New Dell Vostro V131

Traveling with the laptop on business the last two days, it's been great machine. Been getting solid 6 hours on the battery, only has .2% wear on it so may get better before worse. Didn't instead my SSD, sitting at home, will install once I get back.

Answers to q's....

Hard drive -- standard 9mm.
Heat -- I have the i3... Not i5... So take my review into consideration, no issues, laptop is cool to touch on the bottom, really impressive.
Fan noise -- silent when it's running, if it goes full bore (running a VM, installing apps) it's still pretty quiet... Nothing like my XPS 15 (1st gen).

Over all...couple more days owning it, love it. Only thing that could be improved is the screen, but for 700 bux you can't beat this thing, seriously, and the screen isn't THAT bad....

 

Ready to pull the trigger on the V131. I've compared this to Lenovo x221, HP 6360b, HP 5330m and admittedly drawn to the Dell since I get less resistance from my IT guys. Dont have a lot of risk since Dells biz customer service is good to us, but crossing my fingers. Moving from an HP nc6400 which is a full pound heavier and slow.

 

Please post its PCMark Vantage score, if Dell has delivered it to you already. I really want to see how this new CPU fares against the new Core i3 and i5 ULV series (2357M, 2557M and so on).

 

I am especially interested in the temperature of the CPU in idle / heavy load.

 

PCMark Vantage Score:



Source: Dell V131 Review - Specs, Review - NotebooksNews.com

More benchmark: Dell Vostro V131 Review - Watch CNET's Video Review

 

Thanks but I am more interested to know how the Celeron 857 performs against other CPUs.

 

Apparently V131 is on sale for i3 version, with free upgrade to backlit keyboard.

Check it out:
Hot @ Dell: Vostro V131 Laptop w/i3-2310M $498, 12-Outlet Surge Prot $14, 5-Port Gigabit Switch $17 - Posted Aug. 19, 2011 - RedFlagDeals.com

 

I'm lucky enough to have the chance to try various machines and over the last two months I've tried the following:

- HP Elitebook 8640p, core i5 - Returned as the fan is always on
- HP Probook 5330, core i3 - Kept and now being used by the lady friend
- HP Probook 6460b, core i5 - On ebay as the fan is always on

...and now, a Dell Vostro, dual core celeron, back lit keyboard.

My initial impression of the box was one of 'boring' but that changed as I reached into the box to remove quite a thin laptop. Compared to the Probook/Elitebook (and the 5330m which is thin ish) this is super thin. Of course it will have to compare to my favourite laptop, the Envy 13, which had possibly the single most amazing screen I've ever used (Radiance). I know that the screen won't impress but I'm going for battery life and pure tweaked speed. Once the machine has been un-boxed I instantly preferred the look of the 5330m but seeing as that has very poor battery life I’ll carry on with the 131. It is a nice machine and something about it reminds me of the Latitude XT/XT2? Basically it has Dell written all over it.

Other points:
- I love the keyboard as it’s fantastic. Prefer this one to the Pro/Elite keyboards
- The backlit keys are very nice (Prefer the 5330m)
- Build quality is very good. This might take a couple of mild knocks before exploding
- The screen is very thin so don’t press too much on the back or front
- When moving the screen the section under the hinges move ever so slightly
- The screen isn’t that bad (But NOWHERE near as amazing as the Radiance)
- Absolutely silent (More late when I’m finished tweaking)
- Quite a bit of flex just under the keyboard and to the right. Could worry a few people)

Statistics: ( 46 seconds from off to desktop and then left for 5 minutes)

Dell Vostro 131 – 80 processes, 744Mb being used
Windows index score
3.9 cpu (Celeron)
5.5 Ram (Only 2Gb)
4.2 GPU
5.5 Gaming
5.9 Hdisk

HP 5330m - 98 processes, 1.01Gb being used,
Windows index score:
6.4 cpu (Core i3-2310m)
5.5 Ram (Only 2Gb)
4.5 GPU
6.0 Gaming
5.9 Hdisk

HP Probook 6460b - 101 processes, 1.50Gb being used
Windows index score:
6.9 CPU (Core i5)
5.9 Ram (4Gb)
4.7 Graphics
6.1 Gaming
5.9 Hdisk

I could not believe that Hp shipped a machine with 101 running processes but then again Dell isn’t that far behind. Either way the 131 stands up to the other models quite well (Apart from CPU)

Idle temperature of the 131 using the Dell power option: 39c


More in a moment (On Monday/Tuesday I'll be clean installing Win 7 onto an SSD)

 

Bloatware: (All removed or as suggested below, my own preference)
- Adobe reader X MUI
- Bing bar
- Dell backup and restore
- Dell datasafe online
- Dell support center
- Java
- Microsoft Office 2010 (Not bloat but I don't need this version)
- Silverlight
- Microsoft SQL Server 2005 compact edition
- Skype Toolbars
- Skype 4.2
- Trend Micro Client/server security agent
- Windows Live messenger (I do use live but removing for this)
- Windows live mesh Active X controls for remote etc...

You might not see the above as bloatware . Not a lot to remove in the great scheme of things. Well done Dell.

Dell Vostro 131 – 63 processes, 818Mb being used. 52 seconds from off to desktop. Bit mad to increase in time but Superfetch is doing it's thing (Another reboot and now down to 42 seconds from off to desktop)

 

Awesome. CPU sounds good enough for me. Before you install SSD, can you please run PCMark Vantage and let us know your score? Also, can you check if it can run 1080p YouTube video nicely? Thanks in advance!