Dell’s 5000 series of laptops usually run high-end hardware and are known for their performance. However, with budget laptops featuring hardware that’s similar to more expensive models today, it’s important for Dell to up things a few notches to stay ahead of the curve. The new Dell Inspiron 5547 hence comes with the latest 4th generation i5 processor and a whooping 8GB of RAM. It’s also equipped with an AMD R7 265M graphic card and the laptop features a stunning design. Dell categorizes the Inpiron 5547 to be a high-end multimedia laptop, priced around Rs. *50,500. We put it through some tests and see if the Inspiron 5547 manages to hold its ground against its more affordable counterparts.
Design & Build
Looking at Dell's previous models, we had no doubt in our minds that the 5547 will also be a bulky laptop and unfortunately that's true. The 5547 being a 15.6-inch laptop is a pretty bulky laptop and not the most ideal laptop to travel with. It looks bigger than most of the other 15.6 laptops we've seen before. That’s only because of the wide deck it has under the keyboard. On the flip side though, it does provide ample space to rest your hands making it quite comfortable to use it on your lap. Because there is no optical drive and the battery is a non-removable type, the laptop is pretty slim for a 15.6-inch laptop. It also makes it easy to fit the laptop in a bag.
The laptop looks quite elegant, all thanks to the brushed aluminium finish on the lid. It looks sturdy and Dell claims that it doesn't heat up a lot. On the inside, the design is very minimalistic. Dell has the same full-sized keyboard found on other Inspiron laptops. They are comfortable to use and also have a satisfying click. The keyboard is also backlit so typing becomes a lot easier if you’re working at night with the lights off. The trackpad is the same as seen on other Inspiron laptops. It's big and although it was easy to use, most of its gesture controls didn’t seem to work.
Overall the design and build are pretty impressive. The 15.6-inch screen looks good but the glossy finish reflects a lot if you’re sitting in a bright room with lots of lights, or outdoors. Dell seems to have switched the placement of the ports. Besides one USB port and the SD card slot, all the other ports are placed on the left side of the laptop.
Features
We had the high-end variant of the 5547. Its configuration includes a 4th generation Intel Core i5 4210U processor, clocked at 1.7 GHz (with Turbo-boost up to 2.7 GHz), 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. That alone makes the laptop effortless at running software with ease. It also comes with an AMD Radeon HD R7 M265 graphic card. It will certainly boost the performance while running heavy graphic demanding software, be it HD games or video editing software. We’ll find if it delivers later in our review. The 15.6-inch screen sports a resolution of 1366 x 766. It looks quite vibrant and has good viewing angles. The variant we had didn't have a touchscreen, but there are touchscreen variants available if you want them. The pair of down-firing speakers at the front are powered by Waves MaxxAudio. Dell claims their software tool enhances the audio to improve on the performance, no matter if you’re making video calls or listening to music on it.
We like that the laptop supports the latest Wi-Fi 802.11ac standard. It’ll help improve wireless performance substantially compared to its budget counterparts, as most of them are still limited to Wi-Fi 802.11n. A stronger wireless connection is also promised. The rest of the features are more or less the same. There is Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity and an HD webcam that records videos at 720p. Connectivity includes three USB ports out which two are USB 3.0. Besides those, there is an HDMI port, an Ethernet port and a SD card slot. Unfortunately, an optical drive is missing but that shouldn't be a problem since most software and games are downloaded off the web.
The laptop comes pre-loaded with Windows 8.1. Along with it, you get a trial version of Microsoft Office and a 15-month subscription of McAfee Security Centre. Dell also includes their software tools like the Power Manager Lite. The software gives you a detailed status of the battery life. It also features four different modes that let you optimise the battery based on the usage of the laptop. There's also Dell Backup and Recovery which we thought was a very useful app, but most of its features are only available in the premium version, which will set you back by Rs. 700.
Performance
We had great expectations with Inspiron 5547, sadly it wasn’t able to meet all of them. We ran the Resident Evil 6 Benchmark on it and got a score of 1452 with a Grade C. This was a little less than our expectations. It means that the laptop might do relatively well while running photo editing applications and moderate gaming but anything more demanding will slow it down.
We weren't very happy with the screen quality either. Although the colours looked vibrant, some of the full HD videos still looked washed out. Brightness levels were a little low as well. We weren't very impressed about the True Colour feature either. Adjusting the vibrance and the skin tone settings didn't have any noticeable effect. We didn't like the recommended colour temperature on any of the modes either. We would recommend you to change the settings manually to get a natural looking image.
The speakers at the front have a decent sound quality. You'll hear a lot of distortion in the songs that have a lot of instruments playing simultaneously, but the audio is much clearer while playing slow music and even movies. The highs and the mids are exaggerated while the bass is very low. This makes the speakers good for video chatting but not ideal for listening to heavy music. Besides the Resident Evil 6 Benchmark, we also ran the CrystalDiskMark benchmark, which tests the read and write speeds of the hard drive. The scores we got were 100.7 MB/s and 98.54 MB/s for sequential read, and write speeds respectively. This is average.
Verdict
The Dell Inspiron 5547 features great specifications but it doesn’t do a lot better than a budget laptop. For the price of Rs. 50,500*, we weren’t impressed by its gaming performance and the poor screen quality. On the flip side though, we would say that everything else about the laptop is quite appealing. The laptop looks good and it’s not that heavy or bulky to carry either. It doesn’t even heat up even when you have it running for hours. If you want a 15.6-inch laptop with high-end specs and are planning to travel with it, then by all means, consider this model.
