Dell's Vostro A860 yours for a song (and $379)
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Nov 13th 2008 6:40PM
posted Nov 13th 2008 6:40PM
The Dell Vostro A860 we've heard so much about has finally hit the Stateside scene, and it looks like we'll be able to get our hands on the laptop that those lucky folk in the "emerging markets" of Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America have been into since before it was cool (that is, late August). Starting at $379 with Dell's instant savings, the 15.6-inch, 5.4 pound laptop comes with either a Celeron or Pentium Dual Core processor, GMA X3100+ integrated graphics, up to 2GB of memory, up to 160GB storage, 1366 x 768 display resolution, WiFi and optional Bluetooth. This "speed demon" comes preloaded with Vista Home Basic or Vista Business and is available now at Dell's website.
[Via Laptoping]
[Via Laptoping]
How good is the battery life?
why not the US? I woudl buy a few of these.
jumped too soon, should have read the whole article. Ordering one now.
Talk about impulse buying. =)
No wonder America is broke.
Dell rules.
'i' agreed dell rules in the bargain basement and returns, Apple rules in my world
You fail, David :P.
I Fail... :(
Engadget comment system Fails...
But, I don't want to sing to Dell. I have a terrible voice.
What the hell? $370, and so far, it beats my MacBook that I am typing on in everything, except for sexyness (Which is a good perk, but not *that* important), and in the processor, 2.13ghz vs my 2.16ghz dual core....
My MacBook is dying. A logic board replacement is 600 dollars. I could sell this for 500, giving me about $1100 of spending space. I could get some super sweet HP refurb, and this Dell, and still be 50 dollars under, so I can buy Left4Dead.
This from a former apple fan, now just an apple user and customer, with an iPod Classic and a MacBook, I now have left the cult. Honestly, with Apple's latest offerings of MacBook, they lack and are overpriced.
I will hack Mac OS X on my HP when I get it, but I find myself using Bootcamp more than XP. I do not see myself buying another Apple product in the future, save for an iPod or iPhone when I actually get a job.
Go Dell!
$379 is for a Celeron; i would think it would be quite a bit slower than the Core 2 Duo in the Mac.
don't forget the cheap white macbook still available and its better value as it comes preinstalled with OSX, you dont want to go back to windows you will regret it 'OSX is the future' steve jobs said
Thank god you've come to you senses. Now just change your avatar and your good to go.
can you install os86 on a non duo2core cpu?? I think so... this would be a good deal! celeron is slower but it still dual-core and 2ghz... its way better than my single centrino 1.7ghz!
Intel® Pentium Dual Core M® T2390 (1.86GHz, 1M L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB) is $529, keeping in mind that it is not a Core2 Duo, has a fairly slow bus. $529 is a good price if you want to browse the web, e-mail, etc. On the whole though I'd probably rather have something a little more portable.
For $370 I'll get 2. Before you write off your macbook try cleaning out your
cpu/gpu fans and heat sinks. Unless you dropped it mother boards don't
fail that much.
Didn't know Intel was still churning out Pentiums.
Errrm the Pentiums that Intel churns out today ("Pentium Dual Core") are really low cost, low end versions of Core 2 Duos.
@Kai: Actually, I think they might be the old Pentium Ds, but I'm not positive.
They're not Pentium D's, they're Pentium dual-core, aka - cut down version of the Core 2 Duo that we didn't want to tarnish the name of.
Oops, didn't manage to mention performance is actually very reasonable on these things, and unless you're doing number crunching or video encoding they will multitask very well. They're probably better than the "Core Duos" I imagine most people have forgotten about, and they weren't bad at all.
Hackintosh-able?
Yes, but the performance would definitely be abysmal.
I think the performance would be just fine. Leopard runs on MUCH lower hardware, despite the eyecandy, this is one area where apple actually beat microsoft.
My mom has an imac g4 800 mhz, and its running 10.5.5 flawlessly (of course its not up to newer games or anything like that), but I have been able to play halo on it and use photoshop cs2, both without major complaints.
It has a 4 cell battery. This machine is not worth the whoopla.
your reason? 4 cell... but how many hours will it last with full use?
come on Dell cut the charades, where's the XPS Studio 16
some one told me taht intel pentium dual core is for desktop ? is that ture ? if yes then why are there somany laptops with PDC?
You are my hero.
hahahaha
If I see one more laptop manufacturer offering Vista Basic as a main option, I'm gonna gouge my eyes out...
You're gonna need more pairs of eyes, then...
I prefer basic. Aero is a registry hack away, and then I can use the programs I want to use. No excessive applications (like media center) to foul me up, no "ultimate extras" that I will never use, and so on. It is the vanilla Vista OS, and as such is by far the one I'd rather have. I use Business now, but there's nothing in it I couldn't do without in a "downgrade" to Basic.
No webcam? That sucks.
It's a $379 laptop.
It's like the people that say "Man, I sure wish this eee PC had a core 2 duo" or whatever. Then it wouldn't be so cheap, would it? Sure, the specs aren't fantastic, but for a lot of people, that'll be all they need. It's certainly more powerful than my current laptop, and for that price, I'm more than slightly tempted.
Although somehow $379 translates to £289, which doesn't seem to equate quite right. Still dirt cheap!
Beg pardon, £229. That's much better. =)
No it doesn't.
Seriously, who uses the webcam often?... Well, I really don't know, but personally, my webcam has been in the drawer for several months, maybe years now... I don't want to go through the hassle of putting some clothes on just to talk over the internets.. Not to mention I'm goddamn ugly - the "you can't see me" factor of the internet is a big plus
@ DarkLight
Who uses webcams? Gee... I don't know... those porn star wannabes on the Internet? o_O
I'm with you as my webcam has set in my desk drawer for eons. ^_^
as long as there is no option for art house stuff, I'll be happy.
Can has new XPS lappies plz?
I'm guessing this isn't going to play Crysis but how is something like this going to perform with games like Sims 2 etc? I'm thinking of buying a laptop for my wife and this might do the trick nicely but I've no idea about PC hardware as we're a mac household but I can't run to macbook money.
As far as I can remember, the Sims 2 is actually quite graphically demanding, despite not actually appearing to be. This probably won't cut the mustard - it'll perform exactly how you'd expect a £250 laptop to. Good for word processing, internet and email and so on and not much else, I'm guessing.
Smi - thanks for the info. I'll cross this off my list.
DO NOT LISTEN to the comment above. This laptop will ABSOLUTELY play The Sims 2. That I promise you.
I'm sure it CAN play it, but can it play smoothly?
Yes, guaranteed smoothly. I have run it on rigs just like this and a very short time ago. Trust me. All set.
Funny, "the internet" tells me that it'll run it but only on the lowest settings and it'll still slow down when things get busier on screen! The X3100 isn't a very capable chipset for actual gaming...my friend's laptop has (or had, I should say) a dedicated ATI X700 mobility chipset and that struggled to play the Sims 2 at playable framerates.
Fair play to you if you want to promise that it'll play it smoothly, but I'd rather not say "Yes, absoloutly" for the guy to go out, buy one, and find that it runs as well as ants in treacle. I'm not convinced.
You do realise that's £229 and £269 before VAT Brits.
here in Mexico, it's easier to find a Apple retailer than a store that sells Dell, I been buying Apple because I can't find dell machines anywhere...
Try the internet.
I only paid $299 for Compaq similar specs except I have 2 gigs of ram which really should be the standard for all vista machines.
BTW very happy with this laptop, I don't care what you all say about Walmart :)
Hmm $379 + $129 (for a copy of Leopard) + a weekend of my time to get it all working = $558 macbook!
A hackint0sh doesn't do so well on a Pentium...
Be your's for a song.... Kathleen?
how long do you think untill best buy gets it? have a gift card that was given to me in exchange for my broken laptop..
Hey where can I get this in Europe?
I would go for this, if they would let me customize it.
Say a 2 GB RAM and perhaps a webcam.
no such option in India :(
Vidhya Shankar
the price is $299.00 us Dollars I just got the ad in the mail. 1gb mem and 120gb hd; not bad; I don't need a laptop I have one already, I would add another $30.00 and get the desktop from Dell VOSTRO 200 with dual core 2.2 and 160gb (7200rpm drive) for $329.00 with a 19" wide screen monitor; sweet pllus 2gb mem ; I have a 8600 Video card I can throw in and i'll have 1 hell of a gaming machine.The video card cost $400 itself.