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ToolsBasic Budget Design
Dell offers four versions of the Inspiron 14 5000 ( model number 5493 ), all with 14-inch, non-touch screens with 1,920-by-1,080-pixel solution. The $ 429.99 newcomer gets by with a Core i3-1005G1 central processing unit and a lean 4GB of memory and 128GB solid-state drive. My $ 579.99 review unit combines a Core i5-1035G1 nick with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB NVMe SSD. Another $ 20 doubles the storage, while the top of the line offers a Core i7-1065G7 CPU with Intel Iris Plus graphics for $ 729.99 .
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Reading: Dell Inspiron 14 5000 (5493) Review
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The Inspiron 14 5000 follows the try and true Apple MacBook Pro aesthetic of a brushed silver chassis with contrasting black keys and screen bezels. The clean, minimalist design is attractive, but the adipose tissue bed bezel detracts from the laptop ‘s front and alone serves to add to its size : The system measures 0.83 by 12.9 by 9.4 inches ( HWD ) and weighs 3.2 pounds. By line, the Inspiron 14 7000 measures 0.6 by 12.6 by 8.1 inches and weighs 2.9 pounds. The HP Pavilion x360 14 convertible is a hair blockheaded and heavier thanks to its touch blind but is more covenant ( 0.8 by 12.7 by 8.8 inches, 3.5 pounds ). In accession to being slenderly bulkier than many early 14-inch notebooks, the 5000 besides feels flimsier. The laptop has a please flat finish that looks and feels a bite more deluxe than the cheapest budget models, but the fictile lid and keyboard pack of cards flex well under blackmail and give doubts as to how well the system will hold up against day by day bumps and bruises .
The keyboard feels comfortable and reactive. travel is fairly shallow, but not to the extreme of the butterfly keys of many MacBook Pros. They feel bouncy, but the flex of the thin plastic keyboard deck detracts from the overall type experience. The keys do offer two levels of backlighting, which is something you wo n’t find on many budget models. Another appreciate feature is the exponent release at acme right that integrates a fingerprint subscriber for simple, procure logins .
The touchpad has the same felt complete as the rest of the keyboard deck and creates a perfect surface for politic swipes, and it accurately recorded my taps and other gestures .
I Want My USB-C
The 1080p expose features a flatness finish that does an admirable job of blocking limelight and reflections. You ‘ll likely keep the display ‘s brightness maxed out, however, unless you ‘re sitting in a dark room. Colors are accurate and details are crisp, but the control panel overall looks a bit numb. Neither a contact sieve nor 4K settlement is available .
A 720p webcam perched above the display provides a well-balanced trope with accurate skin tones for videoconferencing. The organization ‘s stereo speakers suffice for Skype calls, but they are n’t knock-down or dynamic adequate for music playback—mids and highs sound boggy, and there ‘s nothing resembling a bass response .
The port survival is outdated. The Inspiron lacks a USB Type-C port, an uncommon omission in the year 2020 ; even Walmart ‘s ultra-low-priced onn. i3 laptop has one. Dell ‘s web site says that Inspiron 14 5000 models configured with Nvidia GeForce MX230 graphics have a data-only USB-C port, but I could n’t find the give graphics in the on-line options list .
On the laptop ‘s left english, you ‘ll find a ability association, an HDMI larboard, an Ethernet jack, two USB 3.1 Type-A ports, and an sound recording jack .
The system ‘s right side holds an antique USB 2.0 port and an SD circuit board slot .
Average, Adequate Performance
The Intel Core i5-1035G1 in my Inspiron 14 5000 tester is a quad-core, eight-thread CPU with a basis frequency of 1GHz and max turbo frequency of 3.6GHz, a well as Intel UHD integrated graphics. For our performance benchmark, I pitted the Inspiron 14 5000 against three other recent laptops with 10th Generation Core processors : The Inspiron 14 7000 and Dell XPS 13 feature “ Comet Lake ” chips and the HP Spectre x360 13 has an “ Ice Lake ” CPU. That left one slot for the 14-inch Walmart onn. i3 and its older Core i3-8145U chip .
overall, the Inspiron 14 5000 felt bouncing during general use. It loaded apps quickly and was able to juggle a twelve browser tab without any lag. Heavy multitasking loads and running Adobe Photoshop resulted in some jail behavior, but the system distillery ran restfully with only a flimsy whizz from the cooling fans .
Productivity, Storage, and Media Tests
PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the personal computer benchmark specialists at UL ( once Futuremark ). The PCMark 10 test we run model unlike real-world productiveness and content-creation workflows. We use it to assess overall system operation for office-centric tasks such as news process, spreadsheeting, Web crop, and videoconferencing. The test generates a proprietary numeric score ; higher numbers are good .
PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a storehouse subtest that we use to assess the speed of a personal computer ‘s storage subsystem. It besides yields a proprietary numeric score ; again, higher numbers are beneficial .
The Inspiron 14 5000 acquitted itself well in PCMark 10, finishing close behind the two spendier Dells and well ahead of the cheapskate onn. i3 .
following is Maxon ‘s CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 examination, which is fully threaded to make use of all available central processing unit cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU preferably than the GPU to render a complex picture. The result is a proprietary grade indicating a personal computer ‘s suitability for processor-intensive workloads .
Cinebench is often a good predictor of our Handbrake video editing trial, another street fighter, threaded workout that ‘s highly CPU-dependent and scales well with cores and threads. In it, we put a stopwatch on test systems as they transcode a standard 12-minute clip of 4K video recording ( the open-source Blender show movie Tears of Steel ) to a 1080p MP4 file. It ‘s a timed test, and lower results are better .
We besides run a custom Adobe Photoshop image-editing benchmark. Using an early 2018 liberation of the Creative Cloud adaptation of Photoshop, we apply a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG test image. We clock each operation and, at the end, add up the sum. As with Handbrake, lower times are better here. The Photoshop test stresses the CPU, storehouse subsystem, and RAM, but it can besides take advantage of most GPUs to speed up the process of applying filters, so systems with mighty graphics chips or cards may see a boost .
The Inspiron 14 5000 finished just off the pace of the Inspiron 14 7000 and Spectre x360 13 and well ahead of the Walmart laptop in our three multimedia benchmarks. The Dell XPS 13 finished army for the liberation of rwanda ahead of the other competitors because its central processing unit has six cores and 12 threads while the other “ Ice Lake ” and “ Comet Lake ” laptops have four cores and eight threads. The Core i3 check in the onn. has barely two cores and four threads.
Read more: Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 Review
Graphics Tests
I encountered a driver offspring with the Inspiron 14 5000 that prevented it from completing the 3DMark tests we normally run. It was, however, able to run another synthetic graphics or fake gambling test, Unigine Corp. ‘s Superposition, which pans through a detail, animated 3D fit rendered in the company ‘s eponymous Unigine engine. We give two superposition results, run at the 720p Low and 1080p High presets .
These scores are reported in frames per second ( federal protective service ), which translates to how smooth the scene looks in gesticulate. For lower-end systems, maintaining at least 30fps is the naturalistic prey, while more powerful computers should ideally attain at least 60fps at the trial resoluteness .
As you can see, the 5000 and its Intel UHD integrated graphics are not suitable for 3D games. Some higher-end “ Ice Lake ” processors feature Intel ‘s newer Iris Plus desegregate graphics, which provide better operation than the UHD generation. The HP Spectre x360 13 was able to hit 31fps in the low-end Superposition test, which indicates a modicum of gaming aptitude a retentive as you keep your expectations and screen resolution and image quality settings in check .
Battery Rundown Test
After amply recharging the laptop, we set up the machine in power-save mode ( as opposed to balanced or high-performance manner ) where available and make a few early battery-conserving tweaks in planning for our unplug video recording summation screen. ( We besides turn Wi-Fi off, putting the laptop in airplane mood. ) In this test, we loop a video—a locally stored 720p file of the same Tears of Steel movie we use in our Handbrake trial—with screen luminosity set at 50 percentage and audio book at 100 percentage until the system conks out .
The Inspiron 14 5000 features a relatively small three-cell, 42WHr battery that delivered below-average runtime in our battery test. It lasted for about nine and a half hours, which will surely get you through a typical workday but pales in comparison to the enormous stamina that equal systems offer .
Stuck on the Wrong Rung
The Dell Inspiron 14 5000 occupies an awkward place on the laptop price ladder. It ‘s a notch or two higher than true budget models, but it uses a credit card enclosure that ‘s no different or sturdier than what you ‘d get with a system that costs hundreds less. And it ‘s a ring or two shortstop of such niceties as a durable metal enclosure or thin bezels on all four sides of the display, let alone a undimmed screen and USB Type-C ports. There ‘s nothing inherently incorrectly with the 5000 as a serviceable laptop for mainstream use, but if I were shopping for a dim-witted home laptop or surfing system I ‘d be tempted to spend less on a 15.6-inch Acer Aspire 5 or save up for a more capable, better-built car such as Dell ‘s own Inspiron 14 7000 .
Dell Inspiron 14 5000 (5493)
3.0
See It
$ 479.99
at Dell
MSRP $ 429.99
Pros
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The Bottom Line
Dell ‘s Inspiron 14 5000 is bouncing enough for most productiveness habit, but an uninspired, plastic-heavy blueprint dampens its attract .
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