With its basic, no-frills design, Dell’s Inspiron 15 looks the part of a budget notebook ($499 with E-value code DNDPZU1). Fortunately, it performed better than expected, even keeping pace with higher-end, all-purpose laptops on some tests. At this price, you won’t get a webcam (it’s available as an upgrade), and this machine lacks an HDMI port. But, for students and families on a budget, the Inspiron 15’s combination of decent performance, nice ergonomics, and a bright, 16:9 display make it a sensible pick.
Design
The Inspiron 15 lacks most of the design flourishes you’d expect on a higher-end notebook: You won’t find any metal accents, multimedia controls, or glowing LED lights. As basic as the design is, though, it’s not unpleasant. We much prefer the matte lid on the Inspiron 15 to a glossy one, though, because it won’t pick up fingerprints (black, the color of our unit, is standard; nine other colors and patterns are available on Dell’s site, which cost $40 each).
On the inside, almost every component bears a glossy piano-black finish. The keyboard, however, has a matte, textured feel, as does the touchpad. The speaker strip, which stretches across the top of the chassis near the hinge, blends in so well it’s easy to overlook.
At 5.8 pounds, the Inspiron 15 isn’t light enough to shuttle around campus conveniently, although it’s certainly possible. The wide footprint (14.7 x 9.6 x 1.5 inches) also makes carrying it a little cumbersome, although it’s not as heavy as other mainstream notebooks, such as the new Gateway NV series, which starts at 6.8 pounds.
Keyboard and Touchpad
In a market full of island–style keyboards, the Inspiron 15’s large, close-set keys might seem dated. Nevertheless, they do what they’re supposed to: provide a sturdy, comfortable typing experience. With little hands-on time, we scored 81 words per minute on the Ten Thumbs typing test. Soon thereafter, our score rose to 88 words per minute, which is the highest score we’ve notched on our desktop computer.
The keyboard gets points, too, for not making much noise. The touch buttons are quiet, and we quickly warmed to their tactile feedback, which was neither too stiff nor too gummy. And its textured finish provided just the right amount of friction. For a machine this large, however, we would have expected a slightly taller touchpad than the Inspiron 15’s, which measures 1.8 x 3.0 inches.
Ports and Webcam
For its target audience (students and other budget-conscious shoppers), the Inspiron 15’s selection of ports is appropriate: Three USB 3.0 ports, VGA out, Ethernet, headphone and mic ports, an ExpressCard/34 slot, and a 7-in-1 memory card reader. These ports are evenly distributed between the notebook’s two sides, with the headphone and mic ports and memory card reader placed smartly on the front side (not having ports on the back is always a plus).
Although the 15.6-inch display will be large enough for many users, we wish the Inspiron 15 had an HDMI port. The lack of a webcam is also disappointing, especially because you’ll find this feature on most lower-cost netbooks; you can add one for $25 when configuring your system online.
Display and Audio
Like many consumer notebooks we’ve reviewed in the past 12 months, the Inspiron 15 has a wide, 16:9 display, whose extra pixels make it ideal for multitasking, as well as for watching movies (for the record: a 16:10 display would have been fine, too). As bright as our display was, our unit did not come with the LED-backlit option (a $25 upgrade).
The display’s 1366 x 768 resolution is standard for this screen size. Although very bright, the screen’s glossy finish limited our viewing angles: As soon as we pushed the lid forward, the picture began to wash out. When watching a Saturday Night Live clip on Hulu, we had slightly better luck when trying to view it from the sides.
When we watched an episode of Heroes on DVD, the show played smoothly, although when we pressed fast forward a few times to jump chapters, the optical drive took a few seconds to catch up, and the playback stuttered.
The speaker strip is, in a word: loud. Whereas many budget notebooks’ speakers are so weak that we usually leave the volume at or close to its maximum, the Inspiron 15’s speaker was so loud we didn’t feel the need to crank it past its median setting. As for quality, Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” and Santana’s “Maria, Maria” sounded somewhat tinny; while not unpleasant, these songs backbeats’ sounded more metallic than when we played them on our plastic Apple MacBook.
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