Anyone have a Dell Vostro
 

Buying my son a laptop for college. They have Latitude's (which we use at work) and Vostro's which is a small business laptop. With the same warranty and specs, Vostro is $300 less expensive on the college website. Only thing I'm concerned about it the resolution. I heard it can be pixelated in some applications, but someone told me that's only if you're doing 3D rendering. If they're a decent deal, I'm all about saving $300. Going to need it. College is getting crazy expensive. Thanks.

Do you have the specific Vostro model?
I just graduated and the school I went to provides laptops and a refresh (new one) every two years and when you graduate.... which was really nice and a benefit if you go cheaper -- you can replace halfway through.

What is he going to school for, that could/would dictate what I would get him - e.i. my school have a standard HP to all B.S. majors except our M.E. program - we got slightly beefed up ones to run Autocad/solidworks/arena/etc etc and all the B.A. students got Macbook Pros (because of all the photoshop/etc needs)

Dell Vostro 3450 Intel Core i5-2410M (2.3GHz 3M cache)
500gb hd, 4gb memory.

He's going into Physical Therapy, so he won't be running autocad or need Photoshop that I know of. Both are upgradeable to 4 yr. complete coverage warranty on site.

Pretty much all laptops have terrible resolution unless you start moving to the top of the line.

Shell out the extra cash and get him a Macbook. He will thank you for it.

I'd do it if I could afford it. We're paying for his first 4 years of college. He can thank me for that. :D

I'll take those PRO-80's off your hands to help cover the cost of the Macbook:D

Those are special MacBook Pro 80's. ;) Books probably $3k or so. But if you want them, I'll cut you the cuz deal of $2k :D, cuz we're buds.

Check out http://www.gainsaver.com/ I have bought at least 25 computers from them and am always happy.

NO MACBOOKS!

If he is going to a PC based school (which almost everything except art schools are) he'll thank you for having a windows based computer. My brother got a macbook and is regretting it big time on his campus that is 100% windows.

Honestly it sounds like its a plenty good computer.... and for that price I would probably pull the trigger. I-cores are great and plenty of RAM are the only things I would look for - anything else is an easy fix.

I would just get him in the habit of dumping his files to an external and re-imaging annually or twice a year - helps keep it fresh.

Pulled the trigger and bought the Vostro. Actually though, the campus supports both Windows and Mac, but most of the campus computers in the labs are Windows. He definitely needs to back up externally.