Audio

The 1310 suffers from very poor sound quality. The tiny mono speaker on the right side of the power and battery indicators produces very flat sound, with almost no bass and no range. Though decent enough for lectures, podcasts, and other forms of audio that would suffice in mono, music simply sounds dull and becomes distorted when turned up high. The tinny sound produced by the speakers is a major disappointment since other portable notebooks in the same class have superb stereo sound. A good pair of stereo headphones will yield much better sound, but not to see it integrated in this notebook is a major downfall and a turn off to many.

Heat & Noise

This is where the 1310 shines and earns its praise. Under idle conditions and even full load, the notebook does a great job in remaining cool. The system fan rarely kicks up so the notebook stays virtually silent. Only when you stress out the CPU for awhile is when the fan turns up high, and even then it is very quiet. The heatsink and fan truly do an exceptional job dissipating the heat. It is definitely one of the more quiet notebooks on the market. Unlike the XPS M1330, neither the bottom nor the palm rests of the 1310 get too hot, so there are no issues using it for an extended period of time. Under an ambient temperature of 25C (77F), the notebook remained at 42C idle and 62C under full load. In both cases, the notebook felt cool to slightly warm to the touch with the fan barely audible.