notably Wikipedia, incorrectly link a website that says all Dells output composite video, which is incorrect. I should probably edit it sometime.

 

Oh man, I'm excited to try this out...I'll have to hook it up to my Dad's 53" Samsung and see what CS:S looks like! Thanks again!

 

What ended up pushing me to buy the adapter was all the HD movies I have on my hard drive that I could previously only view over S-Video. BBC Planet Earth series in high def looks amazing.

 

Addendum

I previously wrote:

After reading Jerry's recent review of the 1510, I see that it has stereo speakers. I seems that I was thinking of the 1310.

Mia culpa

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with Dell refurbs. I finally settled on a new Vosto 1000. I am not trying to get an AMD vs Intel debate going now, but I decided to go with the Turion based on other peolple's positive experiences with them and I saved around 200 bucks!

Here are my specs:

Vostro 1000, AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Processor TL-60 (2.00GHz/512K)
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife, for Dell Vostro 1000 Notebook
2GB, DDR2, 533MHZ 2 Dimm
Integrated ATI Radeon X1150 Graphics, for Vostro 1000
120G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Vista Business,Service Pack 1 w/Media,32 Edition,Notebook English,Vostro
Image Restore,Vista,Dell OptiPlex,Precision and Latitude
8X DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+R write capability Cyberlink Power DVD and Roxio
Integrated Audio 2.0
Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Internal Card
53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery, for Vostro 1000
You have chosen a Windows Vista Premium System

The longer I looked around and the more that I learned (mostly from you guys), the more I became a little more particular about what I wanted in each category that makes up the system. Thanks to everyone that has helped me and I am trying to give rep points to as many people as possible.

 

Glad you found what you wanted! Enjoy it!...and the $200 extra.