Vostro 1520 or 1320?

So I am contemplating between these two models but can't really decide. I like the real estate of the Vostro 1520 but the weight may be a problem. The 1320 is an option cause of it's battery life and weight. But at this point I am at a standstill.

So mainly, what are your opinions about these two macines. Thanks in advance.

 

Give us a bit more about what you're going to be doing, and what configurations you're looking at. It's hard to discuss throretical pros and cons when we don't know what the machines are being used for...

 

All I am going to use this computer for is Word Processing, Light Gaming (Flash games), internet browsing, and possibly programming. This is all for college use.

I was looking at atleast 2 GB Ram, 160 GB Hard Drive, and 2.4 Ghz Processor (P8400) alongside integrated graphics.

Thanks again.

 

Spec-wise, both the 1520 and 1320 are nearly identical. If weight is an issue, go with the 1320. If screen resolution is an issue, only the 1520 offers resolutions greater than 1280x800.

I have the 1320 and I am completely satisfied; just be prepared to use headphones either way since the mono speaker on the 1320 and the "stereo" speakers on the 1520 are terrible. And just to let you know, I have the 6-cell battery and get around ~3.5 hours (Windows 7 RC, "Balanced" profile).

 

Don't buy either, period.

I purchased a very high end Vostro 1520 build configuration for personal business use (2.66 Dual Core, 4G memory, 320G 7200RPM safe fall drive, NVIDIA card, highest end screen you can get etc, etc).

It was a big mistake. VERY big mistake. They shipped the laptop with a flakey keyboard, which leads me to believe they never tested the laptop out of the factory, so I had to replace it. After about a month of use, the hard drive died and had to be replaced. The fan is loud and is almost always constantly running, even if you aren't doing anything with it.

The construction of the laptop is not that great. On the right side where you rest your palm while typing, the plastic is very poor as you can hear a tiny 'snap' noise as something is not properly aligned/rubs when you initially rest your palm on it.

Also, this unit seems to have issues with the MBR getting corrupted (this happened on both hard drives that I've had in the unit). I'm using a multi-boot system and I end up needing to repair the MBR every few days because of this. Nothing like having to drag around your CDs cause your MBR gets pooched all the time.

Oh, and Dell support is total garbage. You can get a much better system from Toshiba. Stay the hell away from Dell if you want value and support.

 

Screen resolution is probably the deciding factor; if you want more that 1280x800 the 1520 is probably the better option, otherwise the 1320 is a bit more expensive and rather more compact.

 

I don't know about the rest of your problems but putting a 2.66 core 2 duo, a dedicated gpu and a 320Gb 7200rpm hdd into a 15" laptop usually results in quite a lot of heat building up = noisy fan. I very much doubt that you needed all that power for business use.

 

I'm running the vostro 1510 in my sig and very similar to 'Michael2k9's machine and i must admit, yes, the machine gets hot

but i purchased the 'coolslice' with it as i tend to use the laptop in bed a lot and yes the fan does kick in quite often, but ONLY when doing cpu intensive tasks!

 

Does anyone else have a problem with their Vostro 1520 construction? I would hope the palm rests would be solid, as I very much dislike "creaking" in the palm rests.

 

of the reviews I read on the 1520 AND the 1320, the keyboards are supposedly solid.

I owned a 1510 for about 8 months and it worked fine (despite the well known fan noise issue). I ended up selling it to keep myself safe from the faulty 8400m gs cards.

But I just nabbed a Vostro 1320 from the Outlet (intel gfx) and I'm happy to get it with the anti-glare screen.

However, doing some research, the 1320 comes with a CCFL screen. NOT A LED!