The Dell Vostro 13 is certainly a great looking laptop that was a cheap, business-like alternative to Dell’s higher end and more expensive Dell Latitude range, until now.
The Dell Vostro 13 is a spectacular blend of portability and price. At the lowest end, without any additional features, you can pick up a Dell Vostro 13 for £399. As with all Dells, you can customise the Vostro V13 to the hilt!
The V13 looks great, weighs a mere 1.6kg and more importantly it has a solid built quality. The screen feels rather solid and the aluminium casing of the V13 gives it a great premium feeling and the all-in-one case design looks, feel and is a great and comfortable look.
3 hour battery life
Portability requires a long or somewhat decent battery life but unfortunately the Dell Vostro 13’s battery life is a mere 3 hours which is average for any laptop.
Yet when it comes to the screen Dell have certainly not held back, the 13.3inch screen isn’t coated with the glossy coating that causes numerous reflections and annoyingly acute viewing angles and is easy to use when reading documents or watching films.
Matte-black keyboard
The keyboard is clad in matte-black and is slightly soft to the touch but this can easily be accustomed to. In addition, the keyboard is accompanied by an integrated webcam in the bezel of the screen, an SD card reader, 2 USB ports, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and even a 1 year warranty, amongst other things.
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The Dell Vostro V13 is a stunning laptop
The V13 is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 with a clocking speed of 1.3GHz which is packed by 2GB of RAM, unless you opt for the 4GB RAM, and is not the fastest processor which means you will have to be careful when multi-tasking. However, it is capable of handling HD video but if you try to multi-task the V13 seems to slow down and choke.
The Dell Vostro V13 may be a rather stunning laptop but when it comes to performance and battery life it seems to struggle to compete.
If you were considering alternatives, laptops such as the Studio 15, Acer 3810TZ and HP 6830s would suit your budget.