The predecessor to Dell's Vostro V131 received short shrift from us. The Vostro V130 was, we felt, missing in horsepower and shipped particularly disappointing battery existence. The brand new Vostro V131 looks much like its predecessor, but offers enhanced specifications. Having a beginning cost of ?¨º359 (ex. VAT) it appears appealing ?a but, as always with Dell, the demon is incorporated in the detail of system customisation.
Design
Neither especially small nor particularly light, the Vostro V131 depends on an striking ?a otherwise particularly elegant ?a chassis and neat keyboard design get noticed. The mainly silver outdoors has the feel of metal, despite the fact that it's really produced from plastic the big overgrown lip behind the lid hinges is distinctive, even when it works no real function.
The 13.3in. Vostro V131 includes a distinctive look, although it isn't probably the most portable notebook in the sub-2kg class
The 1.8kg Vostro V131 isn't the least heavy notebook in the class, and it is size of 32.93cm wide by 23.76cm deep by 1.6-2.1cm thick aren't particularly svelte ?a especially given the possible lack of a built-in optical drive.
Open the clamshell and also the keyboard immediately draws the attention. It's slightly recessed, encircled with a gang of silver, with isolated gray secrets. The entire area looks a bit busy to us.
Being used, however, the laptop keyboard is superb, with good tactile feedback along with a light action. The secrets recover up nicely from the fingers and lightweight-fingered touch-typists should think it is particularly comfortable to utilize.
The additional large Enter secret is simple to hit, although individuals who instantly alllow for the far right from the keyboard may hit the PgUp or PgDn secrets, which sit in the heart of a column which includes Remove, Home and Finish. The cursor secrets are large, but haven't any secondary functions ?a media playback, screen brightness and volume control are utilized through the half-height Fn key row.
The spill-resistant keyboard is backlit, and when you are sitting or relaxing in an acute position towards the keyboard, the sunshine stands out through rather vibrantly and may be annoying.
Underneath the keyboard is really a responsive touch pad with two large button. You are able to disable the touch pad having a Fn key combination to prevent accidental cursor movement when you are typing. There's a fingerprint sensor around the wrist relaxation ?a a small, almost invisible sliver within the upper right quadrant.
The on/off switch sits over the keyboard, left. Around the right are three small shortcut buttons: one goes towards the Home windows Mobility Center, one accesses the Dell Support Center, which supplies system updates along with other services, and something is really a user-configurable quick-launch button.
The screen is really a relatively obvious and vibrant 1,366-by-768-pixel 13.3in. Brought-backlit panel. Viewing angles are fine around the horizontal plane, although not so great around the vertical. On the other hand, the lid does not tip back anywhere near 180 levels because of that overgrown lip. The matte screen is simple to utilize in an array of lighting conditions.
Features
You will find five preconfigured Vostro V131 models at Dell's United kingdom site, varying from ?¨º359 to ?¨º799 (ex. VAT) ?a our review sample was the very best-of-the-range model. You are able to personalize these systems, and also the changes you may make vary based on which model you've selected as the base system.
On our review sample, you are able to raise the RAM from 4GB to 8GB, alter the 500GB hard disk to some 128GB SSD and choose a red-colored instead of silver chassis, in addition to change a few of the bundled up software options. Lower lower the number you are able to alter other items like the processor and version of Home windows offered.
This level of versatility means you will have to perform some careful evaluations to find the configuration that best suits you best. Note, though, the ?¨º359 entry-level model includes Home windows 7 Home Premium running on the 1.1GHz Apple Celeron 847 ULV processor ?a hardly a perfect option for a company system.
Our review sample includes a 2.3GHz Apple Core i5-2410M processor and 4GB of RAM and runs Home windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Graphics are addressed by Intel's CPU-integrated HD Graphics 3000 graphics processor ?a there is no discrete GPU option on any Vostro V131 model.
In addition to Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (with Apple Wireless Display capacity) and Bluetooth 3., our review model had integrated special broadband the SIM slot is beneath the battery. Only two of the most costly preconfigured designs include this feature, also it can't be included to another models.
For storage, our review sample includes a 500GB hard disk spinning at 7,200rpm. Another preconfigured designs include 320GB drives, so that as noted above there is a 128GB SSD option should you fancy investing an additional ?¨º170 (ex. VAT). An HD webcam is really a feature on all purchases.
Dell hasn't integrated an optical drive in to the Vostro V131, the industry great shame because the chassis looks as if it might accommodate one. Toshiba's similarly sized Port¡§|g¡§| R830 handles to support one, for instance.
You will find lots of ports and fittings, though. The left edge houses an High-definition multimedia interface port along with a USB 2. port, in addition to a card readers for SD- and Thumb Drive-compatible media.
The best edge comes with an Ethernet (RJ-45) port, a VGA port, a earphone/speaker combo jack and 2 USB 3. ports. It is a shame the latter are alongside, as you port can certainly become hidden if your bulky USB peripheral is blocked in to the other one. The leading includes a pair loudspeakers and also the system status LEDs.
Performance & battery existence
The Vostro V131's Home windows Experience Index (WEI) is really a middling 4.7 (from 7.9). The WEI corresponds towards the cheapest component score, which within this situation is perfect for Graphics (desktop performance for Home windows Aero).
The rest of the scores are much more respectable: 5.9 for Primary hard disk drive (Disk data rate) and RAM (Memory procedures per second) 6.2 for Gaming Graphics (three dimensional business and gaming graphics performance) as well as an impressive 6.9 for Processor (information per second). Unless of course you have to run graphically demanding software, the Vostro V131 should perform perfectly.
Battery about this system's predecessor, the Vostro V130, wasn't detachable, and the rear of the chassis was peppered with ports and fittings. Poor battery existence was among its primary weak points, and Dell has learned from that. The 6-cell battery within the V131 is detachable.
Dell claims you will get between 9 and 12 hrs of battery existence, with respect to the workloads involved. To check claiming, we set the machine to experience movie footage continuously from the USB stick, and also got 5 hrs 3 minutes from the full battery charge. This can be a demanding task, so most probably you'll have the ability to perform a full day's price of everyday business tasks on battery energy if required.
Conclusion
The Dell Vostro V131 does not quite deliver for all of us. It appears striking, the laptop keyboard action is superb, and it is nice to determine two USB 3. ports rather than one, also to get High-definition multimedia interface and VGA connections.
But the possible lack of an optical drive is annoying, and also the battery existence, although respectable, does not match Dell's claim. If you would like the very best out of this system, a appropriate configuration will not come cheap.
