Launched almost a year ago, the Vostro line-up of laptops primarily targeted towards small and medium business segment received instant popularity from people because of their right pricing and decent performance.

Another addition to the Vostro series is the Vostro 1200, a sleek yet stylish portable laptop aimed particularly at frequently travelling business users who want high computing power while on the move. Although not very slim but still Dell has managed to keep the weight to around 2.1 Kgs to enhance portability.

Vostro series has a distinct greyish black colour tone that looks good and makes these laptops to look good even after months of usage as colour fading is hardly noticeable.

Display is bright and comfortable 12.1in LCD, having a native resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. It reproduces crisp and vibrant visuals while having wide viewing angles. This Laptop also has a 2 MP webcam onboard along with dual microphones for a hands-free experience while doing Audio or Video conferencing.

The keyboard is good and the keys are nicely laid out for maximum comfort. But there are a few concern areas that user may find discomforting. For instance the scroll keys are small and cramped for space. The "FN" or the function key is present on the extreme lower end of the keyboard. As a result you will definitely end up pressing that key several times during the day while working which may become a source of irritant.

Performance wise, PC mark 05 score of 4063 and 3D mark 05 score of 561 shows that this laptop is a decent performer for applications like MS office, Photoshop and Corel Draw. Compared to other laptops like Dell Vostro 1400 and Fujitsu S7211 which have almost similar configurations and price, the computing score of Dell Vostro 1200 was slightly better than both the other notebooks though it underperformed on graphics, which means this machine is not at all meant for high 3D intensive applications. Over all this business notebook delivers good performance, without burning a hole in the buyers pocket.

Battery backup time of 2 hours and 27 minutes under standard test conditions is good enough for business laptops though more was expected and can be attained with bigger batteries.

To sum it up, the Dell Vostro 1200 turns out to be a ‘value for money’ notebook for those who want computing on the move. But with Intel Centrino 2 platform becoming common for Cheap Laptops too, which provide better performance both on computing and graphics, it might be a good idea to consider it as well before making up your mind.