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The Dell Inspiron 5578 sports a 2-in-1 design allowing it to be much more than just a notebook. It’s designed to be an affordable, all-purpose laptop that can deliver more functionality through its flexible design. There are a range of configurations available across price ranges too. We have one of the more affordable models with mid-range hardware, one that costs around Rs. 50,000*. For that price, you don’t get the specs but with a versatile design, the 5578 still offers a good Windows 10 experience, that’s worth it. Let’s do a quick review and find out.
Design and Build
The Inspiron 5578 is a bulky laptop. That is one of the first things that comes to mind when you see it. It weighs a good 2.3kg. That isn’t a problem when using it as a laptop, but when using it as a tablet or a stand, it can be. We’re actually pretty impressed with how well it’s built. The plastic shell feels solid. There is barely any flex on the laptop screen. Opening the laptop lid requires a little more strength than you think. It’s the same story when you want to turn the screen all the way around. The screen shifts a little bit when you touch it. It’s still sturdier than most laptops.
Having a flexible design helps. Based on Dell’s claim, you can use the laptop in four different modes. There is the usual laptop mode, stand mode, tent mode and tablet mode. Of those, we really like the stand mode. It helps get the screen closer to you, which makes movies and videos look immersive. We would have loved a slimmer bezel though. Besides that, we also noticed the screen to be a major finger print magnet.
The tablet mode is a painful to experiment with, mostly because of the bulky and heavy shell. The sharp corners simply add to the discomfort, making it difficult to use the laptop in the tablet mode even for a small amount of time.
On the flipside, the 5578 makes for a satisfying laptop experience, at least in terms of design. The keyboard deck looks massive. There is plenty of room around the keyboard. Of course, this is because of the omission of a numerical pad. The space under the keyboard is enough to rest your hands on and the rounded edges at the bottom definitely help make long typing sessions comfortable. Keys have a nice soft rubber-like feel to them and are also backlit. Even the trackpad is pretty large. Thanks to the support for precisions drivers, you not only get better accuracy but more functionality on the trackpad using gestures.
Our only complaint with the laptop is that it features a boring design. The grey finish looks a little dull. It’s also bad enough that it runs all around the laptop. Dell doesn’t provide colour options to choose from.
Screen performance
The 15.6-inch screen features a full HD resolution. It performs well in most scenarios. Our experience with videos on YouTube and Netflix was really good. It manages to present a subtle picture with vibrant colours that we really like. We found it lacking a little in terms of sharpness, but it wasn’t all that bad. Smaller fonts in Google Chrome and Microsoft Word could be read without having to squint.
Our only problem with the screen is the glossy finish on it. It makes it difficult to use the screen in bright lit rooms or even outdoors. You can still use the Dell Inspiron 5578 for typing, but the problem is difficult to ignore when using the laptop in Stand mode. Darker scenes in movies looked completely washed out. Increasing the brightness to its maximum doesn’t help either.
Viewing angles are also slightly disappointing. It’s not the just the reflection that’s the problem, but also the fading colours. This means that you have to be very particular with the angle in which the screen is viewed from.
Touch on the Dell 5578 seemed to be a little off. We had to press the screen twice with more pressure to select something. There’s a split second delay too. You need to pay a lot more attention when you’re touching smaller icons on the screen or dragging and dropping files. We also noticed that it works well in the centre but the accuracy is a little off around corners. This can be a little distracting.
We found it perfect for watching movies or scrolling through articles. With tools like Sketchbook and Paint, the experience is more intuitive than using a mouse or a trackpad, but we’re afraid it’s not perfect.
OS and hardware
It’s not just the design that is flexible. The Windows 10 OS comes with a tablet mode to make most of the device’s versatility. You’re prompted to switch to the Tablet mode, the moment you push the screen all the way to the back. There’s not a lot that changes here except for the home screen. Think of it as a hybrid between Windows 10 and Windows 8. All the apps are visible in the start menu. The OS becomes more touch-oriented. You can even switch the screen sideways if you want, but it looks a little odd on the large screen. One thing we noticed about the tablet mode is that some apps lose spit-screen support.
Dell has included bloatware in the form of a battery manger, update manger, support app, notifications app and others. To make the most of the touchscreen and the laptop design, they’ve also included a Sketchbook, an intuitive painting app, which carries plenty of tools, alongside a simple interface. Besides that, you also get Microsoft’s very own Paint and 3D builder app, both of which also work better with touchscreen laptops.
Our review model of the Inspiron 5578 ran a 7th generation Intel Core i3 -7100 processor running alongside 4GB of RAM. You also get a 1TB drive and 20GB of additional online space on Dropbox. The laptop also carries an Intel HD Graphics 620 solution.
A good number of connectivity ports are also included. You get three USB ports, two of which are USB 3.0. HDMI, a memory card reader and a 3.5mm auxiliary port for microphone and headphone are as standard. We’re not too happy about the missing Ethernet port but on the flipside, you get Wi-Fi 802.11ac for better wireless connectivity. The optical drive is also missing, but we don’t mind that, because most people hardly use them these days.
The webcam is capable of recording videos at 720p resolutions. Its infrared capability even allows you to use face recognition in dim environments. We didn’t see any signs of framing which also makes it good for video calling. The Dell Inspiron 5578 comes with a 3-cell integrated battery which should last about 5 to 8 hours on moderate usage.
Performance
In theory, the Dell Inspirons 5578 seems like a good idea but with slower hardware, it is a little overambitious. With an Intel Core i3 processor, the laptop isn’t a power house. The overall Windows 10 experience is just about average, with a slow interface and significantly long reboot times. The performance slows down further as the number of apps increase. There is a visible delay while switching between apps. With that, we’d still say that multi-tasking is manageable as long as you aren’t a power user.
Handling day-to-day software is no problem for the Dell 5578. The web browsing experience is good. Reading articles is no problem. Web pages scroll smoothly. We were even able to run Netflix and Chrome side-by-side in split-screen mode, without any trouble. We noticed a slight lag while scrolling through content on the Netflix app, but it wasn’t enough to be a problem. Video playback however was smooth. The same couldn’t be said about the touchscreen performance.
Media performance was surprisingly good on the Inspiron 5578. Full HD videos played smoothly too. There’s only a little stuttering when skipping scenes. Even some moderate games run well on the Dell 5578. Older titles like Counter-Strike: Condition Zero should work just fine.
The built-in speakers sound low no matter what mode you use the laptop in. With less sound around, you can actually use them for watching movies or YouTube. However, headphones are recommended if you really want to hear details. Using the sound enhancer in Waves Maxxaudio works pretty well. The difference in the sound can actually be heard.
Besides the laggy interface, the laptop heats up a bit, when running several software. You’ll easily notice the heat in the standard laptop mode, because of the placement of the vents. It’s not so obvious with basic applications, but while playing full HD videos, it can heat up quite a bit. Thankfully, using the laptop in the stand mode, lets you avoid the problem.
We ran a couple of benchmarks on the laptop and got the following results.
The CPU scores are pretty low in Cinebench. CrystalDiskMark scores are decent compared to other laptops with similar specifications. We also ran the Battery Eater Pro benchmark. Based on the scores we got, the battery will last roughly up to two and half hours, which seems pretty bad to what is promised. The only surprising bit was Street Fighter 4 benchmark, which recorded decent scores. The game is actually playable on the laptop with lower quality.
Design and build
The Dell Inspiron 5578 is a solid laptop. It also comes with a flexible design that can be used in four different modes. The fact that it’s bulky and heavy makes it difficult to use its design, to some extent. The stand mode is fun to use for watching movies and reading articles. It’s the glossy finish on the screen that hampers the experience. Both keyboard and trackpad are comfortable to use. Our only complaint is that it looks a little boring and that there are no colour options to choose from.
Features
The Dell Inspiron 5578 doesn’t seem as powerful for the price you’re paying for it. It comes with a 7th generation Intel Core i3 processor with 4GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. It’s missing an Ethernet port. However that been compensated with a faster Wi-Fi AC standard. Windows 10 comes with a tablet mode that lets you make the most of the versatile design. It even comes with added software like Sketchbook, to give you a gist of the full HD touch screen. Besides that, Dell has included some of their own applications too.
Performance
The Dell Inspiron doesn’t do as well as we would have liked it to. The Intel Core i3 processor can keep up in giving a seamless Windows 10 experience. Basic tasks like running Google Chrome and Microsoft Word are handled well, but pushing it results in a laggy performance. The touchscreen isn’t accurate and needs a lot more attention to work with. That said, media playback performance is pretty good. Movies play smoothly. The screen looks good and performs well as long as it’s not too bright around. Viewing angles are bad though.
Verdict
In the end, the Dell 5578 seems like an over ambitious laptop, that is limited by its hardware. Don’t get us wrong, the flexible design helps the experience in some areas, but it’s not enough to pay a high price of Rs. 50,000* for it. So if you want the 5578’s flexibility, we would recommend you to get the model with a higher configuration. Sure you’d be paying more for it, but it would certainly be well worth it.
