- Hey guys, this is Austin.
We take a look at a lot of budget computers
But this, this is something a little bit different.
At $130, is this Dell Inspiron worth it?
At $130, not only is this one of the cheapest
brand new Windows laptops you can find,
but impressibly, it's made by a real company.
Not some random thing I've never heard of
that's straight off of Amazon.
Now what makes this kind of interesting
is that not only is it going to be power by
an AMD processor, something a little bit different
from these ultra sort of budget systems,
but on top of that it does come with a full year
of Office 365, which by itself is like, what $100?
Now when it comes to spending $130
for a brand new laptop, you shouldn't expect
a lot of accessories.
So of course we do have the laptop itself here,
as well as the power adapter, which is really nice and tiny.
At $130, this is incredibly cheap.
But what we're looking at, at least at first glance
is something that doesn't look all that different
from a lot of the $170 to $200 Windows laptops out there.
And one of the big reasons behind that
or at least one of the main differences
is that this is going to be running an AMD processor.
Which is interesting, because Intel basically
gives away their processors at this price point.
Actually it doesn't feel that bad, to be totally honest.
I mean sure, it's going to be made out of plastic,
and port wise there's well two USB ports,
and a micro-SD card slot with an HDMI,
so not exactly full featured,
but I mean, it doesn't feel like
they cut a lot of corners here.
Well look at that, there's also going to be
dual front firing speakers.
Not that they're going to be particularly large,
but it beats having them on the bottom.
I feel like there's gonna be a catch though.
There gonna be a reason why this was $130 brand new.
One of the main competitors for something
like the Inspiron 11 is going to be this,
the HP Stream.
Now this overall design has been around
for quite a few years,
it's been slightly tweaked here and there,
but this is going to be different in a few major ways.
But the most obvious is going to be the processor.
As opposed to being powered by an Intel Celeron processor,
this guy instead is rocking an AMD A6-9220e.
Unlike the Celeron, this guy's going to be based
on AMD's last generation APU cores.
So what that means is that you're going to be getting
two Steamroller cores, that start of 1.6 gigahertz,
and can boost up to 2.4 gigahertz, sometimes,
and a little bit more emphasis on the sometimes in a second,
but what that means is that you are going to be getting
fairly low performance as opposed to a much more expensive
computer but in this sort of sub $200 category,
it's actually going to be a pretty decent step up.
It does feel like there's slightly too much performance
for the fanless design to handle sometimes,
so when you're doing intensive tasks such as Windows update,
a lot of times the bottom, and especially the keyboard
will get very warm to the touch.
And it's not going to be scalding hot or anything,
but it does means that you're going to be
losing some performance, thanks to throttling.
Put it side by side with other similarly priced laptops
with Celeron solutions, and you'll see
that this actually is going to perform pretty well.
Now the only real knock against it
is that it only does use single channel memory,
but again that's very similar at this sort of price point,
and thankfully we do have a full four gigabytes
of DDR4 on board.
One of the biggest issues when you pick up
a super cheap laptop like this
is going to be with the storage.
Both of these options are only going to give you
32 gigabytes of eMMC flash.
Now it's going to be fine as far as speed,
but storage-wise, it give you almost nothing
left out of the box.
But anytime you actually have to do a major
Windows update, like I had to do when I first
set up this laptop,
you actually have to use external storage to get it to work.
I had to plug in a USB drive to even get this thing
fully up to date on Windows.
If you pick up a laptop like this, it is basically
a necessity to pick up at least a 64 or 128 gig
micro-SD card and let it live inside your SD card slot.
Trust me when I say, even though it's going to add
a little bit to the price,
it is going to make this so much more usable.
With Radeon graphics on board, this actually isn't
going to be too bad at least in theory.
So of course we have to try
everyone's favorite game Fortnite.
Oh actually, no, we don't.
Just trust me, you don't wanna play Fortnite on this.
Of course when it comes to spending $130 on a laptop,
you're going to have to find some compromises.
And one of the biggest ones with the Inspiron
has to do with wifi.
Now in 2018, pretty much everything has an AC solution.
Typically this is gonna be good for between
100 to 300 megabits per second down and up.
This guy is using the nearly 10 year old N-standard
which is going to give you about 40 megabits up and down
and almost worst than that, it's going to be
prone to a lot more interference
because it's going to be 2.4 gigahertz only.
For a cheap laptop, it's acceptable,
it's something that I can live with,
but it's not exactly going to be
the best solution in the world.
Something that doesn't suck surprisingly is the display.
Now on paper it's just a basic 11.6 inch 1366 by 768 panel.
However in practice, it actually doesn't look bad at all.
Oh sure, it's going to be a TN display,
so we're not going to be getting great color
or contrast, for especially viewing angles,
but it is going to be a lot better
than pretty much anything in this price point.
And impressively, it's actually going to look better
than some laptops that cost double the price.
It's not great, but it's definitely usable,
and a lot better than I was expecting.
-The iPhone X is the most expensive iPhone ever,
it has the biggest screen--
eh, okay, so the speakers aren't exactly great,
even though they are facing towards you,
they're definitely on the quieter side,
but I mean there's a headphone jack?
The only real issue I have with the way that the keyboard
is laid out is going to be the size.
Of course this is going to be an 11 inch laptop,
and you expect things to be a little bit cramped,
but what I didn't expect was that the actual keyboard itself
is going to be smaller than a standard layout.
Mind you, it's not going to be a huge difference,
but it's enough to slightly trip me up.
Something you can get used to,
but it feels like they had plenty of space on the side
to expand the keyboard all the way out,
as opposed to using it on these bezels.
Thankfully it does have a Windows Precision touchpad.
Mind you, it's going to be a little bit on the small side,
but it really is not bad at all.
So you're going to be getting
all of the Windows 10 gestures,
it's got a nice surface, accurate tracking,
Honestly, some much more expensive laptops
could learn a thing or two from this.
It is nice to see at least decent input
on a system that's going to be so cheap.
Nothing really feels super of plastic-y or cheap,
it's all going to be very, very usable.
There's also some interesting touches with the design.
So even small things like having a little bit of a curve
here below the track pad to make it easy
to just get your finger in here and open it up.
And you're also going to be getting something
that's going to be a little bit smaller
than the competition.
Alright, so this is a test of the Inspiron 11's webcam.
Surprisingly it actually runs
at a full 720p, and at least based on first glance,
it doesn't look bad?
What's really going to make or break this laptop
is the price.
So at $130, which is what I was able to pick it up for,
it is an incredibly good deal.
Now unfortunately, of course with all the sales and stuff,
you might actually end up finding it for a little bit more.
Right now, taking a look around
at other retailers, it's giving me something like
$170 to $190, but even at a sub $200 price,
it is hard to argue with this Inspiron.
The wifi might not be amazing,
but the rest of the computer
actually is really, really not bad.