Dell Inspiron 14R (I14RN-1364PBL)

You can?t always expect a highly distinctive laptop for a bargain price, and that?s certainly true in the case of the Dell Inspiron 14R (I14RN-1364PBL) ($649.99 at Best Buy). This is a laptop that, from features to performance to battery life, is a solid middle-of-the-pack selection: You won?t be disappointed with what you get, but you won?t be wowed, either. If all you need is a straightforward system for doing straightforward things, the I14RN-1364PBL will get the job done?merely without a lot of extra flair and individuality along the way.

Design
The glossy lid of the I14RN-1364PBL is decorated with a brushed-metal design, and colored in Dell?s relatively reserved Peacock Blue hue, with a silvery Dell logo positioned dead center providing the only additional adornment. The lid is the flashiest about this laptop, which is otherwise basic black all the way. The metal motif carries over onto the inside of the laptop for the palm rest, though the area between slightly scalloped keys in the chiclet-style keyboard is glossy plastic as well. The keys are not backlit, but a few?the power button, the Caps Lock key, and three in the upper-right corner for opening the Windows Mobility Center and the Dell Support Center, and switching to an external display?glow a bright white when pressed. The touch pad, located just left of center on the palm rest, continues the design, and seemed smooth and responsive; the mouse buttons were also acceptably clicky without being stiff.

The glossy 14-inch widescreen display, which is surrounded by a glossy black bezel (with the webcam predictably located along the top) looks bright, and fairly crisp for purposes of reading. Its resolution is 1,366 by 768, which is pretty much the going standard for laptops of this size. The laptop measures a respectable 1.2 by 13.5 by 9.7 inches (HWD), including the battery compartment that protrudes slightly from the rear. Because the I14RN-1364PBL weighs only 5.2 pounds, it?s not difficult to carry around.

Features
In terms of its internal hardware, the I14RN-1364PBL is par for the course. It?s powered by a 2.2GHz Intel Core i3-2330M CPU, a member of Intel?s 2011 ?second-generation Core? (aka ?Sandy Bridge?) processors. That chip operates with the Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated video system, which means there?s no discrete card for supercharging gaming. There is, however, there?s a respectable 4GB of DDR3 RAM on board, and a nice-size 640GB hard drive for storing your programs and files. (The drive spins at 5,400rpm, also the typical speed for a laptop of this class.)

Port offerings run the gamut, from classic to contemporary. On the left edge you?ll find a VGA port for hooking up to an old-style monitor and an HDMI port for connecting to a newer one (or an HDTV). A combo eSATA/USB 2.0 port and a multiformat card slot (for SD and MMC) round out the options here; on the right edge, the DVD?RW drive is accompanied by the headphone and microphone jacks and a USB 3.0 port for conducting faster data transfers than USB 2.0 allows; and there?s another USB 3.0 port next to the Ethernet jack on the laptop?s rear panel (also where you?ll plug in your power brick).

If you don?t like the idea of Ethernet cables tying you down, the I14RN-1364PBL supports both 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Intel?s Wireless Display (WiDi 2.0) technology for streaming video and images to your HDTV via a Netgear Push2TV adapter (which is not included).

The operating system on the laptop is the de rigueur Windows 7 Home Premium, which comes preinstalled with a full slate of Dell utilities (including the Dell Stage launcher for easily accessing your videos, music, photos, and more), Microsoft Office 2010 Starter, a trial version of McAfee Security Center, and other bloatware-y items like the Bing Bar, Skype, Windows Live Essentials, and even an eBay link on the desktop.

Your investment in the laptop is protected by a one-year limited parts-and-labor warranty. Best Buy also has an extended warranty program, which offers customers an extra year of protection beyond the one-year warranty of most system manufacturers. There are two plans in this extended warranty program. The standard plan ($119.99) covers the system against normal wear and tear, power surge damage, and includes a ?No Lemon? guarantee in which Best Buy will simply replace the computer if it requires more than four repairs during the coverage period. Best Buy?s advanced plan ($219.99) offers all this, and also covers the system against accidental damage from drops and spills. Other special offers can be found online or in stores, like discounts on printers, software, and tech support plans which are available with any new consumer PC purchased through Best Buy.

Performance
In our benchmark tests, the I14RN-1364PBL for the most part delivered just the performance we expected of it. Its score of 1,844 on our PCMark 7 benchmark test was in line with the lower-end result (1,866)?we saw from the Samsung NP300E5A-A01UB ($599.99 list, 4 stars). The I14RN-1364PBL system was positioned similarly as far as video encoding, needing 2 minutes 30 seconds to convert a file in the open-source software Handbrake: That?s faster than the 3:33 we got from the?Gateway NV55S05u ($579.99 list, 4 stars) or the 2:39 from the?Toshiba Satellite P755-S5215 ($719.99, 3 stars), but well behind the pack leader and Editors? Choice Asus U56E-BBL6 ($699.99 list, 4 stars), with a time of 1:50, and the Lenovo IdeaPad V570-1066AJU ($629.99 direct, 4 stars), with a time of 1:52. The pattern continued for the I14RN-1364PBL with both its 2.09 score in the CineBench R11.5 rendering test (the highest, from the Lenovo V570-1066AJU, is 2.71; the lowest, from the Gateway NV55S05u, is 1.88) and its time of 5:27 processing 12 filters in Adobe Photoshop CS5 (the Lenovo V570-1066AJU was fastest, at 4:01, the Gateway NV55S05u the slowest at 7:48).

The I14RN-1364PBL?s gaming capabilities also proved less than remarkable, with it managing 16.3 frames per second (fps) in Crysis and 14.2 fps in Lost Planet 2, both at 1,024 by 768 with medium-level details; only the Gateway NV55S05u, with a superior graphics chip, could attain frame rates above the 30 fps threshold for smooth playability (and even then, only at this resolution).

With battery life, the story wasn?t much different. The I14RN-1364PBL?s 48Wh battery helped it last 5:23, which is longer than the Gateway NV55S05u (4:54) or Toshiba P755-S5215 (5:01), but nothing compared with the 7:42 the Asus U56E-BBL6 lasted or the 6:37 we saw from the Samsung NP300E5A-A01UB.

If you?re looking for a truly excellent budget laptop, the Dell Inspiron 14R (I14RN-1364PBL)? isn?t quite it?it lags behind other similarly priced and outfitted machines in every performance area. Still, it?s a sturdy little machine that should be able to handle almost any everyday task within reason. You can certainly do worse. But with other machines, such as the more powerful and longer-lasting-on-battery Editors? Choice Asus U56E-BBL6, you can also do better.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

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