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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.
