Notebook Review: Dell Vostro 3400

Something old: "Vostro," Dell says, is Latin for "yours." Something new: one of Intel's latest 32-nanometer-process mobile CPUs, the Core i5-430M, with the chipmaker's Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost technologies. Something borrowed: One of the USB 2.0 ports doubles as an eSATA port for external storage solutions. Something blue: Bluetooth wireless is standard, as is 802.11b/g/n WiFi.

This is not to imply that the Dell Vostro 3400 actually qualifies as a bride. But the odds are pretty good that you can have a long and happy relationship with it.

The 3400 is the 14-inch model in a lineup of small-business laptops that spans from the 13.3-inch Vostro 3300 to the 15.6-inch Vostro 3500 and 17.3-inch model 3700. Prices for the 3400 start at $549 with a Core i3 processor, 2GB of RAM, and Intel integrated graphics.

Our test unit was a "FastTrack" or ready-to-ship configuration on Dell's site with the Core i5, 4GB of DDR3 system memory -- which is 1GB more than the preinstalled 32-bit Windows 7 Professional can actually use -- and Nvidia GeForce 310M graphics with their own 512MB of memory. It's listed at $949 with an instant discount to $824.

We would have balked at the first figure, but the latter is a more appealing price, and the Vostro is an appealing notebook computer -- a medium-slim slab (9.5 by 13.4 by 1.2 inches) weighing a fraction under five pounds. Decorated with a matte silver lid (Aberdeen Silver, Dell calls it; Lucerne Red is a $40 option) and black keyboard and palm rest with a chrome logo under the display, it's a handsome, easy-to-carry piece of equipment.

Headphone and microphone jacks are conveniently located on the system's front edge, next to an on/off switch for the wireless radios. At the left are VGA and HDMI ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and the eSATA/USB port; along the right side are Gigabit Ethernet and another USB port, ExpressCard and SD/MMC/MS flash-card slots, and the tray-loading DVD±RW burner. That's about all the connectivity you could ask for, unless you ask for DisplayPort and USB 3.0.

Plenty of Performance

The 14-inch display doesn't offer the world's highest resolution (it's 1,366 by 768), but it's sunny and sharp, washday-white at its highest brightness setting and pretty good even with brightness dialed down by one-third to one-half for the sake of battery savings. Colors are vivid and fine details are clear.

The keyboard is exemplary -- keys where they should be with no odd layout quirks, dedicated cursor control keys in addition to the cursor arrows, a slightly shallow but crisp typing feel. We even like the LED-backlit icons above the keyboard for Num Lock and Caps Lock, which are joined by backlit multimedia control keys (play/pause, stop, next/previous, and volume controls) that strobe attractively when the Vostro boots up.

The touchpad below the keyboard and its buttons are amply sized and work with precision. To the right of the touchpad is a fingerprint reader paired with friendly-to-use Digital Persona login software.

Even with a 32-bit instead of the 64-bit OS that could take advantage of all 4GB of memory, the dual-core, four-thread 2.26GHz CPU, GeForce graphics, and 320GB Seagate 7,200-rpm hard drive make the 3400 an impressive performer, with its graphics particularly within hailing distance of the Core i7-powered HP EliteBook 8440w mobile workstation we tested last month.

The Vostro showed its vigor with scores of 5,587 in PCMark Vantage and 3,649 in 3DMark06. It rendered Cinebench R10's sample scene in 2 minutes and 18 seconds and cruised through R11.5's OpenGL animation at 8.5 frames per second.

Running fullscreen with 4x antialiasing, the Dell managed 5.3 fps in the Heaven 2.0 DirectX 11 benchmark. Its cooling fan got a little loud during the stress of our benchmarks, but wasn't noticeable during everyday use.

Battery life is adequate if unexceptional: The standard six-cell battery lasted for two hours of DVD viewing or between three and a half and four hours of real-world work. An optional nine-cell pack protrudes from the notebook's bottom to prop the unit at an angle for desktop typing.

The Vostro is happily free of bloatware, although the preinstalled Trend Micro Internet Security is good for just 30 days (15 months of protection is a $59 option). Its warranty includes one year of next-business-day on-site service.

We're biased toward blazing performance, so we like the Core i5- and GeForce-equipped Vostro 3400 despite its slightly steep $824 price. Realistically, most IT managers would opt to save money by configuring a Core i3 model with integrated graphics, which would be fine for most office productivity applications.

Either way, the 3400 is one tempting trimline -- a winning balance of portability and power.