Dell Inspiron 14z review

It's called rebranding, and by golly, Dell needs to do it. Once the world's top PC maker, it's ceded market share to the likes of HP and Acer and earned a reputation for bland designs and subpar customer service. So, we can see where the outfit would want to give its laptops a makeover as a way of distancing itself from its tarnished rap.

That's precisely what seems to be going on with the Inspiron 14z, a 14-incher with a slimmed-down aluminum body, available in a surprisingly staid color palette (sorry, guys, bubblegum pink isn't an option this time around). With a low starting price of $600, it's ideal for college kids and pretty much anyone looking for a good-enough laptop for the home. Then again, so are lots of reasonably priced 14- and 15-inch laptops. Is this one extraordinary enough to make your short list? Let's see.

Dell Inspiron 14z review

Look and feel

For a redesigned laptop, the 14z initially looks an awful lot like some other Dell notebooks we've seen in seasons past. 'Round back, it has the kind of recessed hinge that's made Dell's notebooks unmistakable over the past several years. That is to say, there's about a half inch of deck space behind the hinge, which means the display sits lower than perhaps you're used to. It's mostly a bold design choice (one we approve of mightily), though that sunken hinge also makes for some balanced weight distribution when you set the computer in your lap.

With the lid closed, the 14z looks refreshingly simple. Call us suckers for finely brushed aluminum, but the company also chose a fairly foolproof pair of color options: in addition to the lush "fire red" found on our unit, you can get it in black for $30 less. Yes, Dell may have whittled its color options, but it hasn't ceased its practice of charging extra for colored lids. Old habits die hard, we suppose.

Still, it's obvious Dell had to cut some corners to hit that $600 price point. Even with a pared-down metal lid, the 14z still manages to feel cheap. Although the lid has a matte finish and isn't made of glossy plastic, it still picks up fingerprints -- stubborn little smudges than can be a beast to remove. Under the lid, that aluminum material extends across the palm rest and above the keyboard, but for whatever reason the area in between the keys is black. That color-blocking makes for a mismatched effect, with the keyboard looking chintzy against the smooth metal deck. To boot, the bottom side of the laptop is made of plastic and has an awkward bulge where the six-cell battery is. We'd be exaggerating if we said this was our least favorite design in the history of laptops, but we're not sure Dell's exactly turned over a new leaf either.

The good news is that the 14z comes well stocked with ports. The bad news: many of them are hidden beneath flimsy doors. Starting with the left side, you'll find door number one, housing DisplayPort, HDMI and USB 2.0 sockets, with a vent and an SD / MMC / MS card reader nearby. The front edge doesn't contain anything, though lift the laptop slightly and you'll see stereo speakers, along with four LED lights that glow white to match the backlit keyboard and power button. Tucked into the bezel is a 1.0 megapixel webcam. Moving along to the right side, there's a tray-loading optical drive and door number two, behind which you'll find two USB 3.0 ports and a combined headphone / mic port. Lastly, the back edge is home to the AC port and an Ethernet jack, the latter of which is also covered.

Keyboard and trackpad

To its credit, we typed most of this 3,000-word review on the 14z's chiclet keyboard, and got by with relatively few spelling mistakes. As with its higher-end sibling, the XPS 14z, the keys are cushy with plenty of travel. But these -- these are a good deal noisier. We grew irritated with the high-pitched clack, and we got the sense it was a distraction for some people unfortunate enough to be working a few feet away. That said, they're at least backed by a sturdy panel; we didn't notice a hint of flex as we banged out emails and web searches. Also, the Inspiron 14z's keyboard wins points for being backlit, even though you'll have to pay an extra $25 for that luxury.

And the trackpad? Not our favorite, but hardly the most maddening either. As a pared-down navigation device, it's perfectly adequate: it offers a low-friction surface that makes dragging the cursor across the screen painless. Once you start attempting multitouch gestures, though, its cramped quarters become a con. It's a shame, because if not for the fact that your fingers bump against the edges, the trackpad actually pulls off pinch to zoom quite well. Two-fingered scrolling is frustrating in a different way: you have to hold two fingers on the pad and wait for a scroll symbol to appear onscreen before you start. Even then, we the often felt like we had no control of where we ended up on the page.

The thing about the touchpad is that as well-behaved as it is for everyday scrolling, it's coupled with two tiny, rather stiff buttons. Pressing the button required quite a bit more thumb pressure than we would have liked, and throughout our testing we had moments where we found ourselves keenly aware of the effort we were putting in. Using touch buttons should be an unconscious experience. Fortunately, that's one thing you'll get if you have the cash (and aesthetic sensibility) to step up to the XPS 14z.

Display and sound

Like almost every system offered at this price, the Inspiron 14z's resolution is fixed at 1366 x 768. The screen's adequate enough for looking at documents and movies head-on, and it's also bright enough that you should be able to work comfortably in a well-lit, fluorescent room. Yours truly also streamed a good half dozen episodes of Breaking Bad, and the image quality was suitably crisp even at full screen.

The problem is, there's not much flexibility in the viewing angles. We had to adjust the screen angle very carefully before leaning back on the couch to watch Walter White lie and growl his way through season two. If the lid happened to be dipped too far back or if we watched from the side while a friend took the prime seat, the picture invariably looked darker.

As for sound, the 14z isn't notably terrible, but the audio is predictably tinny. We'd say any of HP's Beats-enabled laptops has the advantage here.

Performance and graphics

Our $730 unit came loaded with a 2.3GHz Core i5-2410M CPU, Intel integrated graphics, 6GB of RAM and a 640GB 5,400RPM hard drive. Armed with those components, it landed a PCMark Vantage score of 6,177, which is higher than what we've seen from other systems with similar specs. For example, it bested the pricier Sony VAIO SB, which has the same processor, along with 4GB of RAM and a 5,400 RPM hard drive. The SB has two graphics cards -- one of which is the same Intel HD 3000 -- but even when we enabled its discrete AMD Radeon HD 6470M with 512MB of video memory, its PCMark score still didn't come close to what we got on the Inspiron 14z. As for graphics, its 3DMark06 score is in line with -- it not slightly higher than -- what we've seen from other systems with the same Intel HD 3000 card.

	PCMark Vantage	3DMark06	Battery Life
Dell Inspiron 14z (2.3 Core i5-2410M, Intel HD Graphics 3000)	6,177	4,079	6:37
Dell XPS 14z (2.8GHz Core i7-2640M, Intel HD Graphics 3000 / NVIDIA GeForce GT520M 1GB)	7,982	5,414	4:54
ASUS Zenbook UX31 (1.7GHz Core i5-2557M, Intel HD Graphics 3000)	10,508	4,209	5:41
Acer Aspire Ultrabook S3 (1.6GHz Core i5-2467M, Intel HD Graphics 3000)	5,367	3,221	4:11
13-inch, 2011 MacBook Air (1.7GHz Core i5-2557M, Intel HD Graphics 3000)	9,484	4,223	5:32 (Mac OS X) / 4:12 (Windows)
Samsung Series 9 (1.7GHz Core i5-2537M, Intel HD Graphics 3000)	7,582	2,240	4:20
HP Envy 14 (2.3Core i5-2410M, Intel HD Graphics 3000 / AMD Radeon HD 6630M 1GB)	6,735	7,214	3:55
Sony VAIO SB (2.3 Core i5-2410M, Intel HD Graphics 3000 / AMD Radeon HD 6470M 512MB)	5,129 (stamina mode) / 5,636 (speed mode)	3,609 (stamina) / 5,128 (speed)	3:39 (speed) / 5:11 (stamina) Extended battery: 9:49 (speed) / 12:21 (stamina)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 (2.5GHz Core i5-2410M, Intel HD Graphics 3000)	7,787	3,726	3:31 / 6:57 (slice battery)
Notes: the higher the score the better. For 3DMark06, the first number reflects score with GPU off, the second with it on.

As for real-world usage, the 14z had no problem keeping up as we juggled a bunch of browser tabs, downloaded and installed apps and spent hours watching movies off Netflix at full screen. Throughout, it didn't exactly stay cool, but it didn't get leg-scorching either, not even during those marathon streaming sessions. But as with its XPS brethren, the downside to such an effective heat management system is one noisy fan. Even when we opened a new tab in Chrome to check Twitter, the whirring kicked up a notch. As we said with the XPS 14z, it's not something you'll hear if you're on the couch, working with the TV in the background, but it might just grab your attention if you're toiling away in a quiet room.

Battery life

As unsightly as that bulging battery is, it gets the job done.

As unsightly as that bulging battery is on the underside of the laptop, it gets the job done. The 14z's six-cell lasted an impressive six hours and 37 minutes in our standard battery rundown test, which involves looping the same movie off the hard drive, with WiFi enabled and the display brightness fixed at 65 percent. Had we just been checking email and web surfing, we bet we could have squeezed out even in more runtime. Even in our taxing video playback test, though, it lasted markedly longer than other laptops with the same processor and graphics card. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1, for instance, managed just three hours and thirty-one minutes. (At its best, the X1 can last seven hours, but with the help of a $170 slice battery.) Meanwhile, a Sony VAIO SB series laptop with the same processor and integrated Intel graphics lasted a shorter five hours and 11 minutes, even with the graphics fixed in a so-called stamina mode that disables the discrete card.

Software

Dell already had a bad rap for saddling its PCs with bloatware, and if it wanted to look at the brand in a different light, it definitely didn't do itself any favors with the 14z. To be clear, the problem isn't what Dell pre-loaded; it's how invasive these apps become the second you boot into Windows. Immediately upon startup, you'll see pop-ups reminding you to back up your data using Dell DataSafe, activate McAfee, update your security settings and accept Nero's end user license agreement. Well good morning to you too, Dell!

The company also preloads its Stage software for easy access to photos, music and other media, which means you've got a large dock slapped across the bottom of the desktop (until you choose to remove it, anyway).

In terms of the worst bloatware offenders, we pretty much just spoiled the list for you. The most pernicious culprits include Roxio Creator Starter, the 30-day trial of McAfee Security Center and Dell DataSafe, which comes with 2GB of complimentary online storage. In addition, Blio, Cozi, Microsoft Office 2010, Skype 4.2, Nero SyncUp and Zinio Reader 4 come pre-installed, though these won't get in your way.

Configuration options

The 14z starts at $600. All told, there are four core configurations, and all come with Bluetooth 3.0, a DVD burner and a six-cell battery. The entry-level model, in particular, sports a 2.2GHz Core i3-2330M CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB 5,400RPM hard drive, DVD burner, six-cell battery and Bluetooth 3.0. Moving up the ranks, the second-lowest config ($789, or $650 after instant savings) has a Core i3 CPU, 6GB of RAM and a 640GB 5,400 RPM hard drive, while the second-to-best config ($889, or $700 after instant savings) has a 2.4GHz Core i5 CPU, 6GB of RAM and a 640GB 5,400RPM hard drive. Finally, at the high-end you'll also get a 2.4GHz Core i5-2430M CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 750GB 7,200RPM hard drive. That configuration costs $989, or $750 after instant savings.

In all cases, the CPU, RAM, hard drive, battery and optical drive are fixed, leaving you to customize details like the warranty, lid cover and length of your security software subscription. A little more control beyond this miscellany would have been nice.

The competition

If anything about this laptop -- the stiff touch buttons, the sunken hinge -- rubs you the wrong way, the upshot is that every major PC maker is ready to sell you a 14-inch laptop in the $600 range. HP's best match is the 14-inch Pavilion dm4, available for $580 and up with the same 2.2GHz Core i3 CPU, a 1366 x 768 display, a promotional 6GB of RAM and a promotional 640GB hard drive. The options here aren't as expansive as with some other companies, like Sony: there's one other hard drive option (500GB 5,400RPM), one CPU, one screen resolution, one optical drive and one graphics choice. You want something with more oomph? Get ye an Envy. Nonetheless, though, these are some of the best specs you'll get for six hundred bucks.

In Sony's camp, you could configure the 14-inch VAIO E series ($500 and up) to match the 14z's specs, but really, the C series ($700) and up is a closer match -- albeit, a pricier one. For the money, it starts with the same 2.2GHz CPU, 4GB of RAM, Intel integrated graphics, a 320GB 5,400 RPM hard drive and a 1366 x 768 display. What we appreciate about both of these VAIO lines, though, is that although they start with modest specs, they can be tricked-out if you're willing to invest the money. Both, for instance, have optional Blu-ray drives, discrete graphics and beefier 7,950mAh batteries (up from the standard 5,300mAh). The E and C series go up to Core i5 and Core i7, respectively, while the higher-end C series can be built with a 1600 x 900 display for an extra $50.

Though Gateway's been branded as the lower-end second banana to Acer ever since Acer acquired it back in 2007, its all-metal ID laptops are actually more striking than what most other companies are offering at this price. It's available in four configurations in the US, with the entry-level $630 offering a 2.2GHz Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, Intel HD 3000 graphics and a 14-inch (1366 x 768) display. Perhaps the most important spec here is that the screen is an LG Shuriken panel, which allowed Gateway to cram a 14-inch panel into a chassis normally reserved for 13-inch systems (translation: you'll enjoy some seriously narrow bezels). At the high end, the $700 model steps up to a 2.3GHz Core i5 processor, though the memory load, graphics and storage capacity remain the same.

What's funny is that although Acer's long been pitched as the higher-end brand, its 14-inch Timeline X laptop, the AS4830, starts with similar specs. The entry-level $580 model also has a 2.2GHz CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, Intel HD 3000 graphics and a 14-inch (1366 x 768) display. Then again, the Timeline series' claim to fame is its long battery life, which in this case is rated at up to eight hours. We only tested the 15-inch AS5830, but we'd be willing to bet that the 14-inch TimelineX bests most of the laptops on this list when it comes to runtime. If you're curious, the highest-end AS4830 sold in the US rings in at $730 and steps up to a 2.4GHz Core i5 CPU, a 640GB hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce GT540M graphics.

In the case of both Acer and Gateway, the biggest caveat we always feel compelled to make, regardless of specs, is that there aren't any opportunities to customize your configuration. It's true that the company is careful to offer multiple configurations and different price points, but you still need to have a take-it-or-leave it attitude when it comes to specs.

Moving on to Toshiba, its most comparable laptop is the Satellite P740, which starts at $584 with a quad-core AMD Fusion A6 APU, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB 5,400RPM hard drive. It, too, has a 1366 x 768 display.

Wrap-up

In some ways, the 14z feels rough around the edges: while Dell was whittling the chassis, it forgot to fine-tune the multitouch trackpad and make sure the touch buttons were easy to press. And unfortunately, the intrusive bloatware load didn't even get a makeover. Still, the 14z redeems itself with fast performance, long battery life and an improved (though hardly perfect) design. Dell's clearly on the right track with this mostly metal design, beefy port selection and backlit keyboard, even if certain details like the bulging battery and color blocked keyboard underscore how inexpensive it actually is. All of our quibbles aside, the 14z remains a strong choice for what it is -- a cheap, everyday laptop that's good enough for students, kids and families.

HP gives webOS developers a chance to get a $150 TouchPad

The future of webOS may still be up in the air, but it looks like HP is at least still making a small effort to woo developers and keep its current ones in the fold. It's now giving registered devs in the US, Canada and Europe a chance to get a 32GB HP TouchPad for the blowout price of $150 (or €150 in Europe), for a limited time and while supplies last. Unfortunately, it's not clear how many TouchPads will be available, but HP is allowing applicants to request up to two TouchPads each at the discounted price, so we'd assume it's more than just a handful. Those interested will have to file their request before November 18th, and if they're accepted they'll receive a coupon that must be redeemed before November 27th. All the pertinent details are at the source link below.

Samsung Focus Flash review

The Focus Flash is really a rather unassuming device. Sure, it packs Mango and a 1.4GHz Snapdragon, but its 3.7-inch Super AMOLED screen (no Plus here) and $49 price point aren't the sort of thing that scream "buy me" to gadget fiends and power users. In fact, since it was first announced, the Flash has been living in the shadow of its bigger brother (literally and figuratively), the Focus S. But, considering the number of similarities between the two devices (and most of WP7 handsets for that matter), is it right to regard the Flash as the runt of the litter? Is it the Windows Phone equivalent of those bargain-basement Android devices that aren't worth the paper your receipt is printed on? Obviously, we're not gonna tell you up front -- you'll have to keep reading after the break.

Hardware

The Focus Flash feels surprisingly nice in the hand. Though most of the body is plastic, it has a pleasant heft and there's a large swath of brushed, dark gray metal across the rear that actually makes it feel like more of a premium device than its more expensive sibling. While it's not the thinnest phone on the block, it's certainly not a heffer at 0.41 inches thick. The rounded trapezoid profile also feels quite natural to grip, providing just enough slope to cradle effortlessly in your palm. Just above that pleasant expanse of actual metal is the five megapixel camera and LED flash (more on that later) and the speaker phone which is serviceable, but hardly impressive.

All four sides of the device are interrupted with some form of port or button. Along the top edge is the 3.5mm headphone jack, while the bottom is home to the all-important microUSB plug -- you know for charging and syncing and stuff. On the left is the volume rocker, which doesn't have much travel, but is surprisingly clicky and sturdy. The same can be said about the power button on the right, which depresses with a satisfying tick. Sadly, the camera button, while it does provide some resistance feels significantly less robust (again, more on that later). There's also the trio of buttons up front. The physical Windows key is a nice touch and is flanked by the search and back buttons, both of which are capacitive. The two touch-sensitive keys seemed a tad too responsive in use. Simply brushing our fingers in the general vicinity of the search key was more than enough to launch Bing. This turned out to be particularly frustrating when trying to take a photo since our thumb naturally wanted rest right on top of it.

Obviously, the part of the phone you'll be interacting with the most is the screen. At 3.7 inches and only 800 x 480 the display isn't exactly lust worthy in the specs department. Thanks to Windows Phone 7's blocks of solid color and stark, straight lines you'll barely miss the extra pixels found on handsets running other OSes. In fact, the Super AMOLED panel does a great job of highlighting the beauty of Metro's minimal design, even if it does lend everything a slightly bluish tint, likely thanks to its pentile matrix. The only spec that had us scratching our heads was the paltry 8GB of storage. Sure, this is a budget device, but without the ability to expand via microSD, any media mavens will chew through the available space in no time at all.

Performance and battery life

Powering this petite Mango phone is a single-core, second-gen Snapdragon clocked at 1.4GHz. The Adreno 205 GPU that accompanies it is getting a little long in the tooth at this point and certainly can't keep pace with the likes of the iPhone 4S. It's not a huge deal, however, Metro doesn't require a ton of power to run smooth as silk and there aren't many games in the Marketplace that call for serious polygon pushing. In fact, Microsoft has spent so much time optimizing its mobile OS for this particular chip that while Android might balk at such a puny processor, Mango runs with nary a hiccup. In WP Bench the Flash scored a respectable 92.15 -- not quite as high as the Titan (96), but definitely an improvement on the Lumia 800 (86). And it should run circles around the similarly budget-minded HTC Radar which sports only a 1GHz CPU. SunSpider scores also fell right in between the Lumia and Titan, clocking in at 6,842ms -- only 300ms behind the 4.7-inch beast, but almost twice as slow as the iPhone 4 (not the 4S).

The relatively tiny 1,500mAh battery is a bit of a let-down. It managed to make it through a day of relatively heavy usage, including a decent amount of web browsing, photo taking and app installing, and will probably cruise into the following morning under more moderate usage. But that's it -- expect to charge the Focus Flash everyday. And knowing how quickly some of you (OK, us) can wear down one of these lithium ion packs, don't be surprised if you have to keep the charger in your bag six months down the road. Then again, it did last just shy of four hours (three hours and 55 minutes, to be exact) in the WP Bench battery test, where as the Lumia 800 only managed two hours and forty minutes and the Titan dropped dead at three hours.

Camera

The five megapixel shooter on the back isn't going to win any awards. It's passable for the occasional snapshot, but we'd keep a hold of our dedicated digicam if we were you. It took decent pics in daylight and cranking up the contrast and saturation in the settings produced surprisingly vivid, if somewhat unnatural looking images. Low light performance, however, left something to be desired. Photos were practically pitch black outdoors at night, even with the aid of some artificial light, and the flash completely washed out anything closer than six feet away. The cam didn't fare much better indoors, under fluorescent lighting. The camera had a tough time focusing and colors appeared oddly muted. The 1.3mp cam up front should be fine for some informal video chatting, but the noisy, flat images it captured wouldn't even pass muster on a MySpace page.

Video is also nothing to write home about. Though the camera technically captures 720p clips, the results are noisy (both in terms of image quality and audio) and heavily compressed. A 30-second video we took outside one the Engadget satellite compounds came in at 52.3MB. Every tiny shift in position resulted in some serious wobbling in the image, and forget about moving around -- every step we took while recording had the frame bouncing around like a kid in an inflatable castle. Though you can clearly hear yourself talking in clips, background noise is a serious issue. Even a mild gust of wind is enough to produce overpowering blasts of noise.

Perhaps the biggest let-down, though, was the dedicated camera button. Honestly, we were really excited to see a button whose sole purpose is to focus and take snapshots, but then we actually used it. It doesn't have the same satisfying click as the other hardware buttons. It does put up plenty of resistance, but it may be a tad too much. The button is slightly more recessed than others and required more force to press than anticipated, resulting in just enough motion to knock many images out of focus. On the plus side though, shutter lag is almost nonexistent. It wasn't quite as fast as the Galaxy Nexus, but certainly put the rest of the Android flock and the iPhone family to shame.

Software

There's not much new on the software front. If you've seen Mango, well, you've seen Mango. All the things we love (notifications!) and loathe (lackluster sync support for third-party services) about Microsoft's second iteration of its mobile OS are present and accounted for. Of course, both AT&T and Samsung had to stick some of their own wares on the device. Chances are you'll never have to see them outside of their icons in app menu. The Samsung Now app isn't actually terrible. It's a simple news and weather aggregator, with a live tile that puts current temperature and conditions on your home screen. Of more interest, at least to some, will be the Samsung Photo Studio -- a Hipstamatic like app that lets you add retro effects to images and capture panoramic shots.

The Ma Bell apps, on the other hand, are a bit less compelling. AT&T Navigator is, more or less, the same subscription-based GPS app you've probably never even considered a real option, the U-verse app is a great way to watch some TV content (most of it quite terrible) while you're on the go and AT&T Radio is yet another pay-to-stream "radio" app. On the plus side, every piece of bloatware that ships with the device is easily uninstalled.

Wrap-up

The Focus Flash isn't going around begging for attention. Simply put, its specs aren't going to draw in the hardcore gadget crowd and no one is going be camping out overnight to get their hands on one. That said, we could easily see this being a sleeper hit. At only $50 with a two-year contract it should snag a few second glances from those who might otherwise be eyeing a budget Android handset or perhaps even an iPhone 3G S. The screen, though not the highest-res panel out there, is bright and beautiful, and Mango hums along without a hitch on the 1.4GHz CPU inside (and smooth operation is something many of those other bargain handsets can't boast about).

The Focus isn't meant for the mobile warriors out there who don't bat an eye at dropping $200 on a phone. It's a smartphone for a less demanding crowd that simply wants to check their email, do some web browsing and keep tabs on their social networks. The Focus excels in these areas, and does so while feeling nicer in your hand than many of its more expensive competitors. You'll make some sacrifices on the camera, storage and battery fronts, but if you can live with that the Focus is a veritable steal.

Dell Latitude S tablet available for pre-order, might just arrive before Christmas

Serving as further evidence that the stylus really is back, Dell's coy enterprise slate, the Latitude S is now available for pre-order with an estimated delivery date of November 29th and an $859 price tag. If your too impatient to wait for Windows 8, this one's sporting Microsoft's seventh generation, weighs a hefty 816g -- nearly twice as much as the BlackBerry PlayBook -- and contains a 1.5GHz Intel Atom Z670 processor. If you like your tablets with a little extra heft and something extra to poke around with, hit the source link below.