Dell
Inspiron 15R
Good
usability compensates for poor portability
Dell
has been on good form recently, releasing a wealth of great laptops. And, while
the Inspiron 15R (£429 inc. VAT) has been around for six months now; it’s still
a good choice thanks to the strong performance, usability and design.
If
the Inspiron 15R has a flaw, it’s the lack of portability thanks to its rather
chunky measurements and 2.7kg weight. You’ll be able to fit it into your laptop
bag, but the extra weight is noticeable. Still, we feel that despite its
proportions, the Inspiron 15R has a nice design.
It
features Dell’s SWITCH interchangeable lids, meaning if you don’t like the
pattern on the top of the machine you can buy a different one and simply switch
it round. A neat idea, except for the fact that each lid retails for around £30
- far too much in our opinion.
The
rest of the laptop chassis is a glossy black with a large touchpad and a
comfortable isolation-style keyboard. Although the keyboard flexes during
typing, the keys are well-sized with a decent amount of travel. A small touch
is labelling the uppermost F-keys that double as shortcut functions in orange.
This stands out against the black keyboard and makes altering volume or
brightness a quick and easy experience.
Integrated
graphics
 |
If the Inspiron 15R's art-filled lid is a little too much for your
tastes,
it's easy to replace with a gentler design - but at a price
|
The
Inspiron 15R is built around a second-generation Intel Core i5 processor with
4GB of RAM. The lack of a dedicated graphics card isn’t a serious omission as
the integrated Intel HD Graphics card can handle its fair share of image
rendering. While Battlefield 3 is off-limits, you can certainly enjoy older
games as well as watching movies or YouTube clips.
In
fact, we’d recommend this machine if you plan to watch a lot of media, because
the 15.6-inch Super-TFT coated screen is a highlight. It’s bright, crisp and
clear and the panel boasts a good viewing angle. Text on the screen is easily
readable, even if you’re not looking at it front on.
As
we mentioned earlier, portability is a little dubious here and isn’t helped by
the 154-minute battery life the Dell managed during our tests. Part of that is
due to the brightness of the screen and the volume achievable through the
speakers, but we would still have liked to see it last longer. If you’re
planning to use your new laptop on the move, then you might want to look
elsewhere.
That
said, there are a healthy selection of features available on the Inspiron 15R
that include an HDMI port for connecting to an external monitor or HDTV and an
eSata port for transferring data to and from compatible hard drives at high
speed. Something you might want to consider if you have a lot of data to store
- although the 500GB internal hard drive is not to be sniffed at.
eSata - External SATA works in the same way as internal versions. It's a high-speed alternative to USB, especially for external hard drives.
Elsewhere
you have two USB ports, a VGA and Ethernet port, 8-in-1
card reader and a DVD rewritable optical drive.
Overall,
despite shortcomings such as the battery life and a slight lack of portability,
we took a shine to the Inspiron 15R and feel it works well as a family laptop
and media machine. Offering good value for money and the (expensive) option to
customise the design, this is a worthwhile choice for anyone looking to pick up
a new laptop.
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