Prime Notebook Computer Review

Dell’s Inspiron laptops have always been the brand’s middle-of-the-road workhorse: equally likely to turn up in a dorm room or coffee shop as at your mom’s kitchen table. Dell periodically gives the series a physical makeover, but small differences in fit and finish are almost beside the point; this is still the go-to laptop line for reasonably priced systems that offer mainstream performance at palatable prices. The new Inspiron 15R is built around Intel’s Core i3 and i5 processors, with a handful of upgrades available for hard drives and basic discrete graphics (the same goes for the 14-inch version, the Inspiron 14R). Our review unit included a 2.26GHz Core i3, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive, for a total cost of $639.

The newly redesigned Inspiron 15R offers a much cleaner and sleeker look and feel compared to past models. Similar to the Adamo-series, the layout has a hinge-forward design with the screen positioned just slightly in front of the back edge of the chassis. The outside appearance of the new 15R is very stylish, with a faux-brushed metal screen cover. The look gives the appearance of metal, although with an easier to clean painted surface.

The screen cover has moderate protection for the LCD, with only strong pressure to the back of the panel causing ripples. The screen has no problem staying put with two strong hinges that get the display into position and hold it without any wiggle. Users looking to upgrade the RAM inside the Dell Inspiron 15R will find the process quite easy.

The 15.6-inch display has a standard 1,366×768-pixel resolution, which is the default for everything from upscale 10-inch Netbooks, to 13-inch models, to most 14- and 15-inch midsize laptops. That’s fine for Web surfing, DVD playback, and online streaming from sites such as Hulu or Netflix, but it’s not true 1080p HD.

The most interesting thing about the new Inspiron’s ports and connections is that they’re spread over three of the four edges of the system. The left side has an HDMI port, one USB, and audio jacks; the right side has the SD card slot, DVD tray, the USB/eSATA port, and the Ethernet jack; and the rear edge has the VGA port, power plug, and two additional USB ports. It’s rare to see so many ports on the rear edge, but some people appreciate being able to route wires directly from the back.

Unlike previous generations of Dell Inspiron laptops, you don’t get the nearly limitless build-to-order configuration options Dell is known for. Instead, we found about a dozen preconfigured models, which to be fair, cover just about every variation. You can drop down to a non-Core Pentium P6000 CPU with 3GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive for $599, or move up to a Core i5 with 6GB of RAM, Blu-ray, a 640GB hard drive, and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD5470 GPU for $974, with plenty of stops in between.

Our review unit clocked in at $639, with a 2.26GHz Intel Core i3 M350 CPU and 4GB of RAM. In our CNET Labs benchmark tests, it performed on par with other current Core i3 laptops, but there was a notable bump in performance for otherwise similar systems that move up to a Core i5 processor, such as the HP dm4. Most Core i5 midsize laptops will run you an additional $200 or more, so the speed boost may not be worth it, as the Core i3 is perfectly fine for the vast majority of everyday uses (although Dell currently has a 15R configuration with a Core i5 CPU for $709).

The Dell Inspiron 15R comes standard with a 48Wh 6-cell battery, which worked surprisingly well in our tests. An optional 9-cell 90WH battery is also offered with some configurations if you needed extended runtime. In our tests with the screen brightness reduced to 70%, wireless active and refreshing a webpage ever 60 seconds, and Windows set to the Balanced profile, the Inspiron 15R stayed on for 3 hours and 43 minutes. While the number was fairly decent for a budget notebook, we were surprised the time was identical to what we saw on the larger Inspiron 17R.

The Inspiron 15R is a budget-friendly 15.6-inch notebook based around the latest Intel platform. With a base configuration including the Intel Core i3 370M processor, 4GB of RAM, and Intel GMA HD graphics, the 15R easily outperforms budget and midrange notebooks of yesteryear. For the average user, this machine is more than capable for pretty much all activities except gaming. Even when it came to decoding HD movies, the 15R handled it with ease. With a starting price of $549, the 15R deserves a spot on your shopping list if you are looking for a new notebook.