The good: Extremely customizable; good keyboard; solid construction.

The bad: Addons can get expensive; lack of extra ports.

The bottom line: As a highly configurable budget-range black box, Dell's Inspiron 15 laptop line can be a good value--as long as you don't pile on the upgrades.

Read full review of the Dell Inspiron 15 »

By Scott Stein
Aug 14, 2009

Dell is one of the most popular computer brands worldwide, and a default choice for many shoppers. Located right in the middle of the company's lineup, the Dell Inspiron 15 is one of the most versatile and affordable midrange laptops, offering configurations for as low as S$899 (US$648.58). We tried a configuration from Dell with a Core 2 Duo processor and 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon graphics, which cost S$1,353 (US$976.12), and which is not far off from the cost of more fully featured multimedia machines.

While our configuration was priced relatively high, remember that the Inspiron 15 line is essentially a ridiculously customizable laptop line that can cover a lot of bases. It's no surprise that it's "Dell's most popular laptop", simply because the Inspiron 15 line is literally and figuratively a giant black box--it can be made into a huge number of configs, which adds selective value for the consumer.

But, boy, can it get a bit confusing choosing everything from the CPU to the Wi-Fi card--perhaps preconfigured systems aren't such a bad idea after all.

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Do check directly with your local distributor for details.

Design

Covered in glossy black plastic on the inside and matte-black plastic on the outside, the Inspiron 15 looks as if it's headed off to an undercover sting. It's not an unattractive look overall, it's just not that distinctive and feels like too much black. A wide variety of other colors and designs (including Cherry Red, Promise Pink, Jade Green, Passion Purple, and...you get the idea) can be added for S$32.10 (US$23.16) each (the special Mike Ming designs go for S$111.28 (US$80.28)), which is not a bad deal if you're dead set on something with more flair.



The interior couldn't be any more minimal: Above a straightforward keyboard sits a lone silver power button, and below is a black touchpad with black buttons. With a matte texture, the touchpad was average sized and worked fine for our fingers. The old-fashioned tapered keys on the 15's keyboard had good response and travel, with decent spacing between keys, which made for comfortable typing with a few misses here and there. The base of the laptop, however, does feel a bit wide--they probably could have fit a number pad in there with some effort. That's it for buttons: All other controls are operated with the keyboard (but without needing to press the function key at the same time, which is nice).

The Dell Inspiron 15's 15.6-inch glossy widescreen LED screen has a native resolution of 1,366 x 768, which is standard for laptops in this price range (budget 15-inch systems typically have 1,280 x 800 displays). While a higher-resolution option is available (1,600 x 900), we found the screen to be perfectly adequate for most mainstream applications. Text and icons were easily readable, but the screen isn't full-HD (1080p) for true high-definition content.

Features

While glare was minimal during casual use, the colors and brightness seemed slightly less vibrant than other screens we've seen recently. One note on audio: The Inspiron 15's speakers are almost unusually loud and were more than adequate for games, music, or movies. We almost never had the volume above the halfway mark in the office.



Port-wise, the Inspiron 15 comes with three USB 2.0, VGA-out, and Ethernet/modem jacks, all fairly standard stuff, plus an SD card reader and an ExpressCard slot which is useful for adding a broadband modem. 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are part of the standard bundle.

Tags: Intel Core 2 Duo, Dell Inspiron 15, SD Card, Expresscard, Keyboard

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