Our verdict
At about the same price as a netbook, the Inspiron 15 offers a larger screen and plenty of basic computing power.
For
Very cheap
Comfortable keyboard
Much faster than netbooks of similar price
Works well
Against
Lackluster Reference Points
Soft design
No HDMI
Relatively short battery life
Talk about a deal. For $ 349, about the same price as a premium netbook, you can catch a Dell Inspiron 15 M5030. This 15-inch laptop is powered by an AMD Athlon II dual-core processor and has many of the features offered by other mainstream machines. Read on to find out how many compromises you need to make, and if this paper theft is really worth it.
Design
The Inspiron 15 M5030 is a basic black rectangle weighing 5.6 pounds, with no smooth curve or line. The most striking part of the system is the glossy black cover with the embossed chrome Dell logo in the center. By lifting the lid, the glossy black becomes a crop around the screen, the power button, and the edges of the lid and keyboard. The rest of the cover is a hard matte black, reminiscent of the forgotten underside of many budget laptops. Thankfully, the surface of the touchpad is a much smoother version of the matte black.
Unlike other Dells we've seen recently, such as the Inspiron 17R and XPS 15z, the Inspiron 15 replaces the deck-mounted hinge design with the hinge design we prefer. The profile of the Inspiron 15 is quite attractive, but the overall appearance of the laptop is soft, which is not surprising given the price.
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Heat
The Inspiron 15 remained comfortable and cool while sitting on your lap, although we realized that it was a little hotter near the power adapter port when we first unplugged the laptop. After streaming the 15-minute video, the Hulu Inspiron 15 warmed up to 89 degrees Fahrenheit at the bottom, while the touchpad measured 87, and the space between the G and H keys moved the mercury up to 93 degrees. We believe that anything below 95 degrees is convenient.
Keyboard and touchpad
The Inspiron 15 M5030 keyboard uses a traditional design with the keys positioned closest to each other, in contrast to the more modern chiclet style. However, we found that the keyboard was comfortable. In the Ten Thumbs Typing test, our score of 63 words per minute was identical to the one we achieved on the external keyboard. However, when pressed, we noticed that the keys make some noise, which may be due to a small amount of bending in the design. We love that the Inspiron 15 M5030 uses inverted function keys, which makes it easy to adjust the volume and brightness of the screen.
The 3.5 x 1.8-inch touchpad on the Inspiron 15 is spacious and features built-in mouse buttons that worked well. The touchpad itself is almost too sensitive; the arrow on the screen was a little nervous until we reduced the sensitivity on the control panel. Unfortunately, the pad doesn't support multi-touch gestures like zooming, but it does offer vertical, horizontal, and circular scrolling (the latter of which allows you to scroll by making a fingertip spiral on the touchpad).
The 15.6-inch 1366 x 768-pixel display on the Inspiron 15 M5030 is bright, but the colors looked a little washed out. While watching the 720p trailer for The Muppets on IMDb.com We noticed that Kermit didn't look as bright as on the other screens.
The sound of the Inspiron 15 M5030 was more than loud enough to fill a medium-sized room when we loaded Adele's "Rolling in the Deep," but the higher-range sound sounded hoarse and distorted at high volumes. Similarly, lower-range sounds are distorted at higher volumes. At lower volumes, the laptop sounded slightly better, but the overall sound was harsh.
Ports and webcam
The Inspiron 15 M5030 port extension is more like a netbook than a regular laptop. don't expect to find a USB 3.0 or even an HDMI port on the edges of this system. The Inspiron 15 has three USB 2.0 ports on the left side, two of which are stacked on top of each other, an Ethernet port and a VGA port. Under the front edge is a 3-in-1 card reader, as well as headphone and microphone jacks. On the right side is a DVD recorder and a slot for the Kensington lock.
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The 0.3-megapixel webcam on the Inspiron 15 M5030 showed better results than we expected. Our Skype caller reported that while it wasn't the brightest image he'd ever seen, it was still crisp and crisp. Dell also includes basic webcam software that gives users the ability to apply multiple scenes (fun / cursi) to their images.
Performance
Compared to other conventional laptops, the 2.3 GHz AMD Athlon II P360 processor inside the Inspiron 15 M5030 didn't surprise us, but it's great for connecting and performing performance-enhancing tasks. On PCMark Vantage, this laptop scored 3,318. This number is well above the average netbook (1,375), but well below the average for regular 5550 laptops and other budget 15-inch systems. The Toshiba Satellite L655D notched 4,140, while the HP Pavilion G6x reached an even higher 5,384.
However, we did not experience any delays in writing this review on a system with 13 tabs open in Google Chrome, three tabs in Firefox, and Windows Media Player open and active. The Inspiron 15 M5030 took 1 minute and 23 seconds to convert a 114MB MP4 file to AVI using Oxelon Media Encoder. This demo is 13 seconds below the average on a regular laptop and 22 seconds higher than the G6x, but still much faster than the netbook average (5:55).
In the internal LAPTOP file transfer test, where 4.97 GB of mixed media is copied from one folder on the hard drive to another, the Inspiron 15 fell slightly below the average time of 3: 17, completing the file transfer in 3 minutes and 31 seconds, resulting in a speed of 24.1 Mbps, 2 Mbps
The good thing is that we don't need to reboot the system frequently during our testing. Inspiron 15 took a whopping 1 minute and 32 seconds to load. This is 27 seconds longer than the average of a regular laptop, and longer than the L655D (1 minute, 10 seconds) and G6x (1 minute, 14 seconds).
Charts
Unsurprisingly, this budget machine isn't designed for late-night gaming parties unless there are a lot of Angry Birds involved in its game. The Inspiron 15 M5030 scored 1725 in 3DMark06, which is slightly lower than both the G6x (1826) and L655D (1817). However, this figure is almost four times higher than the netbook average.
The Inspiron 15 M5030 achieved 17 fps in World of Warcraft in its own 1366 x 768 resolution with graphics set to "good"." when we loaded the graphics settings to the highest level of detail, it dropped to 8 frames per second. While this system isn't designed for serious gamers, it did pretty well with casual games like Angry Birds from the Chrome web store. We were able to send the birds flying through the air without any delays or inaccuracies.
Battery life and wireless
The Inspiron 15 M5030 expansion lasted just 3 hours and 7 minutes in a laptop battery test, which includes continuous Wi-Fi navigation. That's almost 1: 20 below the average for regular laptops and the HP Pavilion G6x. It's 10 minutes longer than the L655D, but there's nothing to be proud of.
On a higher note, the Atheros AR9285 wireless card inside the Inspiron 15 M5030 provided solid wireless speeds of 36.1 Mbps at 15 feet from the router and 22.1 Mbps at 50 feet. These speeds are almost identical to the average wireless speeds for regular laptops (36.7 Mbps / 21.8 Mbps).
Software and warranty
The Inspiron 15 M5030 comes with the Dell Stage, a dock that gives users quick access to music, games, photos, program shortcuts, videos, websites, and of course, Dell websites. There is also backup software for Dell DataSafe and Microsoft Office Starter 2010 Edition. You'll also find the Best Buy PC app, which provides links to laptop software and games. Finally, there's the 30-day trial of McAfee Security Center, which has repeatedly popped up to warn us that we're not secure.
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The Insprion 15 comes with a one-year limited warranty. To see the prowess of Dell support, take a look at how the company has succeeded in our tech support standoff.
The verdict
While the Inspiron 15 M5030 didn't shine in our tests, we still find it suitable for everyday computing tasks like browsing the web, updating Facebook, and playing casual games. It's not often that a 15-inch laptop costs just $ 350 and is still viable with a comfortable (if noisy) keyboard. The lack of HDMI will disable some, and it's definitely not a machine for multimedia enthusiasts, but if you're looking for something bigger and more capable than a netbook, the Inspiron 15 M5030 has good value.
Dell Inspiron M5030 2800B3D 15.6-Inch Laptop (3D Black) Dell Product description: Dell Inspiron M5030 2800B3D is a source of first-rate delight with affordable price range and outstanding performance. The most... The post Dell Inspiron M5030 2800B3D – Stock of enriched Laptop by Amazon: appeared first on Software And Social.
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