**Specifications:


** Stuffs that came along with the laptop
-The hideous Belkin bag... but then its free, so no complains there haha lol


-The laptop, installation discs, adapter and a HDMI-HDMI cable [kind of unexpected, I wonder what to use it for] lol

-> The non-flat Dell adapter is kind of unexpected as well... no blue lights here, just a normal-looking one.

** The laptop- Dell Vostro 3450




- Front view:

From left to right : Status indicator lights: Power> HDD > Battery > Wifi
-> Indicator lights are in white. Brightness is kind of dim, not very easy to read the indicator lights (not that we look at them very often anyway)

- Back view:

From left to right: LAN port > USB3.0 > Keningston Lock > Power socket

- Left view:

From left to right: VGA > HDMI > USB 2.0/eSATA > USB 2.0 > cardreader > ExpressCard34

- Right view:

From left to right: Optical drive > audio jack > mic jack > USB 3.0

- Bottom view:


- Keyboard and palm rest:


Metallic power button at the upper left
3 buttons on the upper right: 1st> Windows Mobility Center; 2nd> Dell Support Center; 3rd > Self-assigned shortcut button
Fingerprint reader at the lower left
Orange touchpad indicator button (which, weirdly lights up when its deactivated vice versa, unlike those in other brands which does the opposite)


-> Design is simple and well organized, I like it Palm rest is made of matte surfaces apart from the metallic boundaries around the keyboard and touchpad.

-> The lid is well attached and doesn't wobble (as mentioned in some reviews). But then it'll be good to be more gentle with the lid, just in case.

-> Keyboard: Gotta hand it to Dell, the chiclet keyboard buttons are so damn nice to type on. Buttons are non-glossy, nicely sized, tactile, and the sinking depths are appropriate. Typing accuracy is dead accurate haha, I love the how the buttons "clicked" when typed on, rather professional I would say, especially if you're a fast typer ^^

-> Touchpad: Surface is smooth, moving and scrolling with the touchpad pose no problems whatsoever. Nothing special here. The touchpad buttons click too loudly though haha

-> This particular Vostro unit comes with backlit keyboard, which can be easily enabled/disabled via the FN+F6 buttons, handy (even easier than my current M14x) Will give some feedbacks after trying them out in the dark, bright enough:

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

-> The 3 shortcut buttons on the top right:
The 1st one is not particularly useful since you could access most of the functions via the FN keys anyway. The 2nd one opens up Dell Support Center (kind of like Toshiba's PC Health Monitor), which basically runs diagnostics on your laptop so as to detect any irregularities which might affect the laptop [I've a feeling that Dell support staffs will start their repairs via this program haha ]
The 3rd button allows users to assign that button to activate their favorite program, nice lol

-> Fingerprint reader, haven't tried, and not very interested on trying too haha (as I always get electrically shocked whenever I try to swipe my fingers on the sensor )


- WEI index:


-> Performance: Haven't really tried anything yet. Its relatively slower than the M14x (duh!) ^^
So far the AMD switchable graphics is not giving me a very good impression. Its not as user friendly as Nvidia's Optimus... users will always be prompted to select which GPU to be used for a particular program every 1st time the user launches that program, kind of annoying I would say, especially when the AMD graphic switching program "forgets" which GPU you've assigned ^^. Still, its too early to tell, maybe I missed out some important buttons or something. Will try installing some games later on and try it.

-Battery life
-> Haven't really try it out. But based on what I've seen, its possible to reach 3.5-4hours with WiFi on, dimmest brightness settings. Not going to test the battery when on load since its not my lappy anyway haha LOL

- Sound
-> Speakers are most probably at the bottom of the laptop. Despite reviews criticizing the crappy speakers of the Vostro 3450, I would say that they're still alright, I've heard worse haha~ They're considered very loud (as mentioned by AlexLai sifu), sounds abit "stuck inside" but then its okay for normal usage.

- Temperatures:
Idle (CM Notepal U2, fan off):

Load (CM Notepal U2, room temperature):


-> Yeap, you din't see wrongly, the GPU temp is 0C when idle!! LOL I've noticed that most temperature monitoring programs are having problems reading temps of laptops with switchable graphics lately haha~ Anyway, so far temperatures are okay, not hot at all on the sufrace... I'm very impressed~ Temperature fluctuates at approx. 72C when gaming, not bad.

Verdict:
-> LOL, suddenly feel lazy to write already, going to test out this baby LOL

In general:
Pros:


Cons:


Also, I would recommend this over the Dell Inspiron 14R, anytime!
**Sorry waco, but no problems on this Dell...


Alright, I'm going to add in some comparison shots of the Vostro 3450 with the M14x (I'm surprised, the length and the widths are almost similar, not the depth (and weight) though [duh!]) ^^
Size comparisons






Glossy vs matte screen


** Sorry for the long message, I din't expect it to be this long >___<