Dell Vostro V131

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Features

The V131's lack of a DVD burner is what differentiates it from the Dell 3350. I would hardly call an optical drive a necessity these days, but many IT managers are reluctant to part ways with legacy features. Unlike the HP 5330M, the V131 is equipped with two USB 3.0 ports, which supports transfer rates 10 times the speed of USB 2.0. Its HDMI port, multimedia card slot, VGA, Ethernet, and Webcam are features that can also be found in the Dell 3350 and HP 5330M. The 500GB hard drive isn't the biggest one available on the V131 (it goes up to 750GB), but few professionals will require more storage than that. In addition to the standard 802.11n Wi-Fiand Bluetooth, the V131 can also be configured with 3G Mobile Broadband (with GSM or CDMA technologies)—a feature that's more common in an enterprise-class laptop like the Lenovo X220.

Performance

While an updated processor is common with laptop revisions, it's a compelling upgrade that update means going from a low-voltage to standard-voltage processor (think low-powered to full-powered). The 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-2410M CPU is a monstrous leap in speed, and along with 4GB of memory, the V131 easily trumped its predecessor in all of our speed tests. It scored 2.56 in the Cinebench R11.5 test and finished the Photoshop CS5 test in 4 minutes 21 seconds, which was slightly behind the HP 5330M (2.78 in Cinebench; 3:53 in CS5), since the latter has a higher-clocked Core i5. The differences, though, are negligible enough that real-world tasks won't favor laptop over the other. In terms of graphics horsepower, the Dell 3350 has the slight advantage. It scored 5,672 on 3DMark 06 with integrated graphics (it can also be configured with an AMD graphics chip); in contrast, the V131's integrated graphics didn't do so well (3,991).

The biggest complaint about the Dell V130 was its small 30WH battery, which lasted a paltry 3 hours in our MobileMark 2007 battery test. Dell addressed this with a bigger 65Wh battery in the V131, and the payoff was huge. Its MobileMark score of 8:27 doubled that of the HP 5330M (3:49) and nearly tripled that of the V130 (3:02). Its impressive display was only bested by the Dell 3350's 80WH battery, which lasted 9:32.

The differences between a small business and enterprise laptop used to be more clear-cut, but now the lines are blurring. The Dell Vostro V131 has been updated to include a standard-voltage Core i5 processor and big 65WH battery. It has most of the features found in its enterprise siblings and doesn't cost nearly as much. The only small business laptop that has the V131 beat is its sibling, the Dell 3350, whose battery is longer lasting and overall price is more budget-friendly.

Source:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390893,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05039TX1K0000760