Dell Inspiron 15 review: a laptop capable of the best and the worst

The design of the Dell Inspiron 15 is particularly sober. Its rough black plastic shell is devoid of chrome or insert. Only a logo on the shell marks the belonging of this laptop to the brand.
The plastic, a real magnet with fingerprints, is easy to clean, but it is easily scratched.

The opening lets glimpse a keyboard with a non-backlit numeric keypad. The keys are made of the same plastic as the shell and the typing is correct. However, we regret a pumping effect of the keyboard, especially in the center of it, a sign of a lack of rigidity of the entire chassis. Upon inspection, it turns out that when closed, the back of the screen sinks sharply, like the keyboard.

The numeric keypad has a smooth glide. The two clicks hidden under the coating are noisy. Windows 3- and 4-finger gestures are perfectly taken into account, however drag and drop is impossible, the click being far too hard to maintain with your fingertip.

The connection consists of an HDMI port, an SD card reader, a USB 2.0 port and two USB 3.0 ports, a power outlet and a mini-jack plug complete this set.

Wireless connectivity is made up of a wifi 5 chip (802.11ac) and Bluetooth 5.0. The webcam with a definition of 720p does not work miracles; details are blurry, or even absent.

The small Intel Core i3 is cooled using a fan and a small radiator, a heat pipe connecting to the processor.
Thermal imaging does not reveal a real cooling gap. After 15 minutes of video encoding, the keys remain below 37 ° C, with a hot spot on the back of the processor, i.e. in the area of ​​the Z, Q, S and D keys. right side of the screen is obviously the hottest part, and remains below the 44 ° C mark.

It is at the level of noise pollution that the shoe pinches. 38.5 dB readings, it is 3 dB above theAsus VivoBook S513EA equipped with the same processor, which corresponds to a doubling of noise pollution perceived by the human ear. Dell could have made an effort on this point.

Disassembly is easy by removing 8 Phillips screws. The shell then unclips easily, since two screws remain attached to it and lift it slightly once out of their screw thread.

Two surprises during disassembly: the first concerns the presence of a single memory bar, which will inevitably affect performance; we talk about it in the Performance section. The second, more significant, concerns the presence of a 2.5-inch slot, with screws and connection cable for an SSD. Apart from the processor, the rest are easily removable and replaceable.

Our Inspiron 15 3511 has an Intel Core i3-1115G4 processor. It is composed of two hyperthreaded cores that can reach 4.1 GHz with TDP of 28 W. Dell has accompanied it with a single 8 GB memory module, which has the effect of reducing performance. A 256 GB SSD of storage in 2230 format completes this configuration.

The performance of the Dell Inspiron 15 3511 thus equipped is not the most brilliant. Its index is only 34, which is 18% lower than that of the Asus VivoBook S13 equipped with the same processor. A difference due to various elements, starting with the RAM (DDR4-3200 in both cases) which benefits from less bandwidth due to its use in single-channel on the Dell machine – the Asus is in dual-channel. The processor also plays a role due to a less aggressive turbo frequency setting which, combined with a poor cooling system, results in a frequency that oscillates over a wide amplitude during heavy tasks.
It will therefore be necessary to reserve its use for office automation and video playback. Video games are obviously not his forte.

As usual, we tested Diablo 3 with all the details thoroughly in 1080p which normally does with the honors on the graphics cards integrated into the processors. In this specific case, the Intel UHD and the single-channel RAM can barely reach 13 fps. Overwatch is not at the party either, even with all the details at least: 22 fps, the game is barely playable.

The SSD confirms the office skills of this PC with speeds of 2.3 GB / s in reading and 500 MB / s in writing. These are obviously not of an exceptional level, but give the Dell Inspiron 15 3511 sufficient responsiveness for Windows 10 and opening software smoothly.

Dell has integrated a WVA panel with a resolution of 1920 x1080 px in this laptop. This type of panel allows you to obtain wider viewing angles than a TN panel, which normally equips entry-level PCs.

The performance of this WVA panel is quite common. Maximum brightness is 270 cd / m², which is currently the minimum for most manufacturers in this segment. Fortunately, the anti-reflective coating is effective (average reflectance of 16.5%).

Regarding colorimetry, the delta E is high (delta E of 6), since it is twice the limit at which the eye can distinguish drifts. The contrast of the panel is also quite low (1014: 1). In the dark, the blacks displayed are more gray than black. Finally, the color temperature is a little high: 6935 K, but nothing prohibitive, since the video standard is at 6500 K.

The audio equipment is provided by two loudspeakers located under the chassis, with of course the problems inherent in this location. The sound rendering will be influenced by the support on which the PC is placed. And very often, the hands on the keyboard muffle the sound volume.

Listening, the Pavilion 15 3511 offers a very correct sound reproduction, especially for the entry-level segment where it is placed. The rendering is all in mediums, with a slight box and megaphone effect, but we are far from the catastrophes of some PCs gaming which however have much more room to integrate a decent audio system.

The headphone output is also in the middle high, with enough power output to plug in high impedance headphones.

The Dell Inspiron 15 3511 measures 35.8 x 23.6 cm, is 1.89 cm thick and weighs 1.73 kg. The 65 W charger, for its part, weighs 315 g and brings the whole to just over 2 kg. This 15.6-inch is not intended to be moved daily, it can however be occasionally without problem.

With its 41 Wh battery, we did not expect a very long autonomy from the Dell Inspiron 15 3511. Thus, by following our test protocol (Netflix under Chrome at 200 cd / m², with volume at 50%) , the Inspiron turned off after 5 h 40 min of operation. If you are going to be leaving for the day, it would be a good idea to take your charger with you.