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Dell Inspiron 11z review

in Laptops

Verdict

A poor touchpad and below-par build quality undermine a budget laptop with plenty of potential

Review Date: 23 Nov 2009

Reviewed By: Mike Jennings

Price when reviewed: £421 (£484 inc VAT)

Overall Rating
3 stars out of 6

Features & Design
2 stars out of 6

Value for Money
3 stars out of 6

Performance
4 stars out of 6

Details
Part Code P03T
Review Date 23 Nov 2009
Price ex VAT £421
Price inc VAT £484
Features & Design 2 stars out of 6
Value for Money 3 stars out of 6
Performance 4 stars out of 6
Warranty
Warranty 1 yr return to base
Physical specifications
Dimensions 292 x 216 x 47mm (WDH)
Weight 1.500kg
Travelling weight 1.9kg
Processor and memory
Processor Intel Pentium Dual-Core SU4100
RAM capacity 2.00GB
Memory type DDR2
SODIMM sockets free 0
SODIMM sockets total 1
Screen and video
Screen size 11.6in
Resolution screen horizontal 1,366
Resolution screen vertical 768
Resolution 1366 x 768
Graphics chipset Intel GMA 4500MHD
Graphics card RAM 32MB
VGA (D-SUB) outputs 0
HDMI outputs 1
S-Video outputs 0
DVI-I outputs 0
DVI-D outputs 0
DisplayPort outputs 0
Drives
Capacity 320GB
Hard disk usable capacity 297GB
Internal disk interface SATA/300
Optical disc technology N/A
Optical drive N/A
Battery capacity 4,800mAh
Replacement battery price inc VAT £0
Networking
Wired adapter speed 1,000Mbits/sec
802.11a support yes
802.11b support yes
802.11g support yes
802.11 draft-n support yes
Integrated 3G adapter no
Bluetooth support yes
Other Features
Wireless hardware on/off switch no
Wireless key-combination switch yes
Modem no
ExpressCard34 slots 0
ExpressCard54 slots 0
PC Card slots 0
USB ports (downstream) 3
PS/2 mouse port no
9-pin serial ports 0
Parallel ports 0
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports 0
Electrical S/PDIF audio ports 0
3.5mm audio jacks 2
SD card reader yes
Memory Stick reader yes
MMC (multimedia card) reader yes
Smart Media reader no
Compact Flash reader no
xD-card reader no
Pointing device type Touchpad
Audio chipset Realtek HD Audio
Speaker location Bottom
Hardware volume control? no
Integrated microphone? yes
Integrated webcam? yes
Camera megapixel rating 1.3mp
TPM no
Fingerprint reader no
Smartcard reader no
Carry case no
Operating system and software
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
OS family Windows 7
Recovery method Recovery disc
Battery and performance tests
Battery life, light use 8hr 3min
Battery life, heavy use 3hr 27min
Overall application benchmark score 0.68
Office application benchmark score 0.72
2D graphics application benchmark score 0.75
Encoding application benchmark score 0.60
Multitasking application benchmark score 0.64
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User comments

Acer

The Acer 4810T series is a similar price and lovely build quality.

I'm a big fan of this new cheap, long battery life ultraportable.

Where netbooks are too small for everyday use, these ultraportables are properly impressive.

I hope to see more manufacturers producing them.

Come on Dell, up your game!

By Grunthos on 23 Nov 2009

Touchpad

I fully agree with your criticism of the touchpad. I have a Mini 10, and this new laptop looks to have an identical keyboard and touchpad. The keyboard is actually very good. It's a shame the touchpad is so awful. It's by far the worst touchpad I've ever come across

By davidbryant4 on 23 Nov 2009

Can you tell me why you keep mentioning gaming performance when referring to the graphic card for these type of laptops but keep omitting comment on whether it is able to play video (including HD)?

I would expect most purchasers (including myself) of these types of machine are far more interested in whether YouTube, iPlayer, n264 etc. will play than if it is capable of the latest Call of Duty!

By jefferson30 on 24 Nov 2009

I second the above comment. In no way is gaming capability a useful indicator of performance and general capabilities of such a laptop. Here's two reasons why. The small percentage of laptop gamers wouldn't be interested in a machine like this and conversely the people who are interested wouldn't consider gaming performance a useful measure, as it ignores multitasking with productivity software for a start.

By dodge1963 on 26 Nov 2009

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