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The Dell Vostro 130 arrives in a very familar Dell branded box. Plain and simple, just the way we like it.
Inside, the Vostro 130 is protected between two thick, flexible pieces of foam. There is a protective felt layer around the chassis to protect against scuffing during shipping.
Dell supply an array of software and driver discs, as well as a restore operating system DVD.
The Vostro power supply is diminuitive and rather slimline, just like the laptop. I took this picture with a Nikon lens cap in view to give a better idea of sizing.
The Vostro 130 follows Apple MacBook ideology, keeping the front and rear of the chassis the same thickness across the full length (just under 20mm). It is an elegant design and gives the machine a very sleek appearance. The 13.3 LED screen is coated with anti glare and offers a 1366×768 resolution.
The Vostro finish is beautiful, the aluminum almost giving bronze reflectivity in certain light. The rear is a single piece slab of aluminum which is removed with 7 screws, 5 on the underside and two at the rear. In a similar fashion to the Apple ‘Unibody', the 6 cell battery is housed internally to keep the flowing chassis curves. There is no internal optical drive installed due to the space saving chassis design.
The top left of the keyboard area features a simple power button and top right there are various LED's showing hard drive activity, Bluetooth and Wireless connectivity, touch pad status and various lock states.
The keyboard is extremely impressive. I don't often say this about laptop designs, but the feedback is tactile, responsive and although there is a tiny bit of flex in the middle I found the overall experience very positive indeed. The large return and delete key earn bonus points. This is easily one of the best laptop keyboards we have used.
The touchpad is positioned slightly off center and in keeping with the quality of the keyboard, is one of the better business based units we have tested. We hate touchpads with a passion however, but we can live with this one for very light use.
Along the front is a battery charge indicator with a headphone and microphone jack at the right edge. The left side of the chassis is completely clear of connectivity and on the right Dell have positioned a card slot.
Most of the connectivity resides at the rear with 2 USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA/USB 2 combo port, HDMI connector and VGA connector. There is also a 10/100/1000 LAN and power connector here. Some people might not like the lack of ports on both sides of the chassis, but it certainly aids the overall ‘thin' design ethic.
The side view in all its glory. We feel certain elements of the Dell Adamo product were at the forefront of the design phase. This is made even more palatable with the removal of the jaw dropping price tag.
I love it. I am actually comtemplating it for college. I dont need massive battery life, but it seems somewhat of an oversight from Dell to only get 2 hours or so out of it. businessmen on the move might need at least double this a day.
I am glad you didnt score it down too badly though, it does a lot of things right.
My colleague in work has this and his overheats a lot, as our office is very warm. I might fire in an SSD for him next week and see if it helps.
I agree completely with the review. the internals are great and the design is beautiful, but the battery technology just doesnt cut it. for a business orenited machine this is a huge problem. there are a lot of complaints about it on dells forums.
I bought this last month and agree with most of the review. the design is brilliant, but my battery barely lasts 1.45 when watching youtube videos 🙁 I find this unacceptable and I wish I had read reviews before buying. apart from this is great. I hope Version 2 is better.
good review Zardon. seems like a decent all round machine unless you need a lot of battery support during the day. I suppose some business professionals might just need it for a presentation over lunch or something, then its ideal as the size is great.
Typical of Dell really.
Make an adamo style pc for the masses, keep the sexy looks, put a nice keyboard in, good screen, great design, then copy Apple and put the battery inside to keep the shape lovely.
Then cock up the battery life completely ruling it out for the target market. this is the third review on this machine ive read, this is the most detailed and unfortunately id have scored it much lower as the primary function for businessmen is a battery that lasts at least 4 hours. not 2.
I like it a lot, and the entry level one is cheap. shame about the battery, and you cant even buy another for replacement during the day. as you need to take the whole machine apart. what a stupid idea 🙁
ID buy it if I had the money, but a netbook is my limit, ordered a dell 10 inch last week, still hasnt arrived
That is a gorgeous laptop for the price, just a shame they didnt manage to get battery life to 4 hours or so 🙁 2 hours is terrible.
I just ordered one for college work, I dont need long battery life, just 1 hour at lunch, then it will be in mains at night. thanks for detailed review. I got an SSD in mine.