Laptops come in different forms, sizes, and features to cater to multiple types of users – casual, gamer, multimedia-heavy user, and business workers, to name a few.
The Dell Vostro 14 5000 is made for the latter. And with that said, can it take on the tasks of a user whose priority is productivity on-the-go? Let’s find out.
Table of Contents
Design and Construction
Right off the bat, the Vostro 14 5000 doesn’t exhibit the sleekness of an ultrabook or the intimidation of a gaming laptop. It’s simple to the point that it’s almost industrial. The graphite silver color is far from eye-catching but helps in keeping its appearance true to its nature.
The build is a combination of metal and plastic. The top lid is cool to the touch with a matte finish to resist those stubborn fingerprints and smudges.
Looking inside, there’s the plastic bezel that houses the webcam and microphone. The chiclet-style keyboard is plastic as well but the surrounding area, including the palm rests, are metal. There’s no backlighting and the keys are a bit soft to our liking but it’s well-spaced and comfortable to type on. The trackpad, on the other hand, is spacious enough and smooth.
As for the ports, this is where it’s productivity-centeredness comes to play. On the left are the AC power, Ethernet port, HDMI, two USB 3.0 ports, and combo jack. On the right are the security lock, VGA, another USB 3.0 but with PowerShare, and a 3-in-1 card reader.
These ports may be trivial to some but in an office environment where you have to plug it in plenty of peripherals such as projectors, monitors, printers, scanners, even mobile devices, these ports provide a big advantage.
Looking underneath, we have the speakers located on the left and right-hand sides. The air vent is also visible here along with two rubber strips as its feet.
Overall, the Vostro 14 5000 looks subtle yet with a certain degree of attractiveness that exudes business. It’s a bit chunky at 18.5 mm but can be lugged around at 1.59 kg. It’ll look at home on an office desk, conference room, or even a coffee shop table, granted that you’re wearing an office attire.
Display and Multimedia
The display part is where the Vostro 14 5000 falls short. Although the 14-inch anti-glare screen is bright, the screen has a narrow viewing angle and the resolution maxes out at 1366 x 768. At this rate, the pixels are very evident and could feel like a downgrade if you’re used to high-resolution screens.
Despite the low resolution, the 14-inch panel is large enough for watching videos or for presentation purposes like showing your PowerPoint slides or Excel sheets. The speakers, software enhanced by Waves MaxxAudio Pro, are also loud and sound good which means you don’t always have to connect it to an external speaker unless really necessary.
OS and Apps
Running the software department is Windows 10 Pro which means you get features that you don’t normally get in, let’s say, Windows 10 Home, such as Windows Update for Business, Windows Store for Business, Remote Desktop, Group policy management, Remote Desktop, Assigned Access, BitLocker encryption software, and the ability to create and join a domain (work network), to name a few. In other words, these are features that are often required in a corporate environment or those running small to medium businesses.
Pre-installed apps are found here as well, mostly from Dell: Dell Digital Delivery, Dell Foundation Services, Dell Support Assist, and Dell Update. These apps don’t eat a lot of space and still has 884GB of usable storage space out of the 1TB.
Performance and Benchmarks
Powering the notebook is a 7th-gen Intel Core i5-7200U CPU clocked at 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce 940MX GPU. That said, this laptop can handle productivity tasks and more such as photo and video editing, even some moderate gaming. Although the 4GB RAM can be a bottleneck if you’re running plenty of applications at the same time.
So far performance is good and we didn’t encounter any crashes. It’s a bit sluggish though after boot up but catches up after a couple of minutes. There’s some warming by the right palm rest and the vents underneath as well. It’s tolerable but you might want to keep using on a desk instead of your lap if you want to feel comfortable.
As for the benchmarks, check out the results below:
Battery Life
Providing juice for the Vostro 14 5000 is a 3-cell cylindrical lithium ion 42WHr battery. When used for heavy web browsing which includes social media and video streaming, as well as some Word processing which includes this review, it got us around 4 to 5 hours before we had to charge.
Using our standard video loop test which involves playing a full HD video on loop at Airplane mode at 50% brightness and volume with headset plugged in, we only got 3 hours and 40 minutes worth of playback.
Conclusion
The Dell Vostro 14 5000 is a capable notebook for business workers. It has a large display, subtle design, a dedicated GPU, large storage, plenty of ports, and runs Windows 10 Pro. There are downsides, though, like the low-resolution display, limited viewing angles, and short battery life. It’s also a bit pricey starting at Php51,000 but it’s less expensive compared to ultrabooks. As a laptop for corporate productivity, the Vostro 14 5000 is a capable workhorse.
Dell Vostro 14 5000 specs:
14-inch HD 1366 x 768 anti-glare LED display
2.5GHz 7th-Gen Intel Core i5-i7200U CPU
NVIDIA GeForce 940MX GPU
4GB RAM
1TB HDD
WiFi 802.11ac
Bluetooth
Integrated stereo speakers (2W x 2)
720p HD webcam
VGA & HDMI out
RJ-45
headphone/mic combo jack
2x USB 3.0
USB 3.0 w/ PowerShare
Gigabit Ethernet
SD card reader
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
3-cell cylindrical lithium ion battery (42WHr)
240 x 340 x 18.5mm
1.59kg
Pros:
* Large display
* Industrial look
* Plenty of ports
* Windows 10 Pro
Cons:
* Low-res display
* Short battery life
