Great, long-lasting laptop - but back-up your hard drive often
I've had this laptop as my primary computer for 6 years now. In that time, I've had to replace the hard drive three times. The factory hard drive wore out in less than 8 months (while still under warranty), the Dell replacement wore out 17 months later (3 months after the 2-year warranty ended). The Seagate I replaced it with lasted just over 3 years but died with no warning. I replaced that with a steady-state drive, which has lasted 1 year with no problems thus far. The laptop has a nice, big, clear screen, but it's a bit heavy and big for carrying around. It still runs fast and handles everything I need it to do with ease, even though it's over 6 years old now. The Windows XP OS will be obsolete soon, but the Dell Vostro has been a good workhorse. Battery Life I got an extended life battery, which lasted over 8 hours on a charge for years, even though I abused it by keeping it plugged in all the time. I've only had to buy one replacement battery, after 5 years, though the old one still kept a charge for 1-2 hours. Support & Service Dell replaced my hard drive when it failed while in warranty, but I had to install the replacement myself. When I first got my laptop, I found the 'p' key difficult to use (would fail to respond ~10% of the time), but Dell refused to service that. Speed/Performance Considering its age, this laptop still performs amazingly well, handling most tasks quickly. RAM is only a problem if I'm trying to make it do too many things at once with a gazillion internet tabs open. Design The extended life battery sticks out, and it's bigger than most laptops because of the large screen. There are media buttons on the front (volume controls, play, pause, etc.) -- the volume ones in particular are very handy. The full-sized keyboard is nice, but the track pad is overly sensitive; I can't type without accidentally moving the mouse, unless I have a regular mouse plugged in and the trackpad disabled. Durability 7 years old and still in great shape. It lost points for the hard drive issue, but if you replace it with a steady-state hard drive, that shouldn't be an issue.
jessica12321
USA