Notebook - Dell Vostro V131

Part Aluminium and part Magnesium, the new Vostro V131 exhibits style and sturdiness. A little heavy for a laptop which claims to be slim, it impresses with its matte finish and is suitable for presentations and conference rooms. V131 impresses with a full backlit keyboard featuring easily distinguishable big keys with wide resting space underneath the keyboard for vigorous typing. Alongside the keyboard are shortcut buttons for Windows Mobility Center, Dell Support Center and Dell Instant Launch Manager.

The device comes with numerous ports and a cooling vent on the left side. Two speakers gracing the front yield striking sound quality. The ports on the sides include a USB power share slot to charge USB devices when the laptop is in sleep mode, a VGA slot, an Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 ports, a mic, an SD card reader and an HDMI port. The display resolution of 1366 X 768 isn't much and the display is a bit dull, but that's common across most business oriented laptops.

It boasts of 2GB RAM, Intel i3 processor, 500GB HDD and performed well in benchmarks. In PC Mark it scored 5081 and in 3D Mark about 3350. It disappointed in battery Mark, lasting merely 2 hours and 30 mins which is quite low for a business laptop. Also, its lack of an optical drive will be missed as many professionals still use discs. On the whole, it's a complete business laptop at a good price with minor insufficiencies.

Bottomline: A decently priced notebook that comes across as a performer.