If you’re investing Rs. 62,000 on a laptop, the expectations are going to be high. The question though is how much more do you get? The new Dell Inspiron 3543 is priced around the same, and comes with an Intel Core i7 processor and 8GB of RAM, which sounds great when you first hear of it. The only problem is that it comes with an average graphics card, which makes puts it in a place, where it can only be justified as a borderline high-end notebook. So it looks good for its price, but we’re here to find out how much difference that extra push it can make, over a much affordable mid-ranged laptop.
Design and Build
You don’t usually see drastic changes made to laptop designs over generations. Most manufacturers stick to the same design in different series, with a few minor changes. The Dell Inspiron looks like the 3542 we had reviewed couple of months ago. It comes with a 15-inch screen and naturally, it is large. Unlike other notebooks we get to see, the Dell Inspiron series doesn’t seem to be shrinking in size. It’s pretty large and although it’s slim, weighing 2.4kg, it’s not very compact to carry around all the time. Considering the size, it’s also not the most comfortable to use on your lap.
The build of the Inspiron 3543 feels solid. Unlike many other notebooks we’ve seen, the shell doesn’t bend under pressure. It has the plastic build on the outside as seen on the Inspiron 3542. The dotted texture on it adds a unique look to the otherwise blockish design. The laptop still looks neat. We had the silver variant. It is also available in a range of subtle colours such as blue, white, black and gray.
With this higher configuration, Dell also offers a backlight keyboard. The keys also feel softer and have better travel. Besides that, the spacing between the keys is also good. There is plenty of area around the keyboard to rest your hands on while typing. That along with the keyboard works very well if you want to have long typing sessions. However, we think Dell could’ve used the additional space to offer bigger function keys.
The trackpad could’ve also been larger. The touch though is very accurate. The new gesture controls on Windows 10 work just fine. Because of the sensitive touch though and its placement, the palm of your right hand changes the cursor position while typing sometimes. All the ports except for USB and the SD card slot are placed on the right side of the laptop. The vent is placed next to them and as a result they look very congested. There is very less space between them.
Features
The Insipiron 3000 series carries Dell’s entry-level notebooks. The Inspiron 3543 comes in range of configuration that starts around Rs. 30,000 and goes up to a good 70,000, like the one we’re reviewing. The variant that we have comes with the 5th generation Intel Core i7 5500U processor. It’s one of the fastest Broadwell processors you can get on a laptop. So we’re expecting good media experience and heavy-duty performance from the Inspiron 3543. We’re also happy to see 8GB of RAM onboard. Tagged along with the Intel Core i7 5500U processor, we’ve got great confidence in the laptop to handle heavy software and games with ease. On a standard use, you might be able to get away with anything you throw at it. The 1TB of storage is good enough for storing movies and games.
The laptop also comes with an NVIDIA GeForce 840M 2GB graphics card. That’s the only part of the hardware that isn’t exactly high-end. However, it’s still a good offering for the price considering all the hardware together. The 840M is entry to mid-range graphics solution. You should be able to play most of the modern games easily at the native resolution of 1366 x 768. It’s also a little disappointing to see the low resolution on a slightly expensive laptop. Other features include Wi-Fi 802.11 n and Bluetooth 4.0. It also comes with a 4-cell removable battery which is said to last for a good 2 to 3 hours depending on the usage.
Connectivity options are pretty standard. You get three USB ports, out of which one is a USB 3.0. You also get an HDMI 1.4 port for connecting your laptop to a bigger screen. Its larger size also means a DVD/RW drive makes the cut. The DVD is an Air-Bay one, which means that you have the option to remove it completely if you don’t need it. The Inspiron 3543 is the first laptop we’re reviewing with Windows 10.
Performance
The Dell Inspiron 3543 met our expectations. Its performance is noticeable better than other laptops, which fall its category, we’ve reviewed in the past. All thanks to the Core i7 processor and 8GB of RAM, we didn’t have any problems while running basic day-to-day tasks on the laptop. We had two browsers open with multiple tabs, playing high definition video from our hard drive and songs with Groove music app running as well. All of this, yet there was no sign of stuttering or slowing down. Surprisingly the heat levels were also very low, which was very good to see. There sound of the fan was missing too. The gaming performance was also very satisfying. There was no visible stuttering with the resolution set to 1366 x 768. The gameplay was smooth as well.
We also ran the Resident Evil 6 benchmark, which scored 4107, which is pretty decent. This means that high end games run reasonable well, but the laptop will struggle a lot if it’s pushed to its limits. We did notice the heat levels to go up with games running, but not enough to trouble you. The screen looks vibrant while playing HD movies and games. Colours look natural while black levels are good. Games though look lively and the 15.6-inch screen is very immersive. The brightness levels are good, but the viewing angles are very bad. It’s also the reflective glass surface that makes it a bit worse in brightly lit areas. It’s just enough to give you a good visibility when you’re sitting right in front of it. The audio output isn’t very loud. Voices in movies weren’t very loud, even with the volume set to high. The HD camera looks decent; there is no framing, but you still need to use headphones to have clear Skype calls.
Apart from the Resident Evil 6 benchmark, we also ran the CrystalDiskMark test and got the above shown results. It’s pretty average, compared to other notebooks we saw. Battery life isn’t very impressive though. With the laptop set to high performance mode, we were only able to churn about an hour and ten minutes of life. That said, the laptop should last much longer when set to Balanced mode.
Verdict
From what we’ve seen, we’re pretty happy with the Inspiron 3543’s performance, at least for the most part of it. We wouldn’t call it the best laptop for gaming, but it can handle most of what is thrown at it flawlessly. It’s a great laptop for multi-tasking. The screen quality is decent as well. Be it movies, images or text you have on the screen, everything looks good. At Rs. 62,000*, the Dell Inspiron 3543 is worth its price, and recommended if you want that extra performance boost in your everyday software.
