After yesterdays review of the Lenovo G50 I decided I need to review another device in the same price range. The new Dell Inspiron 11 3000 series Convertible laptop seemed like a very good choice. Let’s see what we get with this little Dell.
Dell Inspiron 11 11.6-Inch Convertible (i3148-8840sLV) Review
The Exterior
We are looking at a Convertible Laptop. This means it can be used either as a regular laptop or be turned into various configurations all the way to a fully functional tablet.
The entire body is finished in a matte metallic silver finish. The top cover gets a big shined black Dell logo in black right in the middle and is connected to the rest of the body with 2 sturdy 2 way hinges. These hinges will get a lot of wear and tear during all the maneuvering the display will see in its lifetime and it’s a good thing they are solid.
On the inside we find the 11.6-Inch touchscreen display covered by one peace of glass edge to edge. It is surrounded by a black border that contains the integrated webcam, dual michrophone and ambient light sensor in the middle of the top edge.
As a final feature the display features a start button located at the bottom of the display right in the middle. This is there to help you use the laptop in tablet mode, giving you quick access to the start menu.
The body gets a contrasting matte black keyboard and a generously proportioned touchpad.
The built in stereo speakers are located on each side of the body. The power button and 2 volume buttons are mounted on the right side of the body.
The overall simple and elegant design is kept throwout the entire body. Dell has taken the time to make this Laptop look as well built as possible going as far as hiding the edges of the body panels out of sight. Have a look at this photo:
The Dell Inspiron 11 is still very much functional while having a very good fit and finish. Dell is on top of their design game right now. Most of the Dells we’ve seen recently have been very well built.
The Connectivity
Due to its small size and build details some connectivity aspects had to suffer.
As you might expect at this size it doesn’t feature a DVD-drive or a VGA-out, but the surprising thing to me is that it’s also lacking an Ethernet Lan port. I know we live in the 21st century and have mostly wireless everything but I see this as a very important port for a computer in general.
It comes equipped as follows:
Power port, HDMI-out 1 USB 3.0 and 1 USB 2.0 and the combo Headphone-Mic Jack on the left side of the body.
Kensington Lock port, SD Card Reader and another USB 2.0 Port on the right side of the body.
On the inside it features Wireless WiFi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.
Basically the Dell Inspiron 11 is geared toward mobility so that you can use it like you would a tablet.
The Performance
Due to the fact that we are looking at a Convertible Laptop and not a regular laptop the performance figures are actually good. It comes equipped with a 4th Generation Intel Core i3-4030U processor running at 1.90 GHz 4GB of DDR3L RAM and a 500GB HDD. The 4th Generation Core processors come with the Intel HD 4400 graphics card and are as standard equipped to run basic 3D applications. As long as you don’t get carried away and try to run recent name title games you will be able to run some older games.
It comes equipped with a 3-cell Battery with 43 WHr of energy. This, in combination with the ULV Processor and DDR3L RAM mean the Dell Inspiron 11 can be used on the go for over 5 hours. Some people have managed to even go for 8 hours if you baby it, but I think for everyone else with regular usage on the go you can expect about 5 to 6 hours of battery life.
