News - Dell's Vostro V13 could be the business-class notebook for everyone

[HEXUS]

Ultra-thin, ultra-light, promises a full-sized laptop experience, looks gorgeous, and it's relatively cheap, too. What's not to like?

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[Flewis]

Im impressed how good that looks, for that sort of laptop you would expect to pay a great deal more.

Makes me tempted to get one.

[Saracen]

Now that looks interesting. It just might be a good compromise for those (like me) that want a small and light notebook and a bit more than a netbook.

But my first concern is that an optical drive is an optional extra, according to the specs on Dell's Singapore website. I didn't check detail, but it looks like an external drive, and that is a concern. On the one hand, it keeps weight down when you don't need it, but on the other and, an external drive always weights a lot more than an internal one so adds to weight (and considerably to inconvenience) if you carry it around, and in the past, I've found that with an external drive I don't have it with me when I need it.

Secondly, there's often a trade-off between a bit of extra weight and battery power. It'd be useful to see some evaluation of battery life. Any chance of getting one in for a review?

Other than that, this looks very tempting and I'm actually looking at the moment.

[UseItNow]

Nice, good price tag too from a quick glance at that part!

[rscott]

The price difference between this spec'd out to something that isn't a glorified netbook and an ASUS UL80Vt-A1 isn't that much at all, and with that you're getting discrete graphics and class leading battery life. Sure it weighs in at around a pound heavier, but you're getting a bigger battery and an integrated optical drive.