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| Edited By: R Krishna |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 11, 2018, 04:45 AM IST
The Inspiron series of laptops from Dell is aimed at the mainstream buyer, packing in just the right amount of power to pull off tasks such as browsing the Web, document editing, watching movies and basic gaming with ease. The problem: there is very little to distinguish such laptops from competitors. To add a little more oomph to series, Dell recently launched the Inspiron 14R Special Edition, which I used for a week.
I am not much into patterns and flashy colours that laptops come in these days, but I loved the black honeycomb pattern set against the grey body of the Inspiron 14R SE. Rounded corners and the neat-looking keyboard give it an elegant look, justifying the ‘Special Edition’ tag.
The other feature that Dell has incorporated to make this laptop stand out from the crowd is Skullcandy speakers. This makes a marked difference while watching movies, playing games, and, obviously, playing music.
The build quality is excellent for this class of laptops. The chiclet style keyboard is well laid out, and typing on it is a great experience. The generous trackpad worked without a flaw, as the buttons yielded easily to pressure from the fingers.
The review unit was pretty loaded — 3rd generation Intel Core i5 processor, 500GB hard disk, 4GB RAM, and an Nvidia graphics card. With such a configuration, the functioning was smooth all the way. And thanks to the dedicated graphics card, the laptop can also run a fair number of games if you are into them.
Screens have been an issue with some of the earlier Inspiron laptops. But I found nothing to complain about the screen on this laptop in terms of brightness, colour representation and viewing angles. The screen resolution of 1366x768 though is on the lower side.
Finally, the price. the Inspiron 14R Special Edition costs Rs51,146 + taxes. Now, that is a pretty steep price, considering that there are a handful of ultrabooks which come in the same range. Ultrabooks are more portable and power efficient than laptops —both, important considerations for many.
Overall, there really are no serious complaints with the laptop. In fact, Dell has set the standards when it comes to entry-level laptops with this model. But the price is its biggest weakness. But for that, I would have recommended this laptop whole-heartedly.
