In general the Vostro 1710 looks the same as the already reviewed Vostro 1310 and is also completely black. The most important property of this business notebook is also being as decent as possible.

However, due to its size alone, the Vostro 1710 is not that successful in being decent than the 1310. Furthermore, it has a high-gloss finished lid. As usual for high-gloss surfaces, it is sensitive to fingerprints and dirt. Furthermore, it is to be expected that signs of wear and tear will be visible after some time of use, because of being frequently transported.

At the first glance the form of the Vostro 1710 appears to be rather stiff and somewhat chunky and angular, so, it needs some time to get used to its look. An advantage is that typing does no longer feel like rubbing with the palms as it did when typing on the Vostro 1310. The reason might be the bigger case, which means more space between touchpad and the bevelled edge.

The case seems to be robust and stable. Even if you apply force against the palm rests, which have a slightly roughened surface, you'll hardly hear any creaking, although this part, which is made of plastics, slightly gives. Also handling this notebook with only one hand does not cause any problem. Despite the 17 inch big case, you can pick this notebook up on only one side this way without hesitation, whereas the case hardly gives. Only the small part between keyboard and display, where the multimedia buttons are located, slightly give under force. The same is true for the outside of the lid.

Opening the lid, which is locked by a double hook transport mechanism made of plastics, is nearly a small show of strenght. Nevertheless, you can can open this notebook without creaking noises from the hinges. Thereby the display is hold by two hinges, which appear to be rather small for a 17 inch screen and cannot completely prevent a see-saw after adjustment of the opening angle. In the middle of the upper part of the display frame there is a very decent 1.3 mega-pixel webcam with integrated microphone.

At the front side there are the audio ports (microphone and headphones) and an SD/MMC MS Pro card reader.

Immediately at the left, there is the power connector close to the back, followed by a USB 2.0 port, a vent hole, two further USB 2.0 ports, an Express card slot 54, and again a USB 2.0 port. So, there are only at the left side a total of four USB ports.

On the right side there is a Kensington lock close to the back. Immediately afterwards there is the slot-in DVD drive, followed by two further USB 2.0 ports and a FireWire port. Closer to the front there is a hardware switch for WLAN and Bluetooth. If you look for an eject button directly on the DVD drive, you won't find any. Instead it is right of the multimedia buttons in between keyboard and display.

Most of the back side of this notebook is occupied by the long, but relatively powerful battery. Right of it there are only an VGA out and a LAN port.

Regarding data communication the Dell Vostro 1710 can come up with a Realtek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC LAN interface. Furthermore, our test sample is equipped with an Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN WLAN adapter for wireless connections.

If you demand more flexibility it is possible to equip the Vostro 1710 with a Bluetooth module for a surcharge of 25.- Euro. Likewise you can enhance the base warranty of a year to two (127.- Euro) or even three years (159.- Euro) on-site service for a surcharge.

The Vostro 1710 does not come with free accessories. However, it is possible to order some, e.g., notebook bags, keyboards, mice etc., of course for a surcharge.

The Vostro 1710 is equipped with a 17 inch WXGA+ display with a maximum resolution of 1440x900. Furthermore, the display of our test sample was matte, which should be advantageous for outdoor usage. If you look at Dell's homepage, you'll see that a WUXGA+ TrueLife display with a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 pixels is also available for a surcharge of 100.-. But, it is only available with glossy surface.

Measuring the brightness we found out that the average brightness is 193.3 cd/m², which is to our opinion absolutely passable. The maximum brightness was measured in the centre of the screen and amounted to 204 cd/m², which is only insignificantly more than the average brightness.

The test sample also scored points in terms of illumination. The built-in panel convinced by an excellent illumination of 90.9%.

Dell offers a number of choices concerning CPU, GPU, RAM, and built-in hard disk for the equipment of the Vostro 1710. The entry-level model is offered with an Intel Celeron 540 single core CPU with 1.86 GHz. The available processors include the a little bit older Merom dual core CPUs up to the up-to-date Penryn processors by Intel, whereas all models from T8100 up to T9500 are available. The test sample was equipped with a T8100 CPU, and thus is a balance between the especially reasonable, but, relatively inefficient Celeron CPUs, and the clearly more expensive T9xxx processors of the Penryn generation with 6 MB L2 cache. It is possible to replace the T8100 by a T9300 processor with 2.5 GHz for 270.- Euro more. If you want a T9500 with 2.6 GHz instead of the T9300, you'll have to spend further 280.- Euro, which is quite a lot for only 100 MHz more.

The reviewed notebook was equipped with an nVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS graphics card with 256 MB GDDR3 video memory. Even if the Vostro 1710 is designed as business notebook, the GeForce 8600M GS is sufficiently powerful for one or the other game during the breaks - if you are willing to compromise about the quality.

Furthermore, the used display reacts fast enough to avoid streaks.

The reviewed notebook was equipped with 2 GB PC-5300 DRR-2 RAM made by Hyundai Electronics. If 2 GB RAM are not sufficient, the Vostro supports a maximum RAM capacity of 4 GB (2x 2GB).

You can choice between a number of available hard disk models. Besides a number of 5400 rpm models you can also choose faster 7200 rpm hard disks. The reviewed notebook was equipped with a Toshiba MK1651GSY (7200) with 160GB gross capacity. In the HDTune performance test this mass media devices achieved good transfer rates and access times.

Doom 3 could be absolutely smoothly played with 81.1 fps on ultra settings. The ego shooter F.E.A.R. is also no problem for the Vostro 1710. In the F.E.A.R. benchmark the reviewed model achieved an average of 68 pictures per second on maximum details.

However, current games only run slowly if you do not turn down the detail level. Crysis only runs smoothly on low details and a resolution of 1024x768 pixels. In the GPU benchmark the Dell Vostro 1710 achieved an average of 42.6 fps on these settings. But, in the CPU benchmark it achieved only 38.11 fps.

It was not possible to run this game with medium details. When we tried, the frame rate shrunk to unplayable 15 fps. On high details the run was more like a slide show with hardly 8 fps. Call of Duty 4 is another very up-to-date ego shooter. Again, you can only smoothly play this game with a resolution of 1024x768 and with deactivated AA, whereas the frame rate ranged thereby from 25 to 30 pictures per second.

Further information about the graphics card can be found here and in our comparison of mobile graphics cards. Detailed information about the Core 2 Duo CPU is available here.

System Noise

Due to noise emissions of only 30.5 dB(A) the Dell Vostro 1710 can be called very quiet in idle mode. You can only hear a noise, when the hard disk is accessed. Most of the time the fan is inactive in idle mode. It just sometimes turns on to blow the grown warm air to the outside. We measured a maximum noise level of 33.8 dB(A) in idle mode.

When watching DVDs the Vostro 1710 gets a little bit louder. The measurement instrument displays 37.4 dB(A). If you use headphones while watching DVDs, you anyway won't recognize the noise of the fan and of the DVD drive. But, also without headphones, the sound of the film will dominate the noise of the fan and of the DVD drive.

Even under load the noise did not annoy. Although the fan of the Vostro 1710 got a little bit louder (between 36.8 to 39 dB(A)), it still stayed within reasonably limits.

Temperature

In terms of surface temperatures the Dell could still be a little bit improved. Especially the underside got with measured 41.7°C uncomfortably hot. That's to hot for working on the top of your laps for a longer time. Anyway, this notebook might be too big and unhandy to work like this for most users.

On the top side of this notebook we measured a maximum temperature of 39.2°C, which is quite warm, but still tolerable.

The reviewed model of the Dell Vostro 1710 was equipped with a 56Wh (5045 mAh) Lithium-Ions Battery. It provides the test sample with a very satisfactory battery life.

In the BatteryEater Reader's test with maximum energy settings (minimum brightness, WLAN off, etc.) the Vostro 1710 achieved a really passable result of above 3 hours, in detail 189 minutes. Under full load, in the BatteryEater Classic test the runtime was at least 74 minutes. If you want to watch motion pictures from DVD on-the-move, you do not need to be afraid that the runtime is too short unless they are overlong. If you watch DVDs, you'll need to recharge after about 121 minutes. So, the battery life suffices standard motion pictures, which usually last between 90 and 100 minutes. If you browse the Internet via WLAN with good to maximum bright screen, the battery runtime of the 6 cells battery is nearly 141 minutes.