Dell Inspiron11 3000 Series

Intro

So I’ve had this computer for a few years now. I found it at a pawn shop for an amazing price so I couldn’t pass it up. The official model number is 3147, this particular one has a Quad Core processor and 4GB RAM. This particular processor is before the Core M series of processors came out. I had a copy of Linux on this computer for about a year, but switched to Windows 10 since that is what the majority of people will be running on this guy. Linux ran buttery smooth on it though.
This is one of the more inexpensive 2-in-1’s on the market, they can be had for under $300. Is it worth it even at that price? That’s what I’m hoping to help you with.

Screen/Touch

This is a very just ok screen, exact resolution is 1366x768. Watching HD videos on Youtube is definitely ok but nothing to write home about. I will say the touch screen is very responsive though and using this as a larger tablet is decent. It doesn’t get overly bright though so I would say using it outside on a nice sunny day probably won’t be very easy. It does however get pretty dim, so using it with only the light of the TV won’t be a pain in your eyes, too bad anyway.

Performance

Don’t let the words ‘Quad Core’ fool you. This processor does have 4 cores but you definitely get what you pay for. I have a laptop with a 2nd Generation Core i5 that is easily better than this. I won’t even try to edit a video on this particular laptop. Although chances are if you are thinking of buying this laptop you probably won’t be either. For surfing the net this will suffice, although graphic intensive web pages tend to load a little slower. Honestly it’s nothing outrageous just a few seconds.

Battery

This is where the Dell shines. They claim up to 7 hours and this laptop gets every minute of that, possibly even more. To be fair that was under light web browsing and some light video viewing. I will point out when shut down a lot of laptop batteries will drain within a couple weeks. This computer wasn’t touched (outside of moving it around my laptop area) for about 2-3 months. I plugged it in for about 30 seconds, just long enough to get some juice to turn it on, when I got it all powered up it still had 78% battery! I don’t care who you are, that is impressive!

Keyboard

I don’t know why but this is one of my favorite parts of reviewing a laptop. Typing can be a very enjoyable experience with the right keyboard. The keys on this one are more mushy than they are clicky and I’m not a huge fan of that. There is a certain tactile feedback to them but it’s not as enjoyable as the keyboard on the Lenovo’s. Dell says they are rated for around 40,000 keystrokes, which does help some. The keyboard on mine is not backlit, I don’t know if this is true across the board but when typing in darkness it is a very nice feature to have. Another thing to note is the keys are a bit gritty, I’m not 100%
sure I like this feature, I’m also not sure I don’t like it. As of now the best I can say is it’s different. About the only thing I definitely DON’T like about this keyboard are the arrow keys, they are much too small to be of any real use. I do like that the Caps Lock button has a little light next to it that turns on when it is activated.

Ports

These can make or break a laptop (see the new Macbook). I hate trackpads with a fiery passion so I almost always use some sort of wireless mouse with a laptop. Let’s say I only have 1 USB port, well then I would be screwed if I wanted to plug in an external hard drive, or thumb drive. On this laptop if we’re looking at it like we are gonna use it, on the left side there is; charge port, HDMI, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, headphone/mic jack, and a little speaker grille. On the right side there is; SD card slot, USB 2.0, speaker grille, volume rocker, and power button. Definitely enough ports to satisfy my need for having a bunch of crap hooked up to my computer.

Speakers

This is the first time I’m reviewing the speakers on a laptop, well at least the first time I’m putting it in a review. I should honestly put this in all of them, I will from now on. Anyway as you might expect, the speakers aren’t great, they do however serve their purpose and fairly well, all things considered. There is almost no bass except a tiny bit at higher levels, but if you expect the thunder of Zeus to come through these, you have more issues than I do. Having some background noise on while I type this is perfectly fine. I have yet to find built in speakers on a laptop that actually impress me anyway, anyone out there know of anything?

Thoughts

Like I said I’ve been using this computer off and on for quite a while. If you are looking for something to surf the net, check your email, write reports, and the like then this is the computer you want. It’s not overly expensive, plus it is a 2-in-1. I would definitely recommend this to a college student that just needs something to take notes in class and write some papers. It’s light and does this job very well. Even better if you can find it on a good sale or at a pawn shop like I did you will be very happy with your purchase.

As always thank you very much for reading, please send me your comments and share my blog with your friends.