Measuring a thin 13 x 9.1 x 0.7 inches and weighing a mere 3.6 pounds (just 0.2 pounds lighter than the V13), this ultraportable practically disappears into a messenger bag. Not that you'd want to hide it. For a small business notebook, the V130 is quite stylish. The lid and underside are made of brushed aluminum, and the inside is a matte black plastic; neither surface shows fingerprints, and the entire look is quite classy. Combined with reinforced zinc hinges, the V13 feels like it can survive the rigors of business travel. Similar to the Adamo and XPS 14 and 15, the V130's lid is hinged about half an inch forward of the back edge of the notebook.
The configuration we reviewed, a top-of-the-line $918 model, had an Intel Core i5 U470 CULV processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive. In this configuration, it underperformed compared to the slightly larger but more affordable Toshiba Portege R705, especially in terms of Dell Vostro V130 battery life.
Inside my review laptop is an Intel Core i5 (not the new speedy Sandybridge i5; this is a 470-UM model, clocked at 1.33GHz which can be boosted to run at 1.86GHz if needed via Intel's TurboBoost, which in effect temporarily overclocks itself when needed). The base spec of this series of laptops is 2GB of Ram; my review unit had 4GB of Ram. The former is fine and the latter is generous in a notebook. The machine runs quiet and cool, thanks to the grandiosely titled Hyperbaric cooling system, which in effect means that the fan acts as an air intake rather than an exhaust.
The Dell Vostro V130 is the kind of business ultraportable that can shave serious weight off your cabin baggage, while captivating onlookers with its thin, seductive frame. Fans of its predecessor and the Latitude 13 will like the extra horsepower that comes with the Core i5 processor, as well as the extra USB port and HDMI. In the process, though, the tiny 6-cell Dell Inspiron N4010 battery suffered from the additional power draw, and 3 hours of battery life is simply not enough for a business ultraportable. You'll get better mileage and a lot more power from the Toshiba Portege R705-P35—our Editors' Choice for the ultraportable category.
During the processor stress test (Prime95 multi-core) the temperature of the Vostro V130 was, in the course of several hours, brought up to a maximum of 47.5ºC—however, this temperature was only present along the 1-cm-wide aluminum strip at the very back of the base unit behind the screen hinges. Besides that, all the sections across the top of the base unit remain a good deal under 30ºC. The 28.8-degree area directly in front of the hot aluminum strip really speaks to the effectiveness of the cooling system.
As with most other ultraportable-class notebooks, the thin form means there's no room for an on-board CD/DVD drive, but you'll find all the other features you would expect in a business laptop. The port selection is good for a budget notebook, and includes two standard USB 2.0 ports, plus a USB/eSATA combo port for connecting the latest high-speed peripherals like external hard drives and Blu-ray drives.
Because it's so thin, there isn't much airflow in the unit and it tends to get warm after a while. You can use it on your lap for a short time before it starts to warm up and feel uncomfortable. The heat comes from the 7200rpm hard drive primarily, so we'd like to see this unit offered with a solid-state drive. There are vents on the rear through which the accumulated heat can escape, and you have to be mindful of these when you do use the unit on your lap, so that you don't block them.
Performance is also limited, as a low-voltage Intel processor has been used in order to keep the chassis slim. We found there was enough power to comfortably run office applications and browse the web, but there are much more powerful options elsewhere.
The real Achilles’ heel of this machine, though, is the built-in, nonremovable battery. Unlike just about every laptop on the market today, the battery in the Vostro V130 is not user-replaceable. That presents two problems. First, if you’re on the road and out of juice, you have to find an AC outlet rather than simply reach in your bag for an extra battery. Worse, when the battery stops holding a sufficient charge, you have to send the V130 back to Dell so that support personnel can replace it. (The pricing for the battery swap has not yet been set; Dell says it will vary by region.) The Dell Vostro V130 battery carries only a one-year warranty, so that replacement will likely happen at your expense. That's not to mention the inconvenience of having to do without your machine for that time (likely one to two weeks, the company estimates), and having your precious business data in the hands of someone you don’t know.
The Vostro line is of course as we've mentioned aimed at the business user on the go, and that's most evident by its small frame. The overall footprint on the V130 is a little large due to the fact we've got a 13.3" monitor. The lack of any ROM drive helps keep the V130 quite thin and more importantly quite light, which for some is going to be the most important feature.
Once up and running the V130 is a beautiful feeling laptop. The quality is there and the keys feel strong. The Black / Silver combination in the design isn't the loudest setup, but is subtle. The chances are in a business environment you don't want bright LED lights that we see in some of the higher end XPS laptops.
Taking a spin around, the front right gives us an audio in and out port along with a power light on the left. The left side is blank with the right side being almost as bear with only a SSD / MMC card reader built in.
Around the back we've got a HDMI, e-SATA and network port on the left with two USB and the Dell Vostro V130 AC adapter on the right. Connectivity is lighter than past laptops we've looked at, but this is of course due to keeping the overall size down.
Performance in business-like tasks is very strong on our model thanks to that extra memory. Internet Explorer, the desktop and Windows on a whole perform strong. Using Battery Eater Pro, we're able to get an idea of battery life in a worst case scenario. With the screen saver, monitor power off and standby disabled we saw 73 minutes come out of the battery.
While just over an hour might not seem like the most impressive number, you have to remember the fact that if you're just using the internet or performing office tasks you will achieve more out of the battery. With the laptop doing nothing but just displaying our windows desktop and battery meter, we managed to achieve in excess of three hours from the battery. The same brightness was used as when BE Pro was used and screen saver, monitor off and standby were all disabled. It just helps give you a better idea of what the battery is capable of.
Looking at Far Cry 2 performance purely just to give you an idea on gaming performance, you discover that it's not an option. With all settings at low we're getting an average of only 11FPS. The Vostro series isn't designed for gaming in any sense of the word.
The big thing about Dell is that ability to customize your laptop when buying. The base model carries an i3 380UM, 2GB of Memory, 320GB HDD, 802.11 b/g networking, Bluetooth and Windows 7 Home Premium, seeing a price tag of $899 AUD or closer to $600 USD.
What you still get no matter what price, though, is the same kind of quality that we're dealing with today, and really this is what makes Dell laptops such an attractive option for people.
The 1,366 by 768 display is impressively bright and colorful. I did my best to search out challenging content, from high-def movie trailers to high-res image editing. Everything looked lovely. And I spent a lot of time listening -- using the Vostro as my office radio with mostly either Pandora or NPR. The sound was, quite frankly, the best of any notebook I've tested to date, good enough that I was happy to listen to it all day.
Last year, the Dell Vostro V13 was an affordable small-business laptop surprise, a thin 13-incher that amounted to an affordable Adamo for budget shoppers. Dell's holiday update, the Vostro V130, keeps the same aluminum and magnesium-alloy flat design as the V13, but gives the innards a boost. We have one here at CNET, and we've been trying it out leading up to a forthcoming review.
In the end the V130 is a sensational laptop for the market it's designed for. Light weight, thin and a huge array of options and features make it a stand out contender for people on the go, or people who want something that's less fuss than the XPS 14 we recently looked at and more orientated around general office duty work.
The battery is exactly the same one fitted in the older V13 which is a 6-cell 30Whr non-removable battery. In our 720p video drain test, the V130 lasted for 1Hr 47min which is a whole 25min lesser compared to the older model. This is mainly due to the higher TDP Core i3 CPU and possibly the 7200rpm hard drive. Under regular usage, the notebook gave us a slightly better 3Hr 15min of back up time which sadly is pretty average today and could have been a lot better. Since the battery is non-removable as well, you can't even upgrade it to a higher capacity one even if you wanted.
Software-wise, the Vostro V130 includes a slew of free software such as Adobe Acrobat Reader 9, Office 2010 Starter, Dell DataSafe Online, Dell WebCam, Dell Backup and Recovery Manager, and Trend Micro Client/Server Security Agent. Although I personally think that you can get away without Acrobat Reader 9, (I recommend Foxit Reader) and Trend Micro Security Agent, I think the other software such as the Dell Backup and Recovery Manager is useful but this is from the point of view of a consumer and not as an IT in a business environment.
Business also means matte dominates over gloss, the only glossy areas being the strip around the touch pad, under the monitor that houses the status lights, and the shiny Dell logos. The screen is also pleasingly matte, making it more usable outdoors, although its colour temperature is disturbingly cool, with everything appearing too blue. Being a laptop, you're not given the controls to adjust this.
We liked the Vostro V130’s compact design, but felt it fell short in everyday use. Performance suffered because of the low-voltage components, but battery life was still disappointing at under four hours. At only 1.6kg it’s incredibly portable, but for all day computing you’ll want to pack a charger. This, along with the unimpressive screen and poor quality audio limits its appeal to home users.
That's the trouble with the Vostro V130: especially when factoring in its poor battery life, there's really nothing that distinguishes it when compared with superior small notebooks such as the Portégé R705 and Apple's new 11.6in. and 13.3in. MacBook Airs. In the middle configurations, especially around £400, the V130 could have been a sweeter choice, especially if its battery performed better.
In terms of its performance, the laptop is a good performer. It will be able to handle most of the applications thrown at it including CPU hogs such as Photoshop and HD videos. The Dell LATITUDE E4300 battery life might be a deal breaker for most as other laptops can achieve longer battery life with the same performance. The Dell Vostro V130 is not only for business users who want a bit of style, students and any person on the go will benefit from the performance as well as not be embarrassed taking it out on a coffee shop to work on that all-important project or presentation for a school project.
The V130's 13.3-inch screen has a 1366 x 786 resolution, driven by the Core i5's integrated HD graphics. It's bright, with a fairly good contrast ratio, but you can't always see full detail in dark areas - and the colour isn't particularly vivid or saturated. Don't expect stunning performance though, as this is still integrated graphics. Local 720p video playback is smooth and has a good level of detail, but while streaming and downscaling 1080p video from the web is generally a good experience it stutters occasionally and fine detail isn’t as crisp as we’d like.
With a dual-core Intel Core i3-380UM, the V130 offers a decent level of performance. It scores 52 on our index! This can be compared to 100 for our reference machine, the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi3650 (equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo T9400). In practice this 13.3 inch is perfectly at ease with multi-tasking usage and everyday office documents. Although it isn't especially designed for 3D modelling or photo processing, the time required for this type of activity is tolerable.
With prices starting at $500, it's similar to the older model. However, the V130 that we received would cost a bit more, we predict closer to 40K as Dell is yet to give us the final price. For this price, you can get better performing multi-media notebooks but that's not the purpose of the Vostro. The V130 is designed to be a sleek and durable business companion and it does exactly that. The build and finish of the V130 is what sets it apart from the crowd. The revised internals gives it a bit more grunt allowing you to watch HD movies with ease. The extra USB port and HDMI is a welcome addition and the anti-glare screen means it's very usable outside as well. It does not come without its flaws though, with all the changes made to the Dell Vostro V130 charger, the battery life has worsened which is quite an important factor. We also feel the pricing is a bit high for what you're getting.
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