New Vostro Lineup (3350, 3450..)

Thanks My budget is kind of limited right now and I'm looking at either the Vostro 3750 or the Inspiron 17R. I know that the 17R has better speakers, but I was just wondering if the new Vostro speakers would be somewhat decent. I tried out a Vostro 3700 and the speakers were abysmal. The sound was literally forced out of a little slit above the keyboard.

 

why why why Latitude E6420 with NVIDIA 4200M(64-bit 512mb) GPU has option of ordering 1600x900 screen.
yet Vostro 3450 with better Radeon 6630M(128-bit 1GB) GPU didn't get optional 1600x900 screen - makes me so mad

 

Agree. But then again Lenovo and HP have essentially done the same thing when you look at their lines.

 

Hey guys,

i've been pretty busy these days, i'll add pictures and few more comments on friday o saturday.

But i'm gonna answer the few questions asked.

I like the keyboard, it feels good to me, i've used better but i think this one is pretty good.

I don t have the backlit keyboard.

The build quality, i think, is ok, the finition for some parts is so so, i'll try to make a video to show that. The parts where the finition is not so great don t affect the use of the laptop so i don't really find it as a bad points. Not a good one though.

I have the 6 cell battery. With a charging of 85%, i lasted 3 hours, watching videos on youtube, downloading some stuffs, installing some apps.

The touchpad is ok. It works. The button could have a better feeling. The scrolling with two fingers is clumsy and not very smooth at first(i'm used of the touchpad of a macbook...)And then when you get used to it. It does what it supposed to do.

The screen is matte and just for that, i think it's worth it. The quality is good. The vision angles from the side are good. From above, you don t see much.

Overall, i'm satisfied. Could be better but for the price, it's difficult.

I bought the basic one as i already have a desktop for the fancy stuff

i3 2310m

intel graphics,

2g ram(i bought 4 more in amazon, dell charges you 3 times the price...and it seems very easy to upgrade yourself, i'll do it tomorrow)

320gb hard drive(i want to change it for a ssd, didn't find any manual so for now i'll wait a bit.)

I made a fresh install of windows. There was a partition recovery of 23gb and the os installed onto the other of 275gb, I formatted both and install win7 on the recovery partition. All the drivers needed are included in a dvd. I can't extend the partition recovery, i don't know why. If someone has a idea

and that's it, I'll have more time for pictures and battery test this week end.

 

Many thanks for the mini review. What model of Vostro do you have?

 

the 3450.

The speakers are not bad for a laptop.

I would say the most negative point is that the finition is unequaled. Feels solid for some parts and it doesn t for others. Still it's not dramatic.I may be demanding, i don t know. A video will explain better than words.

 

I've just gone and ordered a 3350 with i5, due to be delivered on Friday.

At £680 all in, it doesn't seem all that cheap for a laptop without a discrete GPU, but Intel's HD 3000 should be more than adequate for my needs. It does include 3-year warranty, backlit keys, 8-cell battery and possible 10% cashback.

Cable broadband isn't due to be installed for a couple of weeks, so will have to do the initial updates in a cafe somewhere or maybe round at a friends.

 

Does anyone know how to open the bottom panel of a 3450? I'd like to replace the hard drive with a SSD, and I looked for a service manual (Documentation) but couldn't find it. I tried the manual for 3400, and the bottom panel seems to be slightly different than 3450.

 

Keep us posted

 

My 3350 Arrived today.

As I removed the plastic cover, the first thing that caught my attention were fingermarks all over the lid....and then a small, fine scratch near the trackpad. Not exactly confidence inspiring and I'm tempted to return it, although the scratch is barely visible.

The finish is a mixture, as a previous poster pointed out. It has a nice metal lid but the black plastic of the palm rest area looks and feels a bit cheap.

Still, these notebooks are designed to be solid and reliable workhorses and it seems to be up to that task. I downloaded the initial windows updates in Macdonalds and enjoyed using the vostro there. The matte screen kept reflections down to a minimum, which was a real plus.

One disappointment is that the specs said it included an Expresscard slot but I can see no evidence of that on the chassis.

Ports, Slots & Chassis

Network connector (RJ45)
USB 3.0 (2)
USB 2.0/eSATA combo (1)
Microphone jack
Headphone/speaker out
8-in-1 card reader
34 mm ExpressCard
HDMI™ connector
15-pin VGA video connector
Full size, spill-resistant keyboard
Optional backlit keyboard
Standard Gesture Multi-Touchpad
Dimensions & Weight:
12.96"/329.2mm
Height: (front/back) 1.07"-1.17"/27.3-29.8mm
Depth: 9.00"/228.5mm
Starting weight: 4.50lb/2.04kg(4-cell battery + optical drive)

Vostro 3350 Laptop Details | Dell