Dell Inspiron 13 Review

by Jerry Jackson

The all new Dell Inspiron 13 (1318) follows the design direction of the new Studio series, as well as the XPS M1330 and XPS M1530. This sleek looking notebook offers a slot-loading optical drive, and is available at both the Dell website as well as Wal-Mart and Walmart.com. With a starting price of less than $700, this notebook is destined to be quite popular with students and average consumers looking for something more portable than a 15-inch laptop.

Dell Inspiron 13 (1318) specifications:

• Screen: 13.3" WXGA TrueLife Glossy


• Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core T2390 (1.86GHz, 533FSB, 1MB Cache)


• Memory: 2GB RAM


• Storage: 160GB HDD (5400rpm)


• Optical Drive: DVD+/-RW


• Wireless: 802.11b/g


• Graphics: Intel X3100 Integrated Graphics


• Built-in web camera


• Battery: 11.1V 56Wh


• Dimensions: 12.52" x 9.37" x 1"/1.51"


• Weight: 4lbs 13.5oz


• Retail Price: $698

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Build and Design

The design of the Inspiron 13 is remarkably similar to the XPS M1330 and really sets it apart from the older Inspiron notebooks. The design is, in a word, attractive. The sloping look and glossy blue lid are immediately attention grabbing. The slope is akin to a fast car tear drop look. The screen hinges use the same rounded design found on the XPS M1330, but this time they're black plastic with metal core instead of a brushed metal exterior. The wedge-like angles to the chassis design likewise make the Inspiron 13 look like it has the same DNA as the XPS line.

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Once opened the Inspiron 13 provides a conservative, black plastic design. The buttons along the top edge are touch sensitive but don't light up with a soft glow when pressed like the media buttons on the XPS line. The black colored keyboard and textured black plastic palm rests are nice, but the palm rests are made of a textured black plastic that looks quite cheap and has the horrible side effect of picking up skin oils and sweat ... making your attractive notebook look tarnished and dirty.

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The chassis is quite rigid with metal support in just the right places and little or no flex on the palm rests or anywhere on the base of the notebook. The back of the LCD does have some flex and it's possible to produce ripples on the screen if you press firmly on the back of the panel. The hinges are extemely firm and smooth and help give the Inspiron 13 a quality look and feel.

Overall we have to say that the Inspiron 13, like the XPS M1330, is a visually appealing notebook with solid build quality.

Screen

The screen on the Inspiron 13 rates about average, with the only drawback of the panel being poor viewing angles. Screen brightness is great for around the office or classroom, but isn't quite bright enough for outside use on a sunny day. Not only would the screen brightness be fighting against the sun, but the glossy panel would probably blind you if you were not able to get into some shade. Indoors, the screen doesn't present such problems. It's glossy in nature so you'll get some reflection, but the rich and bold colors that come with having this type of screen finish is worth it.

While the direct view or horizonal viewing angles looked fine, the vertical viewing angles were hardly acceptable. At the upper viewing angles the screen washes out and loses contrast. At lower viewing angles the colors severely invert and at extreme angles the entire panel goes nearly black. While extreme horizontal angles weren't perfect, it was the extreme vertical angles that killed this screen.

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Speakers and Audio

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The speakers for the Inspiron 13 are located at the top of the keyboard area. There's not much to write home about the speakers, they get loud enough that's for sure, but the sound is slightly tinny as is the case with nearly all laptop speakers. The volume audio controls are touch sensitive buttons along the top right side of the keyboard. It's a little hard to use these buttons if you have big fingers, and most of the time the buttons won't register a press if you press them multiple times too quickly. Overall the volume control buttons are tough to use, though they look nice, an old fashioned volume dial control is easier to use.

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If you prefer to use headphones rather than the built-in speakers, you're set. The headphone jack and microphone jack, both located on the front of the notebook, work well with little or no distortion. If you're trying to attach external speakers this isn't as handy, but since this is laptop designed for mobility we doubt most people will connect external speakers to this notebook.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard look and feel is very businesslike, sporting black matte keys instead of glossy painted keys found on many new notebooks. The typing feel is excellent, with a soft, barely audible click on each keypress and very little keyboard flex. The area above the optical drive has slightly more flex than the rest of the keyboard, but it is still very minor compared to other notebooks ... and the keyboard on this notebook is actually much more rigid that the keyboards on the new ThinkPad T400 and T500 series notebooks. Spacing and key size is on par with my Dell Latitude D630 and ThinkPad T60, but the overall keyboard area is a little more cramped than what you'll find on a typical 15-inch notebook.

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The touchpad works well enough, though it's on the small side. The Apple MacBook is a 13.3" screen notebook and the touchpad is probably twice the size of what you get on the Inspiron 13. The mouse buttons are fine with nice, deep press and quiet clicks. The good news with the touchpad is that it's responsive, has dedicated scroll areas and the textured feel is good.

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Performance and Benchmarks

Let's face facts. This is a budget notebook priced below $700. You cannot expect the Inspiron 13 to perform like a multimedia powerhouse, but it still performs surprisingly well. Since the Inspiron 13 is equipped with the base model Intel Pentium Dual Core processor rather than the newer Core 2 Duo you can expect this notebook to be a little slow encoding video (transfering video from a camcorder to a computer) or audio (ripping your CDs to MP3 files). This processor offers a slower 533MHz FSB, and much less system cache. That being the case, it still performed admirably, reaching synthetic benchmark scores similar to budget notebooks with Core 2 Duo processors ... like the Studio 15.

For a computer targeted towards students this provides more than enough power to handle anything form iTunes to Microsoft Word. While gaming is basically out of the question, that is not what this notebook was intended for.

WPrime 32M comparison results:

WPrime is a benchmark similar to Super Pi in that it forces the processor to do intense mathematical calculations, but the difference is this application is multi-threaded and represents dual core processors better. Lower numbers indicate better performance.

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Dell Inspiron 13 (Pentium Dual Core T2390 @ 1.86GHz)	44.664s
Dell Studio 15 (Core 2 Duo T5750 @ 2.0GHz)	41.246s
HP Pavilion dv5z (Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 @ 2.1GHz)	39.745s
Toshiba Satellite U405 (Core 2 Duo T8100 @ 2.1GHz)	37.500s
Dell Vostro 1510 (Core 2 Duo T5670 @ 1.8GHz)	51.875s
Dell Inspiron 1525 (Core 2 Duo T7250 @ 2.0GHz)	43.569s
Dell XPS M1530 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.485s
HP Pavilion dv6500z (Turion 64 X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)	40.759s
Sony VAIO NR (Core 2 Duo T5250 @ 1.5GHz)	58.233s
Toshiba Tecra A9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	38.343s
Toshiba Tecra M9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.299s
HP Compaq 6910p (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz)	40.965s
Lenovo T61 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.705s
HP Pavilion dv6000z (Turion X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)	38.720s

PCMark05 measures overall notebook performance based on processor, hard drive, operating system, RAM, and graphics (higher scores are better):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Dell Inspiron 13 (1.86GHz Intel T2390, Intel X3100)	3,727 PCMarks
Dell Studio 15 (2.0GHz Intel T5750, Intel X3100)	3,998 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv5z (2.1GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	3,994 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite U405 (2.1GHz Intel T8100, Intel X3100)	4,145 PCMarks
Dell Vostro 1510 (1.8GHz Intel T5670, Intel X3100)	3,568 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron 1525 (2.0GHz Intel T7250, Intel X3100)	4,149 PCMarks
Dell XPS M1530 (2.20GHz Intel T7500, Nvidia 8600M GT 256MB)	5,412 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron 1520 (2.0GHz Intel T7300, NVIDIA 8600M GT)	4,616 PCMarks
Sony VAIO NR (1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, Intel X3100)	3,283 PCMarks
Lenovo T60 Widescreen (2.0GHz Intel T7200, ATI X1400 128MB)	4,189 PCMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	4,234 PCMarks

3DMark06 comparison results for graphics performance (higher scores are better):

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
Dell Inspiron 13 (1.86GHz Intel T2390, Intel X3100)	470 3DMarks
Dell Studio 15 (2.0GHz Intel T5750, Intel X3100)	493 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv5z (2.1GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	1,599 3DMarks
Toshiba Satellite U405 (2.1GHz Intel T8100, Intel X3100)	539 3DMarks
Dell Vostro 1510 (1.8GHz Intel T5670, Intel X3100)	519 3DMarks
Dell Inspiron 1525 (2.0GHz Intel T7250, Intel X3100)	545 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv6500z (2.0GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60, NVIDIA 8400m GS)	1,551 3DMarks
Sony VAIO NR (1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, Intel X3100)	504 3DMarks
Dell XPS M1530 (2.20GHz Intel T7500, Nvidia 8600M GT 256MB)	4,332 3DMarks
Dell Inspiron 1520 (2.0GHz Intel T7300, NVIDIA 8600M GT)	2,905 3DMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	827 3DMarks

All of the 3DMark06 scores for all of the systems listed above were run at 1280 x 800 or 1280 x 768 resolution. Clearly, the Inspiron 13 suffers from the use of under-powered Intel X3100 integrated graphics ... but the benefit is this usually means better battery life.

HDTune results:

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Heat and Noise

The system fan and heatsinks in the Inspiron 13 do a great job managing heat when the system is under load ... as we discovered when we ran multiple benchmarks back to back. The exterior of the notebook never reached the triple digit range during multiple 3DMark06 tests. The fan moved a significant amount of hot air but the noise was reasonably low and wasn't noticeable over background noise unless the room was perfectly quiet. The external temperatures in the images below are listed in degrees Fahrenheit:

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The plastic palm rests did heat up during benchmarking, but the temperatures remained at comfortable levels. The left palm rest (where the hard drive is located) was slightly warmer than the right. If you are particularly sensitive to temperatures you might find the warmth uncomfortable, but most users will be unlikely to complain about this.

The hard drive in our review unit was virtually silent and made no audible squeals or scratching noises. The overall lack of noise coming from the fan and hard drive on the Inspiron 13 makes it a welcome companion in quiet classrooms or offices where your coworkers have sensitive hearing. In fact, the only noticeable amount of unwelcome noise coming from the Inspiron 13 is from the slot-loading drive when it loads or ejects a disk.

Input and Output Ports

The port selection on the Inspiron 13 is rather weak, with few USB ports scattered around the perimeter and quite a bit of open (unused) space. This notebook only has two USB ports, where even virtually all netbooks come with three. For a notebook of this size it is sad to see so few USB ports. The only other computer that comes to mind with fewer ports is the MacBook Air. Dell could have easily fit another USB port, but instead you are left with one on each side of the notebook.

• 10/100LAN


• VGA


• FireWire


• Expresscard/54


• Multi-Card Reader


• Headphone/Mic


• Two USB Ports

Front: Headphone jack, microphone jack, multi-card reader

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Back: battery, heat exhaust and hinges

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Left: power jack, VGA out, Ethernet, USB port, Firewire, hard drive access panel

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Right: ExpressCard slot, WiFi on/off, slot-loading optical drive, USB port, security lock slot

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Battery

The 6-cell battery (56Wh) is surprisingly capable on the Inspiron 13. With the screen set to maximum brightness, wireless on, and browsing the web the notebook squeezed out 4 hours and 9 minutes of battery life. If you're watching a DVD on this notebook you'll get somewhere around 3 hours of battery life with the 6-cell. Bottom line, this laptop should have plenty of power to get you through the school day or a long flight.

Conclusion

With a sleek design, reasonable specs, and an attractive price the Dell Inspiron 13 is sure to be a popular notebooks this year. While there are certainly more powerful 13-inch notebooks on the market (like the impressive Toshiba Satellite U405 or LG P300) you'll be hard pressed to find a more capable 13-inch notebook at such a low price.

While issues like cheap palm rests and a noisy slot-loading drive won't bother most people, the limit of two USB ports and use of Pentium dual core instead of a Core 2 Duo processor might make some potential customers look elsewhere. In the end, the Inspiron 13 is an attractive, capable budget notebook. If you're looking for a basic mobile companion with good looks and a low price tag then this is probably the right notebook for you.

Pros:

• Attractive design


• Solid build quality


• Acceptable performance


• Good battery life


• Solid keyboard


• Great price

Cons:

• Only two USB ports ... even $300 netbooks have three USB ports


• Pentium dual core processor is a little weak


• Keyboard is a little cramped and touchpad is a little small


• Palm rest plastics look cheap and easily pick up skin oils


• Slot-loading drive is a little loud

 

Thanks for the review. Two USB ports is somewhat ungenerous by current standards. What rating, how big and heavy is the PSU?

It might be useful to do an additional battery test with no wireless and minimum usable display brightness in order to get a light usage run time to support your conclusion "this laptop should have plenty of power to get you through the school day or a long flight". Which side of 6 hours will that be? Will this computer out-last the new E6400?

John

 

Man this just keeps on getting worse for Lenovo - DELL beating them in keyboard rigidness.

 

Hey, nice review you did there & along with the pics....

Lot's of Dell user's have been waiting for a review like this, including myself!

I think, I'm still holding out for the Mini I though

Cin

 

The size of the brick itself is 1.2" x 1.75" x 4.2"

Here is a photo of the PSU with the laptop as a size reference:

 

Just one question...why is still under the Inspiron line?!? I mean, it even looks like a Studio series laptop?

 

Only Dell can answer that one. The Inspiron name is getting so old I kind of wish Dell would just drop the Inspiron line and have Vosto, Studio, XPS, and Latitude for their notebooks.

 

inspiron 13 is available for buying directly from dell.ca. though it seems to be costlier as you get only 1gb ram, no web cam in $699 config.

 

Nice but... why a T2390? I don't think they are much cheaper than the new T5xxx series....

 

Seriously just looks like Dell took the M1330 design and used cheaper parts.

 

Good review indeed ... I also agree about the Inspirion line thing.

I owned a M1330 before getting my recent Asus, though, and agree with Christopher ... it looks a LOT like the M1330 with cheaper parts.

 

And yet, Dell is still hanging on to santa rosa for dear life and charging yesterday's prices for it.

From another thread, I just checked Dell.com, and it's available for configuration there. Starting price $799, but the specs aren't too bad for the base model.

 

Will this be released in Europe?

 

design is quite nice

 

"sold exclusively by Wal-Mart and Walmart.com." is not correct.

It is now also sold at BestBuy and Dell.com

 

Great review as always, Jerry. Much appreciated.

Typo correction, 'weak' not 'week'.

 

Look like the Inspiron 13 is taking styling cues from the Dell Studio line... why didn't they just call this the Studio 13??

You know that the Thinkpad brand has fallen when an Inspiron keyboard is stiffer than a Thinkpad keyboard.... That's just sad.

 

Why does Dell keep releasing Santa Rosa laptops? Who wants a laptop that's outdated before you even buy it?

 

Yes..Mini I or 13.... We will just have to see

 

It's possible they're clearing out their stockpiles outdated chips... A giant company like Dell, they must have a huge inventory of those.
Or, they're just testing the waters before investing in the newer, more expensive chips.

 

What's a mini? I've heard of the to be officially announced Dell XPS 13 [I seriously want it now for the SLI graphics alone!]

 

This is the mini: I don't want to *hi-jack* this thread...
http://gizmodo.com/5038298/leaked-dell-inspiron-910-mini-note-specs-and-release-date
and then, link over to an active thread on the Dell Mini in the Dell sub-forum: Inspiron/Studio:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=281042

It's a sweet little ultra-portable

Cin.

 

It is available to purchase on PC World and all of its sister companies ( Dixons I don't know any others)

 

What? No option for upgraded graphics, not even a HD3450 or 8400M?

 

Yes, a let down. However, the target audience here are people looking for a budget 13-inch notebook. "Budget" means integrated graphics.

The XPS M1330 is available with dedicated graphics ... for a higher price.

 

I wonder how long they are going to keep the XPS line going....

 

Looks like, Dell did a good job on this one. Perhaps, the cheapest 4 lbs. laptop out there. Solid heat, noise and power management. I was thinking about going for a a lil' lighter netbook, but this is a strong alternative.

 

It's not a 4lbs laptop, it's more like 4.9lbs according to Dell.com.

The review has the weight wrong, not sure how they got that number.

 

Yeah, unfortunately this is quite a heavy machine for a 13.3" model. Nonetheless the price is pretty good. (The Walmart and BestBuy configs are more bang for your buck than Dell.com though)

 

But as a corollary, a lot of the target audience - especially around this time of year - are students looking for a budget notebook. And while "budget" means integrated graphics, "student" means gaming.

 

Thanks for the clarification. If it's 4.9 lbs ("starting weight"), that puts it in a completely different category. Much less interesting.

 

The design really looks quite nice, but the palm rests are horrid, as you suggested. Personally, for the size and price, I'd still take my 1400. I love it's keyboard, it's palm rests are decent, the media buttons are great, I like the size and the build quality, and I love the graphics and processor I have.

Nice review, though. I like Dell's efforts at improvement.

 

heard from a dell rep that during training for the inspiron 13, they were told it would not be customisable in australia !!!!!

boooooo

 

Thanks for the review. Inspired I bought the:

Inspiron 1318,
Intel Core 2 Duo T8100,
2.1GHz, 800Mhz,
3M L2 Cache,
3GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm,
250G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

for $1,042.18.

Any comments on this deallyo? or ????

I do hate the grease trap it appears to be in the review's pictures (palm rest and all plastic areas) AND I'm disappointed that it is actually 4.9 lbs and not 4 lbs as the review suggests. Otherwise I have a 20 day wait until the dang thing gets here. Too much wait time might mean buyer's remorse.

 

@ Walmart.com page, there is no word about battery. does it adopt 6 cell or 4 cell? any idea?

 

You may want to reconsider. Best Buy has a better deal, by far, than the one you customized, unless that processor bump is worth 450 bucks to you. Aside from the processor, it's the same spec as the machine you bought, but it's only $699. Here's the link:

Best Buy Inspiron 13

I bought this machine at Best Buy, and couldn't be happier.

 

I'm on my third Inspiron 1318. First one had a short in the plug-in or something: the screen would flicker light&dim when plugged in. The next was unbalanced (wobbled when on a flat surface).
Still though, with all three, there is this annoying noise coming from around the left palm rest area - A pulsating clicking and sometimes sounding like a fan just about to start up, but then stop abruptly - happens once every second or two, never taking a break. Like I said, it's been there with all three. I've even recorded (both the clicking, and the fan-start-stop sound) if you want to hear: send me an email ([email protected]) and I'll send the recording to you.

 

Mick, thanks for the heads up with the Best Buy special. I ended up cancelling the direct from dell order and going to Best Buy and saved $276 in the process (total best buy version was 748.99 with tax). They had 16 in stock which says something about these Inspiron 13s...what it means I am not exactly sure. So I bought one and am pleased after 3 days of use. I am also having the clicking noise that Ben is referring to under left side of palm rest area. Not sure what it is. Although mine isn't as frequent and is irregular in pattern.
Another challenge I am having is being able to connect to the internet through Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger both. From my research it sounds like a very common Vista problem that nobody seems to know how to resolve. I'll be on the horn with Dell tomorrow to see if they have any clues.
Anyway, back to the laptop itself. I like the price for the size unit and hope it continues to serve me well. Ben let us know what, if anything, you find out about the clicking. I'll ask Dell about it also and post anything I find out.

 

Now my dumba$$ knows why bestbuy can sell laptops cheaper than direct from dell...the warranty and service.
Does anyone know anything about resolving this problem? I am using Vista and I do have access to internet using Internet Explorer. HOWEVER, I cannot connect using any instant messaging program including Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and Google Talk.
My research online says either Firewall or proxy settings but the fixes they suggest DO NOT WORK for me.
I should have known that Dell would not support the laptop purchased from Best Buy and now I know why the sales rep was such a condescending a$$hole trying to sell me the service plans/warranty stuff. Can you tell I'm pissed off?
Any direction would be appreciated.

 

The sound under the palm rest is the hard drive. When it sounds like a fan, it's the platters spinning. The clicking is the head parking. These are normal hard drive noises.

 

I wish I could help. I don't use instant messaging, so I'm not in any position to help.

 

The Instant Messeging and other applications connecting to the Internet problem has been resolved. It was leftover registry key remnants from Norton that I had already uninstalled that was still blocking connections. Got NOD32 antivirus now. Things are good and happy with Laptop again. Oh, and I went to bestbuy today to have this figured out. The Geeksquad guys first exchanged the laptop and when the problem was still there they figured out the problem with Norton. And I didn't have to pay any additional monies for this service. But only because I'm still in the 14 day window since I purchased.
All is well for now. Sorry for the earlier rant. And thanks for the reply Mick.

 

Hi Mick4394, now that you bought the laptop from bestbuy, could you do a mini-review of the Inspiron 13?

Thanks

 

I'm glad to hear you got your problem solved.

Don't sweat the rant. Computer problems can be pretty frustrating, especially when they come not long after dropping a pile of cash on a new machine.

 

Thanks for your attention heykennedy, and for your info mick4394. Yes, I had assumed the noises were from the hard drive, but they are indeed much more noticeable than my previous laptop computers - maybe because this one is thinner and therefore has less sound insulation? Anyway, I like the computer, even with the noise which is not noticed unless in a quiet environment. I will keep it happily.

 

If you go into the BIOS, there are settings for the hard drive. If you want it to be quieter, you can set it as such. You will, however, take a performance hit.

For what it's worth, I set mine to quiet, and I haven't seen any performance difference.

 

could i run vegas video on this rig? any idea specs to get it to work?

worried it won't have enough juice to run it efficiently...

 

Just in case others have the same problem I'm posting my experience today at Bestbuy with my Dell Inspiron 1318.

I am on my fourth Dell Inspiron 1318 in a 10 day period:

-1st laptop was exchanged at Geeksquad guys recommendation but it didn't really need to be. On the second one they figured out that remnants of Norton (pre-installed on this laptop) was preventing Messaging Apps (Live Messenger and Yahoo IM) and Dell Support Center from connecting to the web even though Internet Explorer was able to connect. So they fixed that.

-2nd and 3rd laptops were showing only 35 GB of hard drive space TOTAL! So maybe the hard drive imaging process glitched during manufacturing or something but part of hard drive went bad and on TWO in a row.

-4th laptop is in my possession and works fine so far. Has all the hard drive space it's supposed to and the geek squad guys cleaned Norton off completely and now I have installed NOD32 by ESET which I highly recommend as a non obtrusive AV solution.

Thus ends my update (for today) on the adventures of acquring at working Dell Inspiron 1318 laptop. I like it when it works.

My Props to the Geeksquad guys in Augusta GA's Best Buy. They helped and taught me some things without additional charges.

 

Man. I feel pretty lucky. Mine has been perfect from the start.

It's a shame they didn't figure the Norton thing out on your first machine. Sounds like that would have saved you from going through three more.

Fourth time's a charm... I guess. Good luck.

 

Seems like any anti virus or firewall program would be one of the first things you would check in that situation.