Dell Inspiron 1564: Mobile i3/i5 for the Masses

Dell Inspiron 1564: A Lightweight "DTR"

Dell's targeting the consumer market with the Inspiron 15, and it certainly does have a lot to offer. The Intel Core i5-520M in our review unit may almost be a bit too much for a unit that otherwise seems fairly stripped down, but otherwise the overall build is well-rounded. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 isn't going to break any speed records, but it serves its purpose. The chassis is indeed quite light and attractive despite the glossy plastics, and though the fan can get noisy under heavy load, at least hot spots don't materialize under the palm rests or keyboard.

If we had to single out a bright spot for the Inspiron 15, it would be the general build quality and design. Physically it's very attractive and the keyboard has a smart layout that doesn't make too many sacrifices to fit the numeric keypad. The whole thing is sturdy and enjoyable to use. Dell's designers seem to understand the importance of user experience extending beyond simple metrics like system performance. Simply put, the Inspiron 15 is largely a joy to use. For the casual user who's interested in some light gaming, the optional Radeon HD 4330 is also going to be plenty adequate.

The essential problem with the Inspiron 15 is really how stripped-down it feels. While it's lovely, limitations start to creep to the surface as you continue to use it. Three USB ports is really a bare minimum at this point (ASUS tends to offer as many as five on their laptops), and without FireWire or eSATA, backing up data to an external hard disk is going to become aggravatingly slow in short order. These omissions would be forgivable if Dell at least included an ExpressCard slot, but that's nowhere to be found either. There's plenty of room on the 15.6" chassis for some additional ports, and we'd like to see Dell make use of it. The kind of processing power modern Intel processors offer makes them ideal for the home video editor, but the Inspiron 15 has no way of facilitating that. Likewise, the 10/100 Ethernet connectivity and 802.11g wireless networking are both painful omissions. The design is beautiful, but it seems they had to strip too much to get it where it is.

If you're looking for a notebook that's both large enough to be practical as a desktop replacement and light enough to be transported, the Inspiron 15 definitely has something to offer you. It's more than serviceable as a general computing machine, and though the optional ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 isn't ideal for gaming, it's still up to the task. The battery life isn't stellar but it's nowhere near terrible, either. It's just a shame the unit isn't more expandable, because the omissions Dell made are the kinds of choices that keep it from being a slam dunk. If you're not interested in the multimedia aspects of computing, some of the omissions won't matter much, but in that case you very likely have no use for the i5-520M CPU. Stick with the base models of the Inspiron 15 with i3-330M and you'll get a lot more value for your dollar; otherwise, you might find the Dell Studio line to be more to your liking.