Dell Inspiron 14 review: A capable and convincing budget laptop

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Our Rating: 8/10
Pros:
Long battery life
Sprightly performance
Good build quality
Cons:
Colourless display
Boomy speakers
What is the Dell Inspiron 14?
When it comes to the best laptops for everyday use, the Inspiron 14 is the cheapest 14-inch compact laptop you can buy from Dell. It's a modern, general-purpose machine designed for basic home and work tasks that's easy to fit in your bag and carry around.
When it comes to the more technical side of things, you can choose from three processors (Intel, AMD and Qualcomm), and the Inspiron 14 supports features like facial recognition and has Microsoft's AI assistant Copilot+. It also has the newer USB-C ports, a backlit keyboard and an aluminium chassis, which aren't common in laptops costing closer to £600 than £1,000.
How we test laptops
I have been a technology journalist for over 15 years, testing everything from laptops and electric cars to tablets and audio systems. Over the years, I've used and tested devices running all of the major operating systems, settling these days with Windows, Linux and Android.
Here I focus on five testing metrics: design and usability, keyboard and touchpad, display and audio, performance and configurations, and battery life. However, I don't just look at scores on a spreadsheet.
I use the laptops I'm testing as my primary device, which in my case means a lot of typing, using them on the go, general web browsing, emails and other basic productivity, as well as gaming. This gives me a good idea of what the laptop is capable of, how long the battery lasts and how it can handle intense tasks.
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Design and usability
Score: 8/10
The Inspiron 14 is not the most visually prepossessing of laptops thanks to a staid design and unadventurous colourway (it looks as though it was designed not to offend, rather than to impress). The aluminium chassis, while a rarity at this price point, makes it rather heavy for a 14-inch notebook (1.5kg) but the rounded profile and 16mm maximum thickness makes it easy to slip into a small backpack and carry around for the day.
There's a good range of ports too, with two USB-C ports and a microSD card slot on the left hand side, and a USB-A and 3.5mm audio jack on the right. There's no HDMI port but the USB-C ports support DP AltMode video output so you can hook it straight up to a monitor if wanted.
Surprisingly for a machine in this price bracket, the Inspiron 14 comes with a fingerprint scanner and an infrared camera so you can use Windows Hello facial recognition, showing the benefit of buying a laptop that's as much aimed at the business user as a casual one.
And getting inside the Inspiron 14 is easy enough once you've removed the seven Philips screws holding the base plate in place. You can swap out the SSD, the battery and the wireless card, but you won't find space for a second SSD if you wanted to increase the storage.
Keyboard and touchpad
Score: 8/10
The Inspiron 14's keyboard is a conventional but capable affair with flat-topped keys and clear white-on-black graphics. The keys offer just the right amount of resistance and travel for my typing tastes and there's an effective two-stage backlight to help with typing in the dark.
At 115 x 80mm, the plastic touchpad isn't the largest you'll find on a 14-inch laptop but it works reliably. The mechanical click-action on the lower half of the touchpad is clean and precise but I did find it rather noisy compared to other laptops I have used.
The webcam delivers a crisp and colourful video feed and comes with the full suite of Microsoft's Studio Effects that automatically improve lighting and cancel noise during video calls, among other enhancements. I have encountered much worse webcams on laptops that cost twice as much, and this one comes with a manual privacy shutter over the lens, which is a bonus.
Display and audio
Score: 6/10
Cheap laptops often have awful displays and, while this one isn't dreadful, the screen is an area where the Inspiron 14 shows its humble status. The 14-inch screen is bright with a healthy contrast ratio, wide viewing angles and no strange shift in colour, even when you're looking at it from the most extreme angles. There's no annoying screen reflection because of the matt finish and while the refresh rate is a basic 60Hz, that's to be expected from a budget laptop.
Where the Inspiron 14 falls down is its colour registration. It struggles to give you an accurate representation of the colours you should be seeing on the screen, which robs images and videos of their vitality. There's no support for HDR content, either.
Despite this setback, the display is a solid performer when it comes to everyday tasks and scrolling through sites and social media. It also has two downward-firing 2-watt speakers that can get surprisingly loud. The sound can get a little distorted at maximum volume but the bass stays punchy across the board.
Performance and configurations
Score: 8/10
The Inspiron 14 is available with Intel, AMD and Qualcomm processors and while the Intel models are cheaper, they don't match the performance of the Qualcomm machines. They also lack a neural processor, which means they don't have Microsoft's CoPilot+ AI accreditation.
Two Qualcomm models are available, one with the 8-core Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 and running Windows 11 Pro for £749, the other using the Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 and running either Windows 11 Home or Pro for £679 and £769 respectively.
In the Cinebench R24 CPU test I ran, the X1P-42-100 Inspiron 14 scored 642 which is 50 per cent more than I'd expect to see from the most powerful Intel-powered model in the range and roughly the same as the most powerful but less efficient AMD version, giving you an idea of how much better the Qualcomm models are.
Benchmark numbers aside, in everyday use, the Snapdragon Inspiron 14 feels fast with none of the pauses, hiccups or stalls that are often a feature of a laptop with a low sticker price.
It's good to see Microsoft's CoPilot+ AI certification on a laptop this cheap, making it a great machine for anyone who wants to dip their toe into all things AI without spending too much. That's thanks to the neural processor that forms part of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chipset.
When placed under severe stress, the fan noise never increases above a faint whoosh. The underside does get a little warm, but not unusually so.
The 512GB SSD inside the Inspiron 14 proved to be a great performer returning sequential read and write data speeds of 4,026M/s and 2,212MB/s respectively. I've seen speeds barely a third as fast on some laptops with a similar price.
Battery life
Score: 9/10
Despite only having a 54Wh battery, the Inspiron 14 ran for 17 hours and 6 minutes in our video rundown test. That's an excellent result for a budget laptop and means you can leave your charger at home when you head out for the day without feeling like you will run out of juice. It's another area where the Inspiron 14 punches well above its weight. Windows laptops running on Intel's latest Arrow Lake H CPUs can do better but you'll have to pay several hundred pounds more to get one of those.
Technical specifications
Below, I've compared the Dell Inspiron 14's specifications against the MacBook Air 13 (M4). As you can see, the Dell doesn't hold back in terms of internals, despite the significantly lower asking price. If anything, this demonstrates the sheer value for money that could be achieved if you buy smart and opt for a Windows alternative instead.
Should you buy the Dell Inspiron 14?
Despite the issues with the colour on-screen, the Dell Inspiron 14 still offers a lot for its price with features like facial recognition, an aluminium chassis, a backlit keyboard often adding a lot to the overall cost.
The key factor here though, is the inclusion of that Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. This puts the Inspiron 14 in another power league to the dated or weak processors you usually have to tolerate at this price point and it has the added benefit of delivering great battery life. For the price, you can't ask for more.
Yes, if:
Your budget is tight
You favour battery life above all else
You need a laptop with a great build quality
No, if:
Display quality is your top priority
You want a flashy-looking laptop
FAQs
Is running Windows-on-ARM a problem?
In a word, no. Qualcomm's new Prism emulator means that the vast majority of x86 native programs will run perfectly well on ARM laptops while most popular programs are available in native ARM versions.
What configurations does the Inspiron 14 have?
You can choose from seven chipsets; Intel's Core i3-1305U, Core i5-1334U and Core 7 150U, AMD's Ryzen 5 8540U and Ryzen 7 8840U and Qualcomm's X1P-42-100 and X1P-64-100. All models have a 512GB SSD but the cheaper Intel models only have 8GB of RAM.
What is the difference between the Intel and AMD models of the Inspiron 14 and the Qualcomm models?
The cheaper Intel Inspiron 14's have less powerful CPUs and GPUs, while the AMD models have similar performance but they are less efficient and lack the neural processor that drives Microsoft's CoPilot+ service and supports the webcam's Studio Effects filters.
What's the difference between the Inspiron 14 and Inspiron 14 Plus?
The main differences between the Inspiron 14 and Inspiron 14 Plus are that the Plus model has a better display with 100 per cent sRGB coverage and a superior sound system with the speakers firing upward on each side of the keyboard. The Plus model is, however, more expensive with the Qualcomm models starting at £1,019 and Intel models at £819.

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