Dell Inspiron 11z Mini Laptop – price, review and analysis

21 Nov

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Dell is a very popular brand in India. Lately, it has launched slew of mini laptops, popularly known as netbooks in India. The most anticipated is the mini-laptop being the Dell Insipron 11z, which has more powerful specs that what you normally see in the netbook market. Here is a quick glance at its specs: 

  • Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
  • Intel Pentium SU4100 (1.3GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB Cache)
  • Intel GS45 + ISH9M chipset
  • 11.6" WXGA LED-backlit display at 1366×768
  • Intel X4500 Integrated Graphics
  • Dell 1397 ABG Wireless
  • 2GB DDR2-800 SDRAM (1 Slot)
  • 250GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
  • 65W (19.5V x 3.34A) 100-240V AC Adapter
  • 6-cell 56Wh 11.1v Lithium Ion battery
  • Dimensions (WxDxH): 11.5" x 8.43" x 0.92-1.8" with 6-cell battery
  • Weight: 1.57kg with 6-cell battery
  • 2-year limited warranty

Design
The Dell Inspiron 11z retains a very simple design. It can clearly be seen that Dell wanted the design to be as sober as possible. Although there is nothing fancy about the design, we still found it be very elegant.

11z

Build quality is average and chassis feels durable.

Screen

The Dell Inspiron 11Z comes with a huge 11.6-inch display with 1366×768 resolution which is a considerable improvement over the usual nebtooks that come with typical 1024×600 resolution..The display has good saturation levels, which means that the images looks very fine on it.

11z-2

Speakers

Although the speakers do not have enough bass, they still sound very nice and loud enough to share your music and videos with the people sitting around you.

Keyboard and Touchpad
Due to its bigger frame than the 10-inch netbooks, Dell was able to fit in a spacious keyboard. It is almost  full-size and very comfortable to type on. The layout does not force you to get use to it and you can jump start typing on it.

11z-keyboard

The Touchpad uses ELAN touchpad hardware which works fine for simple multi-touch gestures

Ports and Features
There is a HDMI port; USB ports (3x), SDHC card reader and LAN port. The power adapter is bigger as compared to the most netbooks that we around that come with shinked AC adapters.

On the left, you will find LAN, HDMI and one USB port.

11z-3

On the right you will find 2 USB port, Kensington lock, SDHC card reader and AC port

11z-4

 

Performance

The 11Z comes with SU4100 CULV processor which is not used in netbooks.It has two cores and 2 times the cache as found in Celeron 723 processor. It has Intel X4500 integrated graphic chipset, which together with its CULV processor offer much better performance than the usual Atom powered netbooks

In our HD video tests the Inspiron 11z was able play the 480p and 720p videos with no problems.

Battery Life

The Dell Inspiron 11z comes with a 6-cell battery. We were to squeeze out 4 hours 15 minutes from its battery. True, it is a bit less than the 6-cell netbooks that we see around, but then this netbook is much much more powerful than most of them.

Pros:

    * Good performance 
    * HDMI out 
    * Perfect size for a travel laptop

Cons:

    * Touchpad still problematic
    * Average battery life
    * High price as configured

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