Dell Vostro 15 3568
A good-value office laptop that’s let down by its screen and outclassed by the HP
SCORE★★★☆☆ PRICE £391 (£469 inc VAT) from cclonline.com
The Vostro 15 3568 hails from Dell’s small business range, and that’s reflected in an old-school design. Yet, while it’s heavy at 2.1kg, the design yields some positives. The large keyboard surround gives plenty of space to rest your wrists while typing and it’s impressively robust.
That size also means there’s plenty of room for the keyboard, and we liked the large, flat-topped keys and their light, clicky action. There’s room for a separate numeric pad, too. The trackpad is just as sizable, and works well both for precise work and multitouch gestures. Connectivity isn’t cutting-edge, with no USB-C port, but you still get 802.11ac Wi-Fi and built-in Gigabit Ethernet. The Vostro is also one of only two laptops on test with a DVD writer.
While the Vostro 15 we tested came with a seventh-gen Core i3-7100U and 4GB of RAM, an extra £33 will net you a Core i5-7200U. It’s worth thinking about, as our review model lagged behind laptops with the faster CPU.
Our battery life test saw the Vostro looping video for nearly seven hours, so it could last an average working day. It’s more likely to spend most of its time sitting on a desk than on the move, anyway, so the compact charger won’t be too far away.
So there’s much to like, but the Vostro has two flaws. The first – rather brutish audio – isn’t much of an issue, and both the microphone and speakers hold up well in Skype conversations. The screen, however, lets it down. The combination of the 15.6in screen size and a 1,366 x 768 resolution means the display has a grainy, pixelated look, and with a peak brightness of 239cd/m2, you don’t get the brightness or vibrant colour of the screens on the Medion or Asus laptops. Colour accuracy is again below par, while the panel can only handle 52.4% of the sRGB gamut. The final nail: viewing angles are poor.
The Vostro still offers good value to small business users, but its biggest problem is out of Dell’s hands: spend a little more on the HP 250 G5, and you get a faster laptop that’s just as usable – and with a better, Full HD screen.