It’s been years since Dell became a household name. It entered the market as just another brand but created has a niche for itself with more quality under a compact budget. The studio and Vostro series are common bestsellers. The dell Vostro v130 is the successor to its v13 make which didn’t do that well. The Vostro v130 carries forward the legacy of the stylish, efficient and business portability.

Pros

• A well defined matte screen
• A nice portable option for this price

Cons

• Blue hue disappoints
• Poor battery life

First take

The new dell Vostro v130 is the perfect example of the reposition and reflection of newer effective technologies. It lost an express card 34 slot and the battery, well, still can’t be removed. Though, the addition of an HDMI out and USB port more than compensates for it. It’s meant for business, so it’s got to have matte instead of gloss. The only portions that are glossy are the touchpad outline, status lights and dell logos. The particularly blue screen won’t impress many as it seems disturbing.

The back portion is silver and making that red will empty your pockets buy another 14 $. The price tag of 1200 $ seems a bit on the higher side but mind you- it comes for the effective blend of  i3- 380 m ,1.33 GHz  processor with 2Gb ram and 320 Gb hard disk storage. The 13.3 inch portable new dell Vostro has a resolution of 1366*768 which is regular but surprisingly, even after that, the thickness is just around 20 mm and weighs just above 1.5 kgs.

Performance

After all the cuts and additions, it still retains it Ethernet, VGA out, ESata ports, Bluetooth, microphone and headphone jacks along with the SD card reader. It looks almost identical to the v13 but under the hood, the changes will surely impress you. Mind you, it’s not as svelte as any of the Macbooks but is definitely high end. Although, it remains on Intel graphics unlike Macbook which has switched on to GeForce 3200, but this is just apt for BUSINESS means.

This year’s i5 dual core and quad core were obviously more impressive. The Intel graphics (a much needed update from GMA) boosts the new dell Vostro. Remember, the v130 is a business machine and is not capable of handling mid-high 3D games. As for the tests, the reports say that after no power saving capitalizations, full brightness, maximum volume and concurrently running a HD file, the battery would last around 2 hours(though disappointing). The hardware additions on the same battery take a toll on the not-so-ready Vostro. Though, dell provides a one year warranty and all the driver and software issues can be sorted out.

Bottom line

The new dell Vostro v130 surely packs a punch from its predecessor with minor disappointments which can be overlooked if you want just a strong business portable. Overall, the price is neither too low nor too high and shouldn’t be a worry. Plus, you already have the reliability with DELL.