The company announced today that it is preparing a new line of designs for its Vostro laptop series. With the new models comes the 13.3-inch Vostro 1310, which will replace the current 14-inch model; also, "facelifts" were given to the 15.4-inch Vostro 1500 series (the new version will be called Vostro 1510) and the 17-inch model, which will be known as 1710.

The main difference between the the old and the upcoming is the switch to slot-loading optical drives, which will make the new Vostro notebooks thinner and lighter.

The Vostro 1310, featuring a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo T5670, 1GB of memory, a 160GB hard drive and Intel GMAX3100 integrated graphics, will be made available for the price of $749. The Vostro 1510, coming at you with a 1.86GHz Celeron 540, 1GB of memory, an 80GB hard drive and Intel GMAX3100 integrated graphics, starts at $599. Both 1310 and 1510 will come with a feature called "Trusted Platform Module 1.2" which was developed in order to prevent data theft and illegal network access, as well as with a pre-installed version of McAfee Total Protection for Small Business.

"Listening to customers and acting quickly on their feedback to improve our products and services sets Dell apart," Frank Muehleman, vice president and general manager, Dell Small and Medium Business, said. "For example, customers told us in a recent global laptop study that data protection and pre-installed security software are, by far, the most important security features."

According to the company, the new products perfectly correspond to what people want these days; sale numbers will soon tell whether Dell was right. For now, the two computers have been launched in Europe, Middle East and Africa and they will reach the Americas and Asia Pacific at the beginning of May.