The Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Performance is a 15.6-inch notebook. It embeds a solid configuration and a complete connection. Tough, it often cannot accompany you on a journey as it is quite heavy and quite thick. Price: 799 Euros.
This Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Performance is aptly named. It has solid components and considerable autonomy for four hours. However, its screen is too bright, it heats up and becomes a bit noisy at full speed.
The promise
Configuration of the Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Performance version is sold 799 euros. The chassis is thick (3.5 cm), black and silver, and strapped with a new generation connectivity. A little less equipped than the Blu-ray version, but it should balance and endurance performance.
Reality
The Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Performance offers exactly the same finish and same game that made in the Special Edition Blu-ray. We thus find, on the one hand, the black anodized aluminium with a honeycomb pattern on top and inside of the machine and, secondly, taken four USB 3.0, two video outputs (VGA and HDMI), a microphone input, stereo audio output and a Gigabit Ethernet jack. For wireless connections, the Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi (Wi-Di) are also present.
Screen brilliant, simple but comfortable keyboard
At the opening of the machine, we discover a keyboard chiclet without numeric keypad is not backlit. However, it is placed at the center of the space allocated to it which allows you to enter text in comfort. On the top of the keyboard, there are three shortcut keys to manage the audio portion of the machine, launch a simplified control panel, the third being assigned according to your wishes.
The touchpad of Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Performance, it is of good size, with a surface-sensitive control. For a better grip, its driver correctly describes all controls and their implementation.
Another essential element is the screen. Unlike the Blu-ray version, equipped with a matte screen Full HD, the display is brilliant in Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Performance and its definition does not exceed 1366 x 768 pixels. For use on a sunny terrace, it missed! Measured the average brightness is also reduced (210 cd / m 2 ) but the contrast ratio, it is higher (1 268:1). The color rendition remains quite good, despite a slight blue cast.
A solid configuration for common apps
The configuration selected by Dell works well with almost all common applications in Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Performance. As indicated in the score almost 8,000 points assigned by the testing software PC Mark Vantage, office, Internet surfing, e-mail are pure formalities for Intel Core i5-3210M (two cores, 5 GHz) and 6 GB of memory on the machine.
For storage, Dell plays the quantity rather than velocity. The Texan up a large hard drive of 1TB, average performance, which hosts Windows 7, home-grown applications, Adobe Premiere and Photoshop Elements 9, Starter 2010 Office suite in Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Performance. Finally, it is still possible to save your data to CD or DVD burner through the machine.
Even for 3D gaming
The HD 7730M card can play on the 15.6-inch screen. In the test of games it was found that the AMD chip displays between 49 and 58 frames per second which ensures sessions occasional video game entertainment without much problem of fluidity. Some games, however, difficult to be recognized.
During the game, the noise of the ventilation reach 39.9 dB (30 dB against the rest). In addition, the thermometer may rise high (38.5 ° C on the palm rest, 47.7 ° C in the machine) if you use the machine to do the encoding of Full-HD video for several hours.
Endurance in progress
Enduro through technology from AMD, the graphics card works alternately with the HD 4000 graphics controller Intel processor. So when you play, the HD 7730M is triggered, and consumption of the Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Performance reached 51.3 watts, which is quite remarkable. Conversely, when watching a movie, the AMD card goes into hibernation and shake hands with Intel (11.3 watts in standby). This allows the Inspiron 15R to take almost four hours on battery, video playback, screen thoroughly and Wi-Fi enabled.
However, with a weight of 2.8 pounds (464 grams and for the charger) the unit is not really intended to accompany you wherever you go.
The verdict
The Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Performance has attracted far more than the Blu-ray model. Battery life is better, components offers good performance and connectivity is still full. However, the propensity to heat and noise are still there, despite a less powerful processor.
