Dell Inspiron 15

Full Review

One of the best value for money laptops out there, the Dell Inspiron 15 is still a good choice for your money. The looks have changed from when we last reviewed the Dell Inspiron 1525—the silver bezel, keyboard, palmrest and touchpad have changed to a glossy black. However, the design remains the same. The 15.6-inch glossy screen is still pretty good and the build quality is decent, and Dell hasn't done much wrong with its entry level laptop contender. For the money you pay, the Inspiron 15 offers good features. A Core 2 Duo T6400 2-GHz processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, and a 250GB hard drive are at the heart of the setup. There's Windows Vista Home Basic thrown in as well. However, there was the obvious disappointing omission of Draft-N Wi-Fi and Gigabit ethernet. It did come with a multicard reader, a DVD writer, and the regular headphone and microphone jacks for audio ports, though. The whole unit weighed in at 2.5-kg, except the power adapter—lighter than the Acer Aspire 5738 and the second lightest laptop in the Top 5 Budget Laptops. Performance wasn't an issue with the Dell. And a WorldBench score of 81 is vindicative of that fact. Similarly PC Mark 05 score of 4359, PC Mark Vantage score of 2291 are pretty good, while a battery life of 2 hours 35 minutes is acceptable from its 3-cell battery. You can't ask for more from a budget laptop. No complaints during day-to-day usage, whether it’s browsing the Web or relaxing with a DVD movie. The only thing you can’t do here is gaming, but who wants to do that on a budget laptop? On the usability front, the Dell Inspiron 15 is a good laptop to work on. Keyboard's good to type on, screen is nice and even, touchpad is quick and responsive, and the all-black look nice and simple. The onboard sound wasn't up to mark, though, like most laptops—we recommend headphones. But then this isn't primarily a multimedia machine (like the Studio XPS 13), just a good budget laptop at an unmatched price.

Bottom Line

The Inspiron 15 is a very good balance between price and performance, and also the most inexpensive at Rs. 33,899. What's more, Dell's website lets you pick and choose the Inspiron 15's configuration before placing an order.