Product Description
The Inspiron 15 is the most economical member of the family, offering a great combination of portability and plenty of screen real estate along with a 10-key numeric keypad next to the keyboard.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #14 in Personal Computers
- Color: Black
- Brand: Dell
- Model: i3531-1200BK
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.00" h x 15.00" w x 10.20" l, 4.67 pounds
- CPU: Intel Celeron 2.16 GHz
- Memory: 4GB Unknown
- Hard Disk: 500GB
- Processors: 1
- Display size: 15.6
Features
- Intel Celeron N2830 Processor
- 4 GB DDR3
- 500 GB Hard Drive
- 15.6-Inch Screen, Intel HD Graphics
- Windows 8.1
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Multitask on a budget
With quick, efficient Intel Celeron processors and Windows 8.1 apps, Bing Smart Search and more, you can turn around tasks easily, whether you’re online or offline.
Charge aheadStay powered up long enough to skip the in-flight movie, polish your presentation or drift off to your favorite music with up to 6.25 hours of battery life.
Add it up
A 10-key numeric keypad makes managing spreadsheets and balancing budgets a breeze.
Beautiful display:Get lost in this stunning 15.6" HD WLED screen with 1366x768 resolution and the high-contrast provided by Truelife technology.
Huge hard drive:Pack hours of TV shows, music and movies on the available 500GB hard drive.
Reader at the ready:Can’t find your camera cables? Just upload media files right from your camera’s card with a built-in 4-in-1 media card reader.
Practical ports:Connect to an HDTV or HD monitor with an HDMI 1.4 port for an even bigger home theater experience. Or join MP3 players, cameras, external drives and more with its two available USB 2.0 ports. Please note, the Inspiron 15 has no optical drive, Ethernet port or Bluetooth connectivity.
Turn up the heat:From locker rooms to locked cars, we test Inspiron laptops for survival in harsh short-term heat conditions of up to 65°C/149°F.
Everything hinges on it:We test Inspiron laptop hinges to ensure they still feel tight, even after opening and closing the lid 20,000 times.
Keys to success:We test commonly used keys for 10 million keystrokes and touch pad buttons 1 million times with no failure. So go ahead, finish your novel.
Buttoned up:No matter what you set your power and multimedia buttons to do, we've tested them all to survive up to 40,000 pushes.
Twist and turn:Call us excessive, but after twisting an Inspiron laptop's base and lid more than 25,000 times, we can assure you the parts inside are well protected.
Always a good fit:You'll probably never need to remove and reinstall your Inspiron's battery 750 times, but you can rest easy knowing that we've tested even that.
Features
Designed for easy travel
The Inspiron 15 starts at about 1" thin, so it slips easily into a travel bag for when you’re on the move. Its textured lid and palm rest help you get a grip on things.Affordable performance
Multitask on a budget
With quick, efficient Intel Celeron processors and Windows 8.1 apps, Bing Smart Search and more, you can turn around tasks easily, whether you’re online or offline.
Charge aheadStay powered up long enough to skip the in-flight movie, polish your presentation or drift off to your favorite music with up to 6.25 hours of battery life.
Add it up
A 10-key numeric keypad makes managing spreadsheets and balancing budgets a breeze.
Enhanced viewing
Beautiful display:Get lost in this stunning 15.6" HD WLED screen with 1366x768 resolution and the high-contrast provided by Truelife technology.
Huge hard drive:Pack hours of TV shows, music and movies on the available 500GB hard drive.
Reader at the ready:Can’t find your camera cables? Just upload media files right from your camera’s card with a built-in 4-in-1 media card reader.
Practical ports:Connect to an HDTV or HD monitor with an HDMI 1.4 port for an even bigger home theater experience. Or join MP3 players, cameras, external drives and more with its two available USB 2.0 ports. Please note, the Inspiron 15 has no optical drive, Ethernet port or Bluetooth connectivity.
Designed for the real world — because that's where life happens.
We want you to love your new PC for years to come. That's why we test Inspiron laptops for reliability not just in the places where you expect it, but for the open road ahead.Turn up the heat:From locker rooms to locked cars, we test Inspiron laptops for survival in harsh short-term heat conditions of up to 65°C/149°F.
Everything hinges on it:We test Inspiron laptop hinges to ensure they still feel tight, even after opening and closing the lid 20,000 times.
Keys to success:We test commonly used keys for 10 million keystrokes and touch pad buttons 1 million times with no failure. So go ahead, finish your novel.
Buttoned up:No matter what you set your power and multimedia buttons to do, we've tested them all to survive up to 40,000 pushes.
Twist and turn:Call us excessive, but after twisting an Inspiron laptop's base and lid more than 25,000 times, we can assure you the parts inside are well protected.
Always a good fit:You'll probably never need to remove and reinstall your Inspiron's battery 750 times, but you can rest easy knowing that we've tested even that.
Specifications
| Processor | Intel Celeron Dual Core N2830 Processor |
| Operating System | [81N6EB] Win8.1 w Bing 64-Bit Eng |
| Memory | 4GB Single Channel DDR3 1600MHz (4GBx1) |
| Video Graphics | Intel HD Graphics |
| Hard Drive | 500GB 5400 rpm SATA Hard Drive |
| Multimedia Drive | No Optical Drive |
| Media Card Reader | 8-in-1 Media Card Reader and USB 2.0 |
| Biometrics | FastAccess Facial Recognition |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth tied to wireless card |
| Display | 15.6 inch LED Backlit Display with Truelife and HD resolution (1366 x 768) |
| Fax/Data Modem | HDMI - Yes |
| Wireless Connectivity | Dell Wireless 1506 |
| Audio | HD Audio enhanced with Wave MaxxAudio |
| Keyboard | English Non-Backlit Keyboard |
| Battery | 40 WHr, 4-Cell Battery (removable) |
| Warranty and Support | 1Yr Mail-In Warranty |
| Software 1 | McAfee Peaks Live Safe - 30 day |
| Software 2 | Microsoft Office Trial (OHT13M) |
| Software 5 | CY3,FY14,AddlSW,INS 8.1 (C3F4I8) |
| Disclaimer3 | 125V, 1M, C5, US |
| Label | 65 Watt |
| Other | No WIDI Software |
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews930 of 956 people found the following review helpful.
Inexpensive laptop that performs decently
By J. Wollens
This is no I7 laptop, let's just get that straight. But, it makes a good second back up laptop for me. I'm using it to write this review right now. I ordered mine from dell, at the time it was cheaper than amazon, and dell had them in stock. I did remove the hard drive and replaced it with an SSD I had laying around which helped speed it up considerably. It is a bit laggy at times, but overall it is usable and better than I would have expected for this price range.
Here are the pros as I see them:
-The price, the price, the price
-The weight is much lighter than my I7 high end laptop
-Battery lasts 5-7.5 hours depending on use, many Windows laptops in this price range only last 3 hours so this is a huge advantage.
-The battery is user replaceable, which you can't take for granted anymore in a laptop. Press two buttons and it pops right out!
-Many laptops recently make it very hard to get access to the RAM and Harddrive for upgrades. Several dells require you to completely disassemble the entire laptop to get to the hard drive including removing the screen, motherboard, track pad etc. Which is a huge pet peave of mine. This laptop has an access panel on the bottom to access the RAM and HD which is great!
-A large 15.6 inch screen for a great price
-This CPU doesn't run hot at all and has decent performance for the price.
-It runs so cool it doesn't even have a fan at all!
-Keyboard has a number pad, many don't in this price range.
-Keyboard feels nice and doesn't feel too cheap, we will see with time though how it holds up.
-Trackpad works good, buttons are loud when clicked though.
-Nice to have a Windows laptop for this price, I like chromebooks but I can't connect to my at home Samba server from a chromebook so I gravitate to Windows.
Cons:
-There are the obvious ones like no USB 3, no Bluetooth, no wired ethernet, no CD/DVD Drive. But in this price range I'm ok with that. I have an external USB CD/DVD that I used to install Office on it so that wasn't an issue for me.
-Windows 8.1, is better than 8.0 but if you have never used it before there is a learning curve for sure compared to Windows 7/Vista
-Not blazing fast but you can't expect that from any pc in this price range.
-Case feels cheap, it creaks and groans when I pick it up by a corner.
-The quality of the video is pretty low, but once again it is usable for watching youtube, netflix videos, etc. Just is less sharp than my high end laptop and can be a tad laggy occasionally.
Would I recommend this??? Depends on your needs. If you are on a tight budget and are a light PC user who wants to use it just for basic web surfing, Word Processing, and light youtube/netflix watching this will work fine for most people
If you are a high end, heavy user, I'd only use this as a backup laptop. I would not be happy with this as my primary laptop personally since I'm a very heavy user.
If you are a gamer, you of course know enough to not even look at this laptop as an option.
Upgrade possibilities: If you know what you are doing upgrading the hard drive to an SSD will help it feel more useable. Also, I have not done so yet, but my understanding is that you can upgrade this to 8GB of ram which could help too. It only has one slot for ram so you will have to remove the stock 4gb and replace it with an 8GB. Make sure to get the DDR3L (The L stands for low voltage). You want the 1.35 volt not 1.5 it may work with the 1.5 but will run hotter and use more battery. The laptop comes with 1333mhz ram, but I think 1600mhz will work and run faster. Take this with a grain of salt as have not tried it yet, but I believe the following RAM will work, and this is the type I plan to try upgrading to someday.
http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Technology-1600MHz-PC3-12800-KVR16LS11/dp/B00CQ35HBQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1402328644&sr=8-2&keywords=8GB+DDR3+1600MHz+sodimm+DDR3L
Update 6/23/14: I did buy and install the 8gb of Ram above. It works great, but it does down clock the ram to 1333mhz as the CPU won't handle 1600mhz speeds. But, the 1600mhz 1.35v ram does work great in here. It feels even snappier now. Between the SSD I installed and the 8gb of ram this computer is very usable and fairly snappy for most tasks. The only time I see the video and cpu lagging a bit is if I am on a webpage with heavy adobe flash usage on it. But, right now I have two browsers open and about 30 browser tabs open with now slowdown. I'm still quite happy with this laptop for the money. It is just important to throttle your expectations, this can't be compared to an Intel I7 CPU $1000 laptop, but it is good for basic web browsing!
Update 8/22/14 I noticed several people that complained about the performance realized if they removed the demo anti virus and crapware that it runs better. I reinstalled windows from scratch from my USB DVD when I put in the SSD so I effectively removed all of the crapware by reinstalling and only putting the essential drivers back on. That is probably why mine runs much faster and better than some of the reviewers. I would remove the anti virus and just use the built in windows 8.1 antivirus as that is less cpu and memory intensive. Then uninstall of the other factory junk, like wild tangent games, toolbars etc. If you don't want to do that manually in the past I used a free utility called PC Decrapifier that automated the cleanup and worked pretty good. Also, you might need to change your power saving settings to be less restrictive so it is optimized more for speed. Hope that helps...
488 of 511 people found the following review helpful.
Tips for turning this budget laptop into a better performer
By donttreadonme
***UPDATE 10/26/14 - Looks like the laptop is now shipping with an i3 CPU and an upgraded GPU (on board). I'd be interested to here reviews on this.
Also, here are some pros and cons after owning the laptop for 3 months.
PROS:
-High price-value ratio, decent hardware components and performance for the price
-Extremely light weight and very thin
-Easy to upgrade components, you can do this rather economically to keep the overall costs down
-Full 10 key number pad and smooth key operation
-Bluetooth, webcam, and photo verification for login (some may not be aware of this but the webcam also acts as a security measure)
-Great for medium-heavy work loads, i.e. running multiple programs, playing music or videos, etc.
-Solid construction, mine travels with me in my backpack and it takes a beating, haven't had any issues
CONS:
-Processor could be faster, however I mention below on how to increase the CPU's performance
-Lack of RAM. The 4GB RAM is quite slow but I describe my experience below after upgrading the RAM to 8GB
-Hard drive has plenty of storage but it's also slow. See below for SSD upgrade and comparison
-With the factory components, the laptop struggles with heavy flash websites. You can alleviate this issue by upgrading the hard drive and RAM
***UPDATE 10/24/14 - Putting this at the top since some have asked for instructions on how to replace the hard drive and RAM. Here are two (2) youtube videos (not mine) that will walk you through the process. NOTE: Pay close attention and follow his exact removal and re-install process of the cover on the underside of the laptop, otherwise you will break the plastic tabs.
Hard Drive removal and installing SSD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up5uGX1Bf4g
Upgrading RAM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24kPq-xzwHc
REVIEW:
Great budget laptop, especially for students. Keep in mind the price reflects the product.
Before deciding to move on to other brands, consider that there are many consumers who purchase laptops without possessing any rudimentary knowledge about computer software and components. Let alone there are buyers who show lack of consumer aptitude by writing comments like "thought it came with a optical drive, 1 star."
So, quickly I'll highlight on a few things you can do to noticeably improve the performance of this laptop.
-First, replace the HDD with a SSD. You will experience an immediate performance boost. You'll need a USB to SATA cable to clone the drive. It is very, very easy and basic. Samsung offers a great software to assist you in this process. Here is the drive I purchased.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E3W15P0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Here is the cable.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0057UAB2K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
-Second, uninstall McAfee as it ties up many of your systems resources. Microsoft Defender comes pre-loaded, just turn this on. Also, uninstall all the Microsoft apps you do not use. Most of these run in the background tying up CPU resources.
-Third, unlock the CPU's parked cores as this will allow the processor to operate at it's highest output. To do this, follow these directory series. Control Panel\System and Security\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings. Then go to Advanced Power Settings. A new window opens, then scroll down to Processor Power Management and click to expand. You will see Minimum Processor State, click to expand. The default setting is 5%. Increase to 100%. You will notice that the Maximum Processor State is already at 100%. Apply the changes. Now you have a processor running at it's maximum performance capacity. You should see a overall noticeable performance increase in all areas.
-Fourth, make sure you have the Power Saver mode OFF. This mode tells the CPU and other components to run at a minimum state, hindering performance.
-Fifth, if you are comfortable with removing programs both in the control panel and in the registry, then remove all the unnecessary Dell software. You can use CCleaner to assist you.
-Sixth, using CCleaner, go to the start-up programs which run in the background. Turn off all the programs and automatic updates that you won't use.
**UPDATE: As of 9/23/14, I have updated the ram to 8GB. The performance increase was significant. It still travels with me to college 4 days a week and I have no issues with it. I wanted to make this clear, the laptop is considerably lighter and thinner than most others (excluding the Chromebooks, SurfacePro's, etc.). Although it doesn't contain "powerhouse" components, it does a fantastic job in handling medium-heavy work loads, i.e. multiple programs open, streaming, VPN programs (LogMeIn), student learning applications, and so on.
Here is the ram I installed.
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-PC3-12800-204-Pin-Notebook-CT102464BF160B/dp/B006YG8X9Y/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1411501025&sr=8-3&keywords=laptop+ram
And like the above reviewer mentioned, if you are comfortable with wiping the drive clean, do so.
331 of 348 people found the following review helpful.
Great for Basic Laptop!
By Aletheia
My wife and I were looking for notebooks for our kids (9 and 11 yrs old). DELL had a sale for $200.00 for this model, and we could not pass up the opportunity. All in all, this is an excellent laptop for kids or very basic laptop for a family.
PROS:
1. CHIP: Intel Celeron (dual core). This is a latest Celeron chip (N2830, Bay Trail - M) you will have. Being a dual core can handle most of the demands easily. Because it is a Bay Trail chip, it is quiet and not heavy on your resources. It is so quiet, you hardly hear the fan at all. So for your Web browsing, emails, YouTube viewing, MS Office, some gaming, and every day chores, this is a great basic laptop.
2. BUILD. The black matte finish is not fancy but functional. Simple but sturdy. The keyboard has no flex, and comes with chiclet keyboard that is well designed and generously spaced. The screen is bright and resolution is normal for this price range.
3. PRICE. Price differs from store to store, but if you get it in right time, you might get it for around $200.00. Even $250 is a good price. To give you a comparison: various Chromebooks are priced in this range but with less functions and memories. Additionally, you CANNOT install any Windows programs (such as, MS Office, etc), so while Chromebooks have their proper place, for those who need basic laptop for general use, this laptop might be a better fit in this price range.
4. OS. Windows 8.1 is far, far better than Windows 8.0. If you already have 8.0, then you should update/upgrade it to 8.1. I love using it, and my kids love the tiles. PLUS, I love 8.1's Family Safety feature. I can control how much my kids can be on the computer and what days. Additionally you can also filter what kind of web they are browsing. MS also sends you (the parent) weekly report on the kids use of the computer. Love this feature! Easy to set up and monitor.
CONS:
1. No optical Drive (DVD/CD). But nowadays, this is not really needed anymore. But for those who need it, you might have to consider other models.
2. No Bluetooth. The box says, "Bluetooth" but this is misprint. This model does NOT have Bluetooth.
3. Only 2 USB (2.0) ports. I was hoping that it had another USB port.
Despite the cons, considering its price, this is an excellent entry laptop for kids and those who just want sturdy, dependable laptop for every day general use. Highly, highly recommended!
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