Dell Vostro 1015 is a budget laptop that is designed for people who are not particularly demanding, rather even business. It is unlikely to play on it, except perhaps in some games of the early 2000s. Nevertheless, in its time (2009), it was a pretty good laptop with a set of all the necessary features for comfortable work anywhere.
Appearance
The appearance of the Dell Vostro 1015 laptop is nothing special. This is the most common laptop, which can be easily confused with many others, especially if you close the company logo located on the lid. Oh well.
The overall width of the notebook is 376mm. Depth - 247, and the thickness in the closed state is almost 37 mm. In terms of thickness, of course, this is not a record holder, but in terms of other dimensions, everything is standard.
The body materials are made of ordinary plastic without a matte finish or some kind of soft touch. The top cover is glossy and has"mirror reflection. Fingerprints are visible very well.
The back face is devoid of any connectors, and it is unlikely that they would do something there, because when you open the top cover completely covers everything.
On the right side there is a ventilation grille, a vga connector for connecting an external monitor, a fax port, an Express Card slot and 2 USB connectors 2. 0.
Left 2 USB 2.0 ports, firewire or 1394 connector, LAN port and power cable socket. If you look at the front end, you can find various indicators, 3.5 mm headphone and microphone jacks, as well as a card reader.
If you lift the lid of the laptop, you can see the keyboard and a simple touchpad, small in size with two mechanical keys. You can also see a glossy strip above the keyboard, which, judging by the design decision, was supposed to emphasize the appearance of the laptop. In fact, it turns out otherwise. The gloss catches the prints and doesn't look so pretty anymore.
Specifications
As for the technical characteristics of the laptop Dell Vostro 1015, they are very modest. Here is a small table for better visibility:
| Processor | Intel Celeron/Celeron M/Core 2 Duo |
| RAM | DDR2 800MHz (2-4GB) |
| HDD | 160 to 500 GB |
| Chipset | Intel 45 Express |
| Video card | Intel GMA 4500MHD/ATI Radeon HD 4530 512MB |
| Display | 15, 6" 1366x768 |
| Interfaces | LAN connector, FireWire, VGA connector, USB 2.0 - 4pcs, 2 x 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks, Card Reader, ExpressCard connector |
| Multimedia | 1 speaker, 2.0 Mpx camera |
| Battery | Six or four-cell Li-ion 4200 mAh |
In fairness it should be noted that the specifications of the Dell Vostro 1015 may vary depending on the version. Thus, the buyer could get the most "top-end" package, which would include an external video card from Radeon, a dual-core Intel Core 2 Duo T6670 processor with a frequency of 2.2 GHz, 4 GB of RAM and a 500 GB hard drive. Pretty good kit for 2009.
Screen
Dell Vostro 1015 has a 15.6-inch display. Its resolution is 1366x768 pixels. A key feature is the LED backlight and the presence of an anti-reflective coating. In top trim levels, the anti-glare coating was replaced with a proprietary TrueLife.
The display is really commendable. Viewing angles are excellent here, the image does not change color or be distorted, and thanks to the anti-reflective coating, you can comfortably read information from the screen even in direct sunlight.
With color rendering,sharpness and contrast, also in full order. You can safely watch videos or movies with dynamic scenes.
Keyboard and touchpad
Since the laptop was originally planned for business people who often print, constantly enter some information into documents and conduct business correspondence, they decided to make the keyboard here of really high quality. The keys are large enough, with a pleasant soft stroke. There is no extra noise when typing, only weak clicks.
Due to the fact that the manufacturer decided to remove the right block with the digital part, the buttons turned out to be large, with a good distance from each other. The layout is also made qualitatively, it's easy to hit the right keys and you don't have to reach anywhere. Another plus of the keyboard is the ready-made Russian layout, however, there is also a slight minus here - it is marked in the same color as the English one. As a result, it is not possible to quickly find the desired key, it takes some time to adapt.
As for the touchpad, it is small, slightly recessed into the laptop case and painted in silver. The touch field is not very large, but it is enough for comfortable work. Also, for greater convenience, there are two arrows on the surface of the touchpad - one vertical and one horizontal. They are made specifically for fast scrolling and are quite convenient to use.
Besides this, the touchpad has 2 mechanical buttons with a little tight travel. They are nothing remarkablestand out, except for the characteristic click when pressed.
Ports
The set of interfaces on a laptop is standard: 4 USB ports of class 2. 0, 1 vga connector, a port for connecting a network cable, a card reader, a connector for ExpressCard, FireWire and a fax port (a laptop for business people, after all).
There are also 2 3.5mm jacks for connecting headphones, a headset or an external microphone.
Sound
If we talk about the speakers and the sound that is reproduced through them, then again there is nothing interesting. There is only 1 speaker and the quality of its sound cannot surprise anyone. At low or medium volume, the audibility is good, the sound is clear and clear, no extraneous noise or crackling is observed.
At maximum volume, some high frequencies begin to unpleasantly "cut" the ear. There is also a slight crackle from sound resonance. In general, everything is typical for budget laptops.
Autonomy
The battery on the Dell Vostro 1015 has a capacity of 4200 mAh, which is pretty good overall. Depending on the configuration, the laptop could have either a four or a six-cell lithium-ion battery.
According to the results of testing, the operating time of the laptop from a fully charged battery is a little more than four hours. Of course, this indicator cannot be called a record one, but for 2009 it is a very good indicator. Not every laptop at that time could produce similar results.
As for the time required to fully charge the battery, it is about 5.5-6 hours, and for a six-cell battery, it's all 7.
Package
The delivery set is not too rich, but useful. So, the package includes:
- Notebook.
- Power supply (charger).
- Battery.
- Documentation.
- Disk with a set of drivers.
- Disc with webcam control software set.
- Dell Vostro 1015 Recovery Image Disc.
In principle, the delivery package is quite standard for laptops of this class, however, a definite plus is to put the drivers for Dell Vostro 1015, which are recorded on a separate special disk, as well as an image for restoring the operating system. So you don’t need to look for anything on the Internet, everything is already at hand.
By the way, not every third-party laptop had a recovery image, so Dell made a generous gift in this regard.
Operating systems
Dell Vostro 1015 runs on Windows 7 Home Basic 32 x or Windows 7 Ultimate. In addition to these operating systems, there were also models running on Linux, Windows Vista or MS-DOS. Separately, for those who had a licensed disc with the operating system or just for those who wanted to save a little, models were sold without any pre-installed OS.
Notebooks without "OSes" had only one serious drawback - they did not come with a disk with a recovery image. It was possible to get it, but only from an official Dell representative and only for a fee.
Reviews
As the Dell Vostro 1015 reviews show, most people are happy with their purchase, however there are some downsides as well.
The first is due to the poor choice of materials, namely glossy plastic, which constantly needs to be wiped off from fingerprints. This is a matter of seconds, but only after some time the procedure will have to be repeated again.
The second negative is the heating, especially in the touchpad area. What this is connected with is hard to say, but the fact remains.
The third drawback is poor performance. Even at the time of the release of the Dell Vostro 1015, it was impossible to comfortably play modern games on a laptop. But on the other hand, it is also a non-gaming laptop.
And the last negative is the short battery life. Users complain that the battery lasts a maximum of 2 years, after which it needs to be changed.
In closing
Dell Vostro 1015 is definitely an interesting laptop for businessmen or just business people. For its time, it was very good, as evidenced by numerous positive reviews. The main drawbacks of the laptop can safely be attributed to a low-key and simple design, glossy elements, as well as DDR2 memory modules. ATIn 2009, DDR3 modules were already available, but for some reason the manufacturer decided to abandon them.
Nevertheless, the Dell Vostro 1015 did a great job with all the tasks it was supposed to, except for the performance for games, but this was not required for such a laptop.
