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There are a plethora of laptops aimed at the business user, many of which fall into the ‘grey, boring and clunky category'. Dell are trying to shake this market up by offering a rather sexy alternative which stands out in a crowded market. No longer will a sharp dressed executive have to hide his head in shame when whipping out his laptop in the company of peers.
The Dell Vostro 130 (successor to the Vostro 13) is without doubt one of Dells most attractive designs to date … with a uniform, razor thin aluminum chassis immediately catching the eye. Technically, first impressions are positive, with a high quality, anti glare WLED screen supported by 7,200 rpm hard drive, up to 4GB of DDR3 memory and Intel Core i3/i5 ultra low voltage processor. With prices starting at £399, it won't break the business bank account either.
Could this be the ultimate affordable business laptop with added sex appeal? Today KitGuru will reveal all.
Our review sample shipped with the full 4GB of memory, a 500GB 7,200 hard drive and the highest specification i5-470UM processor. This particular system costs £779 inc. delivery without VAT applied.
A full range of specifications available:
Processors
Intel® CoreTM Processor ULV i5-470UM (3M Cache, 1.33GHz, 800 MHz FSB)
Intel® CoreTM Processor ULV i3-380UM (3M Cache, 1.33GHz, 800 MHz FSB)
Intel CeleronTM Processor ULV U3400 (2M Cache, 1.06GHz, 800 MHz FSB)
Operating System
Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-Bit
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Basic 64-Bit
Ubuntu® Linux®
Memory
DDR3 SDRAM (800 MHz) one slot supporting 4GB1 DIMM.
Chipset
Mobile Intel® HM57 Express Chipset
Graphics
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (HD)
Display
13.3″ (34 cm) diagonal LED-backlit HD (1366 x 768) Anti-glare
Primary Storage1
5400 rpm SATA 250GB
7200 rpm SATA 500GB
128GB Solid State Drive
Standard Free Fall Sensor on the motherboard
Optical Drives
Optional External 8X DVD+/-RW
Multimedia
Speaker
Stereo headphone jack
Microphone jack and integrated microphone array
Integrated 2.0 Mega pixel webcam and Dell Webcam Central software
Power
6-cell Lithium Ion sealed battery (30WHr)
Connectivity
Integrated Wire: Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000 NIC)
Wireless LAN: Intel 802.11 a/b/g/n 2.0; Dell 802.11 b/g/n; Intel® WiMax Link 6250 (US only)
Bluetooth: Bluetooth v3.0 + High Speed
Mobile Broadband : Dell 5540/5620 EM820U HSPA (requires mobile network operator service)
Ports, Slots & Chassis
Network connector (RJ45)
USB 2.0 (2)
USB 2.0/eSATA combo (1)
Microphone jack
Headphone/speaker out
5-in-1 card reader
HDMI
User accessible SIM card slot
15-pin VGA video connector
Dimensions & Weight
Width: 330mm
Height: (front/back) 16.5-19.7mm
Depth: 230mm
Starting weight: 3.5lbs/1.59kg (with 6-cell battery)
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.
The Windows Experience Index shows a well rounded system, brought down to a 3.1 overall score by the onboard Intel HD graphics. We have previous experience of this graphics solution and while fairly weak, it is more than enough for a business machine like this.
Inside we have the Intel Core i5 470 UM which is a 1.33ghz processor with 3M Cache. There is a single DDR3 slot onboard and this machine comes with the full 4GB of memory installed – running @ 800mhz with 6-6-6-15 timings. Obviously this is only single channel.
The software install is relatively clean, especially for Dell. Bonus points are given for the fact that this is the first machine we have received from them without McAfee bloatware installed, however we aren't sure Trend Micro is any better. Most of the installation software is relevant to this particular machine so there is not a lot we would remove.
Kitguru test with a minimum five runs of every software suite to ensure no abnormalites can creep into our readings. We test laptop systems with a default ‘out of the box' install to ensure our findings are exactly as you would experience if you bought the laptop. We use a mixture of synthetic and real world testing to present a complete overview of the platform and to help guide prospective customers towards a possible purchase, stating relevant strengths and weaknesses.
For those of you currently using an ATOM computer and interested in performance improvements, we have included 1.8ghz Atom results with some of our results.
CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.
CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.
A score of 1.22 certainly indicates that this won't be replacing your desktop as a rendering powerhouse, but for a mobile, low power laptop system it is pretty much as expected. An Atom system struggles to score 0.60 points incidentally.
SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Native ports for all major operating systems are available:
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
- Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
- Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
- Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)
All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:
- SMP – Multi-Processor
- MC – Multi-Core
- SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
- MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
- GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
- NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
- AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
- IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit
The low powered Intel Core i5 processor delivers very respectable levels of performance, previously unheard of in this sector and significantly ahead of the ATOM powered system.
A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance so we used two of our favourite benchmark utilities Crystalmark X64 Edition and HD Tach to rate the 500GB 2.5 inch 7,200 rpm hard drive.
Hard drive performance is respectable for a mechanical unit, however if we were buying this machine we really would opt for the solid state drive, even at extra cost. A fast storage drive is such an important aspect of overall system performance.
PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista offering one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts.
A PCMark score is a measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications, productivity and security.
From desktops and laptops to workstations and gaming rigs, by comparing your PCMark Vantage score with other similar systems you can find the hardware and software bottlenecks that stop you getting more from your PC.
The system scores well in PCMark Vantage, being let down a little by the Intel HD graphics performance.
CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.
Now you can easily playback and display your favorite movies, songs and photos not just on your on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4.
Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.
New and Improved Features
- Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
- Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
- Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
- Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
- Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
- Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.
For our testing today we are converting a 3.28GB 720p MKV file to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.
Sadly, the Dell Vostro can't use graphics acceleration for reduced encoding times and as such the system takes over 42 minutes to convert the 2hr 12min file.
Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our Bluray and conversion tests.
Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 is one of the finest solutions for the Blu-Ray experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the Bluray Disc of Avatar, one of our favourite sci-fi films in recent years. We are using an Asus External BluRay drive for these tests.
23 percent as an average is a pretty good result. The Vostro is capable of multitasking even when watching a Bluray disc.
We then recorded the CPU demand over a specific set of time to get a ‘real world' rolling scale of activity. The low power Core i5 processor maintains the demand between 9% and 36%.
Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online.
The Core i5 processor manages to handle 720p Flash content without much of a problem, with an average of around 35 percent CPU use with our selected video. Considering that Flash code isn't particularly well optimised these are good results.
We are now going to test the USB 2.0 speed, so we used the fastest drive we have, the Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 128GB, which is an Toshiba based SSD product within a USB 3.0 capable enclosure. While the Dell Vostro doesn't have any USB 3.0 capable ports, we wanted to ensure that the external drive wasn't the limiting factor for our results.
USB 2.0 performance is pretty much as good as it gets, with scores just shy of 32 MB/s being reached.
V2011 is the first release of 3DStudio Max to fully support the Windows 7 operating system. This is a professional level tool that many people use for work purposes and our test will show any possible differences between board design today.
Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 software offers compelling new techniques to help bring designs to life by aggregating data, iterating ideas, and presenting the results.
Streamlined, more intelligent data exchange workflows and innovative new modeling and visualization tools help significantly increase designers’ creativity and productivity, enabling them to better explore, validate, and communicate the stories behind their designs.
Major new features:
- Slate: A node based material editor.
- Quicksilver: Hardware renderer with multithreaded rendering engine that utilizes both CPU and GPU.
- Extended Graphite Modeling Toolset
- 3ds Max Composite: A HDRI-capable compositor based on Autodesk Toxik.
- Viewport Canvas toolset for 3D and 2D texture painting directly in the viewport
- Object Painting: use 3D geometry as ‘brushes’ on other geometry
- Character Animation Toolkit (CAT): now integrated as part of the base package
- Autodesk Material Library: Over 1200 new photometrically accurate shaders
- Additional file format support: includes native support for Sketchup, Inventor
- FBX file linking
- Save to Previous Release (2010)
We render a customised Kitguru scene at 3000×2500 and record the time taken, lower is better.
A high end desktop processor can complete this render in around 3 minutes however we can see the huge gains between the Core i5 and the Atom processor with 7 minutes being saved.
While this system will not be bought as an enthusiast gaming system, we wanted to experiment with some less intensive game engines to record an overview of results.
Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation’s award-winning Left 4 Dead. The game launched on November 17, 2009, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 in the United States; it launched November 20 in Europe. It builds upon the cooperatively-focused gameplay of the original and uses Valve’s proprietary Source engine, the same game engine used in Left 4 Dead. The game made its world premiere at E3 2009 with a trailer during the Microsoft press event.
In a similar fashion to the original, Left 4 Dead 2 is set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, and focuses on four survivors fighting against hordes of the infected. The survivors must fight their way through levels, interspersed with safe houses that act as checkpoints, with the goal of reaching a rescue vehicle at the campaign’s finale.
We tested at 720p with all image quality settings set to relatively low settings with no AA.
Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on March 5, 2009 in Japan and on March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Windows version of the game was released on September 15, 2009 in North America, September 17 in Japan and September 18 in Europe. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.
Within its first three weeks of release, the game sold over 2 million units worldwide and became the best-selling game of the franchise in the United Kingdom. As of December, 2009, Resident Evil 5 has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since launch, becoming the best selling Resident Evil game ever made.
We are testing at 720p in DX9 mode with settings on medium/high, AA is off.
While the Intel HD graphics is no powerhouse, it is clear that if you are willing to reduce the IQ and run in DX9 mode, then performance is smooth enough. For casual gaming this machine is perfectly capable, but if you are an enthusiast gamer demanding cutting edge DX11 performance then you need to look elsewhere.
The Dell WLED screen on the Vostro is perfect for office work, offering modestly saturated images and clear, sharp text. It does fall down a little when trying to create a vibrant platform for viewing high definition video files, but this is clearly a decision from Dell to balance this product towards the business professional. We noticed no motion blur and viewing angles were perfectly acceptable unless sitting off to the sides or looking down from above. Overall the first impressions are positive.
We used Displaymate to test the monitor and we were quite happy with the overall image quality. Gamut range in GamutVision was below average and we recorded a slight blue tinge to grey screen which is not really that noticeable under real world conditions. This is slightly more pronounced at the edges of the screen which is something we are seeing more recently. The gamut is wide enough to deliver a realistic image, however the dull anti glare screen doesn't help to enhance the colour depth or overall contrast saturation. For text based purposes however it is great.
To test the screen today we are using a LaCie industrial measurement gun.
There is a slight shift when testing black definition and minor leaks are recorded from all corners of the panel. It does look bad in our technical data image, but under real world conditions its only slightly noticeable from the bottom of the panel. The shift was just above 15 percent in the bottom sector which is actually rather good for a laptop screen.
The minor leaks recorded on black definition testing are basically mirrored here with minor shift between 5%-20% across the width with slightly higher levels recorded at the edges. In real world terms however the results are actually good and whites tend to look quite clean although we did notice a little hue at the bottom of the screen.
Good overall results for a laptop screen and while a high definition media enthusiast might not be overly impressed, the business professional will not find a fault with the display. The anti glare coating works exceptionally well, even in high ambient light conditions.
The battery in the Vostro 130 is fully enclosed inside the chassis and is a 30Whr model.
We tested the machine under a few contrived situations. Firstly, we acted as a general ‘business professional' using Microsoft Office, surfing the net, sending and receiving emails, viewing several video files on youtube, and working on images within Photoshop CS5. Wireless was enabled and screen brightness was set to half, which is usable.
Under these conditions we achieved just over 2 hours which isn't as good as we hoped. Understandably, with such a flat chassis design, there are some compromises to be made. Battery life looks to be one of them.
Next, we acted as a ‘businessman on a plane'. Meaning we played 720p video files until the battery ran out, wireless was disabled and screen was set to three quarters brightness as we felt any lower ruined the overall saturation of high definition video. Headphones were connected.
Watching videos reduced the battery life by another 25 minutes, although this reduction is not as great as might be expected. What we can take from this result however is that wireless has a big hit on the battery life as it was disabled in this final test.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.
Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by running Furmark and Cinebench together.
We placed 5 diodes on the rear to give a rough indication of how hot the machine might feel on your knee.
At idle, the system runs very cool and fan noise is low, however it doesn't take long to heat up when heavily loaded. When watching videos on YouTube or working within Photoshop for instance. The rear of the laptop gets much hotter than the front, especially in the diode 1 position. We found that much of the internal heat was actually coming from the 7,200 rpm hard drive – we really would recommend an SSD drive for this laptop, not only for performance gains, but temperature reductions.
Recently we have changed our method of measuring noise levels. Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground with our Extech digital sound level meter to mirror a real world situation.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
The Dell Vostro 130 is a relatively quiet machine which can only be heard when put under pressure. Under extensive load the fan will spin up significantly, although it is never that intrusive. This is something we would expect from a narrow chassis design such as this.
Today we are measuring power drain at the wall with a Kill A Watt meter.
The power consumption figures are excellent and show just how efficient the Core i5-470UM is. 20 watts of power are taken when watching movies and a maximum of 45 watts is drained when under full load. A fantastic set of results for the machine.
The Dell Vostro 130 left us with mainly positive feelings. The Intel Core-i5-470UM processor is certainly powerful enough … passing all our performance testing with flying colours.
The build quality is excellent and the keyboard, track pad, and WLED screen are quality additions which enhance the feeling of buying a high value for money system. We are particularly fond of the chassis design, as it is sexy, slim and extremely portable.
It could almost have been a Macbook Air beater, but there are some glaring issues. The primary letdown for me is battery life, which is extremely disappointing. The six cell integrated battery lasts around 2 hours under general use which is certainly going to rule this machine out to a sizeable portion of the potential business oriented user base.
Replacing the battery isn't a simple job either as you have to remove the rear panel completely with a screwdriver set, hardly ideal on a plane or bus. We dread to think how much life you would get from this system without the ultra low voltage Intel processor. The lack of optical drive might be an issue for some, but it is to be expected with a 20mm chassis design.
Overall, the Dell Vostro 130 can be recommended. The design is beautiful, the screen and keyboard are great and being so thin, it is easy to carry around all day. Sadly, the battery will only last part of the morning before it needs a recharge and we think this is the biggest weakness of the machine. It is built to be portable, while utilising Intel's high performance ultra low voltage Core i3 and i5 processors, but the battery life cripples it.
KitGuru says: If you do purchase the machine, we strongly recommend the addition of an SSD drive. Performance is massively enhanced and due to the chassis design, internal temperatures drop by several degrees.
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.