Dell Vostro V130 Review

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Dell Vostro V130 Review

Roydon Cerejo, Mar 14, 2011 1458 hrs IST

The V13 gets more powerful

Good build quality, HDMI, three USB ports, comfortable keyboard, anti-glare screen, light weight

Poor battery life, a bit expensive

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Dell wowed us with its Vostro V13 a year back with its sleek styling and aluminum finish; it was very stylish yet extremely functional. There were some minor drawbacks though like no HDMI port, few USB ports and a slightly underpowered processor. A year has gone by and Dell seems to have listened to our complaints (well, some of them at least) and have brought out a new model called the V130. The basic design and ergonomics have remained the same and Dell seems to have stuck to the philosophy, "If it ain't broke don't fix it" and has made some connectivity additions and upgraded the internals.

The Dell V130 is powered by a Core i3 ULV series 380UM running at 1.3GHz. It does not support Turbo Boost but it has Hyperthreading so it should be a bit faster than the older Celeron 743 which also ran at the same speed. The downside of the Core i3 is the higher TDP of 18W which can take a toll on the battery life which wasn't great to begin with. Other than that, Dell has still maintained the low 1.5kg weight and the comfortable keyboard. Let's see how much of a difference these new improvements have really made.

The design hasn't deviated much from the original and this time, we got a ruby red sample which looks really good. The matt finish has a sheen to it which doesn't attract a lot of finger prints and yet looks striking. The Vostro V130 now comes with three USB 2.0 ports instead of two and an HDMI port as well. What's missing is the Express Card slot which is fine since it's hardly ever used. The V130 now comes with a 4GB RAM by default and a choice of 320GB or 500GB 7200rpm hard drive.

The keyboard remains exactly the same and is very comfortable to use. The power button and the status lights have swapped places on the top for whatever reason. The 13.3-inch anti-glare screen sports a 1366x768 resolution which means images and video look sharp and clear.

Overall, the V130 is a nice little upgrade to the earlier V13 in terms of horsepower and connectivity is concerned. Now let's have a look at the performance improvement and more importantly, the battery life.