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Review of Dell Vostro 1000

Posted Sep 10, 2007 Todd Gold

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A couple of years ago a middle weight business laptop would have cost you over a grand. Today less than 500 dollars will snag you an Athlon dual core powered Vostro 1000, sporting a 15.4 inch wide-screen display and some quality touches like a mylar sealed keyboard and magnesium alloy chassis. Laptopical's Todd Gold offers his opinion on this discount offering from Dell.

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Full review of Dell Vostro 1000

I own two laptops. My favorite is a 17-inch core 2 duo Macbook Pro, the other, I like to call it my backup laptop, is a Toshiba Satellite P10 with a Pentium 4 processor I bought back in 2003. I use the Toshiba on the road, its battered blue lid and weathered chassis far less attractive to thieves than my shiny Apple Macbook. That stays parked safely on my desk at home, connected to an external keyboard, mouse and 24 inch monitor.

A few months back the two fans on my Satellite P10 began whirring loudly, the notebook began overheating and switching itself off. I've cleaned out the heatsink and fans but the problem is persistent. So I decided to start hunting for a cheap backup laptop as a replacement, and Dell's new Vostro line, particularly the Vostro 1000 caught my thrifty eye.

Vostro means YOUR in Italian, and for $499 it's not expensive to make the Vostro 1000 "Your" laptop. The Dell Vostro 1000 is being billed as a bargain priced business notebook. The 6.26 lb black magnesium alloy chassis appears very solid. A thoughtful feature is the mylar sealed keyboard. This will be a crumb and spill safety net for road warriors eating baguettes and drinking at wireless coffee shops while they work.

What's under the bonnet? Well for less than 500 bucks you get an Athlon 64 bit X2 AMD processor, a 15.4 inch Widescreen WXGA (1280x800) widescreen, 512MB of RAM (1GB for another $50), and a 60GB hard drive (up to 120 GB available for extra $70). Wireless comes in the form of a Dell 1390 802.11g Wi-Fi card. For our UK readers a laptop with similar specs is available for the discount sum of £239.

If you're still unsure about Vista, you can always ask Dell to install your Vostro with good old Windows XP. Or if you're an open source fan why not experiment by installing a Linux operating system? Dell have preinstalled Ubuntu on their Inspiron 1420 N to a chorus of approval from Linux aficionados. However, just because Ubuntu runs smoothly on the Inspiron doesn't mean it is guaranteed to work on this Dell. Indeed, I have heard whispers of wireless compatibility issues with Ubuntu on the Vostro 100. Not to worry though, it appears Gentoo Linux works fine on the 1000, check out Tuxmobil for the installation guide.

As for me, all the files on my Toshiba are backed up, and I'm ready to swap them over to a new notebook. If/when the P10 succumbs to the dreaded blue screen of death, the Vostro 1000 is definitely being considered.

Dell Vostro 1000 Technical Specifications

  • Processor 1.9GHz AMD Athlon 64 Mobile TK57, 667Mhz FSB
  • Memory 2GB 667 MHz DDR2
  • Harddrive 120GB 5,400rpm SATA
  • OS Windows Vista Business
  • Weight 6.26 pounds (2.84 kg)
  • Screen 15.4 inches
  • Screen resolution 1280x800
  • Graphic Card ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 IGP
  • Battery Life 1-2 hours

Pros

  • Bargain priced
  • Solid build
  • Respectable performance

Cons

  • Non-descript design
  • Short battery life

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Comments

  • By: m fa3z 5 Jul 01, 2009 3:48 AM

    I owned Vostro 1000 for almost a year now, n it's really reliable, with Mobile AMD Sempron 3600+, it can works as efficient as Intel Core(tm) processor. I usually works on Adobe's applications and DVD games. Overall, it really suits me.

  • By: mohamed abozaid Feb 15, 2009 11:47 PM

    well i have vostro with the amd athlon x2 64 and it's pretty cool ... installed windows seven on it and it's working like magic the only think i'd mention on amd processors that they consume much power that the battary doesn't last more than an hour if you are copying stuff or working in heavy progs .. not gaming i mean progs like adobe progs ..etc ... but in major it's a big nice one specially when on ac power :D ... in total it's great just if you are gonna use it more on the battary you might wanna use an intel based processor .. cuz it saves power more efficiently ...

  • By: anna Jan 22, 2009 8:35 AM

    this is my question...if i buy a vostro 1000, will i have room to add in an extra hard drive? if someone could let me know that wold be great! thanks!!!!

  • By: V1000Lvr Dec 20, 2008 8:26 AM

    About a year ago I bought a refurbished Vostro 1000 for my wife. Less than $350 shipped, Sempron 1.8?GHz, 1.5GB RAM (I added 1GB from oempcworld.com) and a 60GB HD. I blew away Vista Home Basic and installed Linux Mint Celena. With Celena it took a bit of work to get 1280x800 from the ATI video and to get the Broadcom-based wifi card to work. My wife's needs are basic (web browsing, email, word processing an spreadsheets) and she loves her Vostro.

    I liked the 1000 so much that I got one for myself a few months ago. I wanted a little higher-end system and with free shipping and free HD and battery upgrades my new system was a better deal than comparable refurbs at the time: $499 got me an Athlon 1.8GHz 64-bit CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB HD and a six-cell battery. I replaced Vista Home Basic with Linux Mint (4, then 5, and I just installed 6), and with Mint 6 I got the right display resolution from the first Live-CD boot, and the built-in wifi drivers worked with the installed wireless card without needing to install Windows drivers. Compiz effects work great, btw. Like my wife, I love my Vostro.

    I just noticed that Dell has phased out the 1000 from their Vostro line. I prefer the more, well, retro look of the 1000 to the cheaper-looking and more curvy new "A" Series Vostros. There are still some 1000s on the outlet site: outlet.dell.com.

  • By: haydn smith Sep 30, 2008 11:13 PM

    are the prices in US dollars?or what

  • By: ahmed Sep 08, 2008 4:51 AM

    is good

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