Dell's Vostro 3000 Series Brings Enterprise Quality at Consumer Prices
by Dustin Sklavos on June 12, 2012 2:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Dell
- Sandy Bridge
- Ivy Bridge
- Laptops
- Vostro
- Notebooks
Riding a PR wave that seems to almost inexplicably, coincidentally crest once a week, today Dell has announced the new 3000 series of their Vostro notebooks. Vostro is Dell's entry-level enterprise brand similar to HP's ProBook series, and our own Jarred had a chance to take a look at the 13.3" Vostro V131 back in October of last year. Latitude these aren't, but for users who don't want to skimp out on an Inspiron, they may be the way to go.
Available in 13.3" (3360), 14" (3460), and 15.6" (3560) form factors, the new Vostro lineup starts with Sandy Bridge-based Core i3 processors but can all be upgraded to Ivy Bridge-based i5 and i7 chips. Displays continue to be a skint 1366x768, although the 3560 can be upgraded to a 1080p display. More interestingly, though, the notebooks in the new Vostro line all include mSATA ports (initially configured with 32GB SSDs for Intel's Smart Response caching technology), but they don't include any USB 2.0 connectivity. All of the USB ports are 3.0.
Specific to the 3360, the shell is just 0.76" thick, making it thicker than most ultrabooks but still thin enough to be comfortably portable. Hopefully the extra z-height means a deeper, more comfortable keyboard than the thinner ultrabooks typically include. The 3360 also includes only a 4-cell battery, but given how frugal Ivy Bridge processors are with power, this shouldn't be a major issue. Moving up to the 14" 3460 gets you a 6-cell battery, four USB 3.0 ports instead of the three on the 3360, an ExpressCard/34 slot, and optional NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M dedicated graphics hardware. Finally, the 15.6" 3560 carries over all the same features of the 3460, but the GPU can be upgraded to an AMD Radeon HD 7670M instead. One point of contention, though: the 3360 and 3460 support integrated WAN while the 3560 does not.
The Vostro 3560 is available now starting at $599, while the 3360 and 3460 are both due on June 21st, starting at $649 and $599 respectively.
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retrospooty - Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - link
Yup... in spite of whatever marketing spin may be put on it. Vostro is designed to be cheap "no frills" basic PC's for low end business users. Not "enterprise class" as we know it, more like "office class". It gets your average office user internet, MS office, network and whatever Windows apps. For that purpose, its good, (other than the res on the laptops).Taft12 - Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - link
Not a single "enterprise" feature to be found here. I hope that's just a slip of Dustin's and not something Dell is actually trying to claim.The Vostro line was never aimed at enterprise customers, it was always tagged for small business. At least there's some good features available that make these better than Inspiron.
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - link
Near as I can tell, Dell's site doesnt mention anything about any mythical 32GB caching SSD for the 3560. Considering these dirty rotten bastards charge $220+ $$ for a frickin 128GB SSD UPGRADE from a HDD(!!), I seriously doubt they just gonna give away a caching SSD and not even mention it. These guys are so damn stingy they dont even give you 2 channels of RAM...karasaj - Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - link
@Shadow, The middle option on the dell 3560 on the website has a 32G SSD cache for me. At 870$ or so I think.Any news on whether or not this GPU in the Vostro 3460 is a kepler/fermi die shrink? The 28nm version like in the gigabyte laptops. That would be amazing if it is. Can anandtech update us on that please?
Conficio - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
Vostro 3560 starting price $599 with an 1080p upgrade.... In my dreams if I want the 1080p display I have to go with a the power processor, the power graphic card, the ... and the stating price is $1299.Gee why can't I have a decent display with a low end machine. I don't need high powered graphics to surf the net and watch a movie! By the way next up are good frame with a good keyboard and touch pad. The things I actually see and tough, you know?
karasaj - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
Maybe you could contact Dell? I don't know if they would do that but I guess you could try.And oops, apparently all of the GT630M cards are Fermi (according to notebookcheck.net and maybe here?) just some of them are 28nm. Do we know if the 28nm cards come with the Vostro?
twhittet - Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - link
I couldn't find 1080p as an option at all under the consumer site.Logged into the premier site - I was able to add 1080p as a $70 option on a $800 base.
It doesn't let me drop the i5 processor and 7670 video card upgrades that I wouldn't not want or need.
Nexing - Friday, June 15, 2012 - link
Your article states "Moving up to the 14" 3460 gets you a 6-cell battery, four USB 3.0 ports instead of the three on the 3360, an ExpressCard/34 slot".Which is absent on the 3460 manual, absent in the pictures or in the specifications over Dell's site.
Apparently Dell has decided to scrap the ExpressCard on the new 14" model, while keeping it on the 15". 2011's 13" 3350 model did also lost its ExpressCard, though at the time Dell promoted it as an option.
Anandtech tends to publish accurate data, could you clarify this?
Nexing - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
So... no confirmation or correction of Anandtech published info that actually does not correlate with Dell's online 3460 manual?