The Dell Inspiron i5758-1428BLK is a sprawling 17-inch laptop that looks more expensive than it is. Small laptops, Ultrabooks to be precise, are often sought by people who like to travel and are looking for portable but powerful performance in a laptop. For the rest of the crowd except for those who adore desktops, a bigger notebook might be more comfortable for basic home or office computing needs.
For budget-class laptops, it is forgivable to skip niceties like metal finishes and brushed-aluminium brushes. The Inspiron 17 doesn’t buck that trend with its sleek, shiny plastic black finish on the cover that makes it look and feel like a more expensive finish although very fingerprint prone.
Design
It is designed for multimedia enthusiasts on a tight budget, thanks to its reasonably good Intel Core i3 performance, a large, brightly lit 17.3-inch screen, a full-size backlit keyboard, and everything you’ll need to tackle your multimedia projects, and you don’t miss a DVD burner and an SD card reader on this unit as well. See, a more powerful graphics engine and a 1080p screen would be awesome, but neither omissions deter the Dell Inspiron from getting our nod as our Editors’ Choice for budget desktop-replacement laptops.
As with most 17-inch notebooks, the chassis is big and fairly heavy, measuring 1.1 by 16.4 by 11.1 inches (HWD) and weighing 7.4 pounds. Still, it’s in the same league with the Acer Aspire V3-772G-7616, which weighs 7.0 pounds and measures 1.3 by 16.3 by 10.8 inches (HWD).
Display and Keyboard
Under the lid is a 17.3-inch display with a 1,600-by-900 (HD+) resolution and a glossy, somewhat reflective coating. You don’t get 1080p at this resolution, but the panel delivers a sharp, highly detailed 720p picture, as well as bright, well-saturated colors. Viewing angles are typical of a Twisted Nematic (TN) panel; you’ll experience some color shifting when you view the screen from any 55-degree (from center) angle.
The matte-black keyboard deck holds a full-size, chiclet-style non-backlit keyboard with a number pad on the right and a large 4-by-3 inch clickpad at the bottom. The keyboard is spacious and firm, and the keys are responsive.
Connectivity
The left side of the laptop holds two USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI video output, headphone and power jacks, and an Ethernet LAN port. Over on the right side are a tray-loading DVD burner, a USB 3.0 port, and a 3-in-1 SD card reader. There are two moderately loud speakers mounted in the bottom of the chassis that offer a smattering of bass with MaxxAudio, but could use some help from a subwoofer, and there’s a 720p webcam and microphone embedded in the display’s upper bezel. The Inspiron 17 offers wireless networking via built-in Wireless 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 tied to the wireless card.
Dell Inspiron i5758-1428BLK performance
The Dell Inspiron i5758-1428BLK is equipped with a dual core Intel Core i3 5005U processor (3MB cache) at 2 GHz, without turbo boost but hyper threading, 4GB of DDR3 system memory with a freev slot for additional RAM upto 16GB, 500 GB Serial ATA hard drive at 5400rpm and 64-bit Windows 8.1 operating system that you can easily upgrade to the latest Windows 10 for free. Although this configuration is not what you’d call powerful, it does provide ample horsepower for running multimedia and everyday home and office tasks.
The systems performs better on multimedia tests as compared to its Intel Pentium-powered predecessor the Dell Inspiron 15 3000 (i3551-2600BLK), but comes close behind the Intel Core i5-powered Dell Inspiron i5748-2143sLV, also the newest entrant into the Dell Inspiron 17 5000 Series. In the desktop replacement category, we’ve seen powerful systems with unforgiving strength to crunch your games and other memory taxing apps such as the Intel Core i7-powered ASUS K501LX-EB71, the ASUS F554LA-WS71 but the additional power comes at an additional cost.
The Inspiron 17’s HD Graphics 5500 solution fared a little better on our gaming tests than the laptops using Intel’s HD Graphics, but it still doesn’t have the graphics horsepower required for smooth game play. It lacks a dedicated GPU like the ASUS K501LX-EB71 as it uses shared memory. After all, for a budget laptop we didn’t expect much in terms of gaming performance, but even without a dedicated GPU you can still play older titles quite fluently but and for modern titles you will be forced to tone down the settings.
Bottom line
With the Dell Inspiron 17 5000 Series (i5758-1428BLK), you get a lot of laptop for less. Granted, its 17.3-inch screen won’t display high-definition content at 1080p, but it displays 720p with aplomb and delivers vibrant colors. At this price you don’t get a high-end processor and a blazing graphics solution, but you do get a fifth-generation Intel Core i3 CPU that can handle your multimedia tasks without a problem, and a nice feature set that includes a DVD burner, an HDMI output, a multi-SD card reader, decent speakers, and a webcam.
You also get over 5 hours of battery life. As such, the Dell Inspiron i5758-1428BLK our Editors’ Choice for budget desktop-replacement laptops.
Recommended Configuration
Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 Laptop LED-Backlit Touch Display, i7-8565U, 8GB 2666MHz DDR4, 256 GB m.2 PCIe SSD, 14", Silver, Alexa Built-in (i5482-7069SLV-PUS)
The Review
Dell Inspiron i5758-1428BLK
With the Dell Inspiron 17 5000 Series (i5758-1428BLK) Non-Touch laptop, you get a lot of laptop for less. Granted, its 17.3-inch screen won't display high-definition content at 1080p, but it displays 720p with aplomb and delivers vibrant colors.
PROS
- Simple, elegant design
- Good WiFi reception
- Replaceable battery
CONS
- No Gigabit LAN
Review Breakdown
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EDITORS RATING
