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A Practical Review: Dell VOSTRO A860

For a new product implementation, I was recently provided with a brand new, cool looking, shiny Dell VOSTRO A860; with configuration like Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GHz, 4GB DDR, 800MHz bus speed. Felt just a brand new Corvette Stingray 2010.

I am not sure if the reviewers really get a chance to "actually" run and test the product; before reading before enlightening about their views.

This is a brand new 2 months old sweet kid; but I was unpleasantly surprise when for couple of hardware related issues made my eyebrow raised; and then eventually left it raised, for good, for this pc!
  • The sharp hard disk noise that you cannot avoid noticing, and eventually bothered by.
  • CPU fan sometimes works really hard for the system to stay live - and you can feel you're some where near a flour mill is running, even if you've never been there.
  • The hotter it gets the longer you work.

Though I know its not a multimedia series, but further to add the agony...
  • No external mic, talk if you must then go buy a mic - better would be a mic+headset since the speaker is too low you can barely hear anything if specially if you are planning to watch a movie.
  • No web cam (0:
  • Battery life? Forget it if you are planning for a meeting that may continue for more than an hour - consider yourself blessed if you are able to shut it down successfully before the last minute Battery Warning pops up.
  • If you plan to get rid of Vista, then keep in mind there is a large range of hardware in the laptop that requires driver installation, for instance network, wifi, sound, audio, etc.
  • Hard to find drivers XP on DELL website, and even if you do - all they have are the drivers for Vista OS; since this machine comes with Vista.
  • You've got to be very, I mean "very" lucky to find the XP drivers to install.
I have been dealing with the blue screen of death since I got this pc; quite a couple of times; I know its an OS related error, and I did not report to IT support because I was able to restart the PC without problems. But yesterday, I think, was a lucky day! and I ended up writing my review.

The blue screen took this pc with it and they both died.

Both meaning, the OS as well as the system.

In vain in pain, I ran every possible alternate boot-mode, didn't help!
I ran all possible BIOS diagnostic tools, dinn't help!
I attempted to "Repair" the windows installation, but somehow the windows set up was unable to indentify the file allocation table(FAT), let alone the file system. It couldn't discover the existing windows. Dint help!

Well then... yes you guessed it right, I had to reinstall the conventional way - that is, when anything goes wrong, just reinstall.

Planning to buy it? Dont! Don't buy it.

If you have it, throw it. Throw it somewhere no one finds it; save someone from similar agony and pain.

Even if you are getting it for free, well then... take it! I think you can put it on your showcase, because it has a cool shiny outer skin - but dont use it.

Consider yourself warned!

On a serious note, you may well be looking for a short term cost effective buy - but thats just time specific. And this short term may eventually turn out to be long term pain in the arse, and you keep on cursing the moment you took the decision to buy. These may be trivial things to some, but it sure eventually will turn into a continuous nuisance. What bugs me the most is one, the sharp noise; and two, the hotness, I can feel the hot air rising up from the palm-pads(place on the laptop where you rest your palms) and under my palms.

I won't say/nosay its a worthless peice of crap! Why/not?

You decide!