Like the recently reviewed Dell Inspiron 15, the new Inspiron 14 sports a better exterior in terms of look and feel compared to the older Inspiron 14 model. In fact it is very similar to the Dell Inspiron 14z with a few minor cosmetic tweaks. You can choose between four screen lid colors on Dell's website--again we would recommend choosing lighter color shades to prevent attracting too many fingerprints. The new Inspiron 14 sports a dropped central hinge design like the one we saw on the Studio 15 Artist Edition laptop. Its palmrest is polished and looks quite elegant, and we also like the new Inspiron 14's overall build quality: there's definitely an improvement there, and it doesn't feel cheap in any way. The Inspiron 14 is easy to carry around, weighing just 2.2-kg--lower than most of our Top 5 Mainstream Laptop recommendations. Usability
In terms of usability, the Inspiron 14's 14-inch screen is glossy, LED backlit, and supports a maximum screen resolution of 1366x768 pixels. The screen's understandably smaller than the Dell Inspiron 15's but at par in terms of quality: it is bright, evenly lit, and has good contrast levels. Horizontal screen viewing angles are good, but vertical viewing angles are poor (with drastic color shifts) on the Dell Inspiron 14. But the screen is good for reading text as well as watching movies, and the screen's 16:9 aspect ratio is optimized for viewing HD content.The Dell Inspiron 14's keyboard has improved from what it was earlier. It's similar to the one we saw on the Dell Vostro V13, sporting tightly packed, slightly raised keys that are well laid out, and they're pretty good for typing--no complaints here. There's ample palmrest on the Inspiron 14 to park your wrists while typing on its keyboard, and the touchpad is good as well. It's finely textured and provides optimum feedback while manoeuvring the mouse-pointer on screen. The two separate mouse buttons are nice and springy--better than the single strip we saw on Acer Aspire 5740.Hardware Features
The Dell Inspiron 14 has an Intel Core i5-430M 2.27-GHz processor running at its heart, better than the Core i3-330M found on the Acer Aspire 5740 and Dell Inspiron 15. It also packs in 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 320GB hard drive, and onboard Intel GMA HD graphics. The Dell Inspiron 14's basic building blocks are very good. It also packs in three USB ports, multicard reader, audio jacks, VGA, ethernet port, and DVD writer. But like the Inspiron 15, the Inspiron 14 skimps on Gigabit ethernet and Wi-Fi 802.11n connectivity; it bundles in Bluetooth 2.1 support, though. The Inspiron 14 doesn't come with ExpressCard slot, but has an HDMI port--which you can use to connect the laptop to an LCD TV or high-def projector. Like the Dell Inspiron 15, the Inspiron 14 doesn't come with extended online storage. The Dell Inspiron 14 comes with a six-cell battery pack, and 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium operating system. Overall, the Dell Inspiron 14 comes with better basic building blocks compared to the larger Inspiron 15, but both their feature sets are pretty much at par.Performance
The combination of fast processor, system memory, and a fast hard drive, are enough to propel the Dell Inspiron 14's benchmark scores ahead of the Dell Inspiron 15 and Acer Aspire 5740. A WorldBench 6 score of 98, PC Mark 05 score of 5922, and PC Mark Vantage score of 4619 are testimony to its high performance potential. A 3D Mark 06 score of 1390 is lower than what we saw on the Acer Aspire 5740, but it isn't really meant for gaming--the Inspiron 14 isn't a gaming machine. Having said that, the Inspiron 14's a very good multitasker--it can also handle both 720p and 1080p HD video playback without any stutter. Watching movies went very well on the Inspiron 14's screen. And its onboard speakers--placed under the front lip--are actually marginally better than the Inspiron 15's, from what we heard. Overall, the audio visual experience on the Inspiron 14 was slightly better compared to the Dell Inspiron 15. The Inspiron 14's six-cell battery lasted 1 hour 6 mins in our benchmarks (at full-screen brightness and high performance preset). We got just over 2 hours 30 mins while browsing the Web over Wi-Fi and a bit of listening to music on a single charge, which isn't very good. I guess you can live with this if you're not going to use the Inspiron 14 while on the go.
Bottom Line
The Dell Inspiron 14's clearly offers greater performance than the Inspiron 15--but all that performance boost comes at a price. For Rs. 38,899, we feel the Inspiron 14's slightly overpriced compared to the Inspiron 15, in terms of the audience it is targeted at -- budget-conscious consumers looking for an all-purpose laptop. However if price isn't a constraint, and you aren't a gamer, the Inspiron 14 makes for a pretty good portable day-to-day laptop at home.
PCW RATING:- 77/100 (GOOD)