The things are changing dramatically in the notebook market as the people are intended to buy the laptops just according to their needs and to do so they are surfing on the web and checking the reviews, I remember when I was willing to buy my 1st notebook, I almost spend a week in checking reviews so we are trying to be as close as possible to our trade mark “No bull shit, just facts” i.e. we were/are/will never post any review (planted) and just post the facts. Today we are going to review a Dell notebook as dell is also a fame in notebooks market and its one of the old manufacturers, today we are going to review Dell Inspiron 15R-5521.
One of the best thing about Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 is that its available in different color so you can it in your desired color directly from the manufacturer. The Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 is basically a 15.6 inch machine. The Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has brushed metallic surface with the nice finished edges of lid with the custom color would be a great design ( we get it in black color ). The sides of notebook are made of plastic which give it overall a typical notebook look with customization. The Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has a weakness and that is the body can be compress a little by applying pressure around the optical drive area and we are surprised to see that problem from Dell. The lid has been controlled by hinges which are strong enough to handle the opening operation as well but overall case is good and strong and we can say that Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has good design and pretty decent build quality.
Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has a 15.6 inch display which offers resolution of 1366x768 and it is basically LG TN LED panel display. We were expecting at least HD+ resolution from this kind of notebook so it’s a bit disappointing to see that 720p resolution. The display has shiny surface so it may cause the difficulty in outdoor use and we check it latter in outdoor test. The display has an average contrast ratio which is not good and the shiny surface and the low contrast ratio with average level brightness make it really difficult to work outside in day light. The ability to display the high resolution colored images in also of average level. The display decent up/down viewing angles but from sides, they are just not good and we face difficulties when we watch movie with some friends (It become our habit to watch movies on friend on all the laptops and it became an integral part of our tests series for every laptop). Overall Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has an average level display, not suitable for PRO designers and gamers.
The Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has nice keyboard of large size and included num pad for helping especially gamers and the large size keys are just perfect and they did not miss a tap during our test but we find a problem which is that the arrow keys are small as especially up & down keys are just too close to each other which cause wrong tap sometimes so problem is not with responsiveness but with the key space in arrow keys. The keyboard has nice smooth surface keys which gives good feeling while typing on the keyboard and it is a pleasant experience while posting this review. The touchpad has performs really great in our test whether its regular work or multi gestures, it really pleased us with its responsiveness as well as smooth responsive keys. Overall Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has good keyboard and great touchpad.
Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has the MaxxAudio-4 technology for the audio solution as described by the dell on their website and it seems to work really good as good as you can expected from built in speakers from a notebook, not like external speakers. Good maximum volume which is enough for smaller and middle-sized rooms. Using the successful “Dell Audio” software, the sound can be adjusted to personal needs as well. The volume level is quite high and nice base make the sound quality perfect. Overall Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has nice speakers.
Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 run quite cool than some other notebooks in the idle mode and it became usual for the Inspiron series notebooks. The temperature all around the notebooks remain quite low and they never reach critical temperature level, actually they remain quite low than that level and it’s a good thing and you can use it on lap no matter what the task you are doing. The fan of Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 remain quite during the idle mode and in the stress test it still manage to run quiet than some of the other notebooks we have tested this week. Overall Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 runs quiet and cool.
Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has high speed wifi which supports latest “n” band as well as previous “b/g” bands and Bluetooth is also available. It has 2x USB 3.0, VGA, AC-in, HDMI and 2x audio ports on the left side and on the right side, it has 2x USB 3.0, optical drive, Kingston lock and Ethernet port so Overall Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has all the necessary connectivity options that you may needed anytime, anywhere.
The Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 has a 6 cell Lithium-ion battery of 65 watts which is almost expected with this kind of notebook and it lasts for about 351 minutes in our test. We try to get the most realistic results by measuring battery life doing the normal tasks as Microsoft office work, text/ photo and some gaming as well HD video clips and surfing web via Wifi, which a normal user is going to do on it daily.
Dell Inspiron 15R-5521 is a pretty good notebook and it has some good things and few bad things as well, for example it connectivity, keyboard, speakers, touchpad, low temperatures and low fan noise and good things and bad things are, average level display and inconsistent case strength so if you are going to but this laptop than you have to compromise on some things or you should consider some other notebooks as Asus Zenbook UX51VZ.
- Good design.
- Customization.
- Good performance.
- Connectivity.
- Good keyboard and touchpad.
- Nice speakers.
- Not a suitable display for gamers and Professional designers.
- Inconsistent build quality.
