Calling all Vostro 1500 owners

Can anyone confirm, if you own a Dell Vostro, and can achieve clear sound recording, or use your microphone for VOIP, without any interference or seeming like you are underwater?

My mic (built in or external) is unusable, and it appears this is a common problem with the dell vostro, and has ruined what is a fine machine, considering I am left with a laptop which makes it impossible to use a microphone (internal or external)

 

It is not a very good microphone-especially for VOIP or voice recognition. You might consider a USB headset for those tasks. In fact, most built-in microphones are not decent enough or clear enough.

 

Jak, its due to the fact I cant even use an external mic, wasn't expecting a decent built in one, but any mic is unusable, due to the soundcard.

DO you have the same problem?

I have been looking at the usb option, do I need to disable anything if i use a usb soundcard?

 

I have found the soundcard and microphone both fairly useless. However, most laptops are pretty much the same using the onboard sound chips.

You should not have to disable anything to use the USB ones. Most of them basically replace the soundcard. However, follow their instructions--there may be one that you have to do something different.

I use a set of Plantronics that are OK and sell for under $100. There are good reviews of the SteelSeries ones. There are probably over 100 different kinds and range from $50-400. I would think that you can get decent ones for under $100. Sennheisers are also supposed to be pretty good.

 

Jakpro - I must admit in the past 10 years, I have never encountered such a useless soundcard, even with some of the budget laptops I have had in the past, at least I could plug in a mic and use it for voip.

Overall the 1500 is built like a tan and top notch build quality, and this is the only fault so far, so I am not unhappy with the purchase, just annoyed slightly, as it means I have to purchase another external device to lug around when i travel.

Been looking to see if i can purchase a decent portable soundcard, similar to the size of a flash stick, and there are some dodgy looking ones on ebay, I did come across a fairly high quality looking one on the web, but that was in us, cant find anything similar in the uk, which leaves me with:

http://www.ciao.co.uk/Trust_Sound_Expert_510EX_USB_5_1_Sound_Expert_External__5770007

http://www.kenable.co.uk/product_info.php?referer=froogle&products_id=1252

 

Yeah, recording quality is awful on my 1500. Trying to record with an external microphone or even recording stereo mix gives me an awful quality sound (almost like low bitrate). I am disappointed in this, but right now I'm furious about the whole nvidia defect deal.