Dell Inspiron 14 5480 Laptop review: Easy on your back, and your wallet

Dell Inspiron 14 5480 with 8 GB RAM and 8th Gen Intel core-i5 model retails for Rs 50,000.

|

Dell recently launched the new thin and light laptop with the latest 8th Gen processor, compact form factor, and other value-added features. The Dell Inspiron 14 5480 is one of the laptops from the series, which aims to offer a huge value-for-money proposition.

 
Dell Inspiron 14 5480 Laptop review: Easy on your back, & your wallet

Rating:
4.0/5

I have been using the Dell Inspiron 14 5480 Laptop from the last few weeks, and here is the extensive review of the latest notebook from Dell. With a price tag of Rs, 50,000 is the Inspiron 15 5480 is the best laptop? Let's find out.

Specifications

Specifications

 

  • 8th Generation Intel Core i5-8265U Processor
  • Windows 10 Home Plus Single Language
  • 8GB, 2x4GB, DDR4, 2400MHz
  • Intel UHD Graphics 620 with shared graphics memory
  • 1TB 5400 rpm 2.5" SATA Hard Drive
  • 14.0-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-glare LED
  • 42WHr, 3-Cell Battery (Integrated)
  • 802.11ac 1x1 WiFi and Bluetooth

 

Design and aesthetics
 

Design and aesthetics

The Dell Inspiron 14 5480 is available in Burgundy Blaze and Platinum Silver colors, and I am testing the Burgundy Blaze variant, which does stand out compared to other laptops at this price range. This is my first experience with a laptop that comes with Burgundy color, and it does look premium and professional from the design perspective.

The laptop has a thin and light form factor and weights at 1.48 KG, making it one of the lightest laptops with a 14-inch display. It is very easy to carry the Dell Inspiron 14 5480 notebook in a standard handbag or a backpack, especially for students and those who travel a lot.

The outer casing of the laptop is made using aluminium, and the remaining part of the notebook uses high-quality polycarbonate, which makes the notebook a sturdy yet a lightweight machine.

Display

Display

The Dell Inspiron 14 5480's display design is inspired by the Dell XPS laptop, which was one of the first notebooks to offer a bezel-less display on a laptop with a higher screen-to-body ratio.

The laptop comes with a 14.0-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-glare LED Backlight Non-touch Narrow Border IPS Display, which is a 1080p A1 grade LED panel. The display reproduces crisp colors, and definitely one of the brightest screens that I have tested in the recent past.

Thanks to narrow bezel-design (not as narrow as the Dell XPS), the Dell Inspiron 14 5480 has a form factor of a 13-inch notebook with a 14-inch screen.

The laptop comes with a proprietary Dell CinemaColor software, which can be used to change the color temperature and the saturation of the display depending on the type of activity (Watching a movie, sport, or an animation). There is an option to tone down the blue-color light emitting from the screen as well.

This will be a great machine, for those who watch a lot of movies, videos on streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Videos. I thoroughly enjoyed watching videos and movies on the Inspiron 14.

Sound and camera

Sound and camera

The Dell Inspiron 14 5480 has an HD camera on the top bezel, which will be enough for standard video conferences. The camera does not support Windows Hello Face Unlock, which is a bit of a disappointment. I did make some Skype video calls at the time of reviewing, and the person at the other side was able to see my face properly.

There are two bottom-firing speakers, powered by MaxxAudioPro, which helped me to tinker around the sound a bit. The sound coming out from the laptop is average, and it is slightly lower than my liking. However, this issue can be fixed with a headphone or a Bluetooth speaker.

I connected a couple of Bluetooth speakers, wired and wireless earphones, and the MaxxAudioPro does prompt me to choose the type of audio peripheral to offer the best sound output.

Keypad and trackpad

Keypad and trackpad

The Dell Inspiron 14 5480 has a full-sized keyboard minus the number pad. The laptop definitely has one of the tactile keyboards, especially at this budget. However, it does not support backlighting (at least on the model that I am testing), which could be a deal breaker for someone, who types a lot in low-light. Do note that, the Dell Inspiron 5480 is completely customizable, and can be done on dell.co.in

Surprisingly, the trackpad on the notebook offers accurate tracking (as per the Windows standard). However, I could only obtain the full productivity using an external mouse, as tracking and pressing left and right buttons on a small trackpad is not that easy. The track-pad does get the job done, and it is pretty sensitive as well.

Performance

Performance

I will be dividing the performance of the Dell Inspiron 14 5480 into various parts, covering the benchmark results and the real-world scenario.

The Dell Inspiron 14 5480 is powered by the 8th Generation Intel Core i5-8265U Processor, which is an 8th Gen Whiskey Lake processor with a base clock speed of 1.80 GHz and a boost clock speed of 3.89 GHz. The Core-i5 8265U is coupled with 8GB DDR4 RAM with 2400 MHz frequency and a 1 TB of 5400 RPM HDD.

DiskMark

DiskMark

On DiskMark, the laptop offers a maximum read speed of 92.41 MB/s and a write speed of 68.23 MB/s. The laptop takes 10 to 15 seconds for a cold boot and takes a few more seconds to load an app after the cold boot.

The 10 to 15 seconds of cold boot time might not seem like a big issue, but this timing is going to increase in the future, as we install more apps and store more data on the primary hard disk.

The laptop does not come with an SSD. However, there is an empty M.2 SSD slot, which can be used to install an SSD, which will improve the boot speed and app launch speeds by a huge margin.

GeekBench CPU

GeekBench CPU

On GeekBench 4, the Dell Inspiron 14 5480 scores 4150 on the single core and 12966 points on the multi-core performance. These scores reflect a good CPU performance from the notebook, which will be reflected in day-to-day tasks.

GeekBench GPU

GeekBench GPU

I did not run any heavy GPU benchmarks or games on the Dell Inspiron 14 5480 laptop, as the device does not have a dedicated GPU. Instead, it comes with the integrated Intel UHD 620 GPU, which should help with normal GPU tasks like rending a web page.

The laptop scores 33741 points on GeekBench, which is on point with the other laptops with Intel UHD 620 GPU. Don't think about gaming on the Dell Inspiron 14 5480, as the computer is not meant for gaming or doing GPU intensive tasks.

Real-world usage

Real-world usage

After knowing the highs and lows of the Dell Inspiron 14 5480, I did use it as my daily driver for over two weeks to write blogs, watch YouTube videos, and to binge my favorite sitcoms on Amazon Prime Videos.

The Dell Inspiron 14 5480 did not disappoint me in any way, as the laptop was able to handle most of the tasks that I through at it. The 8 GB RAM (which is upgradable up to 32 GB) definitely comes handy while opening multiple Chrome tabs and some light software like Slack, Thunderbird, and Spotify.

As a Sub Editor, this laptop served me well from the last two weeks, and I had a great experience with the overall device (easy to carry) especially for drafting news, features, and review articles.

I/O

I/O

The Inspiron 14 5480 does offer a wide range of I/O with a dedicated SD card slot, a full-sized HDMI port, a USB type C port for charging and data syncing, a LAN port, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a triple USB-A port, out of which, two are USB 3.0 ports.

Having a wide range of I/O enables faster access to several accessories, and the Inspiron 14 5480 does the job.

Battery

Battery

The laptop ships with a 42WHr battery with a 65W power adapter, which can charge the battery from 0 to 100% in less than two hours. I did not notice any sort of heating while charging, and the laptop does get a bit warm with continues usage.

In my fair usage period, the battery latest around 4 to 5 hours (average) with continues web browsing, listening to music and streaming web shows. The laptop can easily last a complete working day (8 hours) on a single charge.

Things that needs a fix

Things that needs a fix

Overall, the Dell Inspiron 14 5480 is a great light-weight notebook, which just needs some fixing. Here are the things that should have been improved on the laptop.

 

  • LED Backlit keypad
  • SSD storage for OS
  • Dedicated GPU (at least 2 GB)

 

Verdict

Verdict

The Dell Inspiron 14 5840 is a laptop for those who are looking for punching numbers on Microsoft Excel. The Inspiron 14 5480 is also an excellent device for students, as it is effortless to carry, thanks to the lightweight design.

For those professionals, who are looking for a laptop with high GPU computations tasks should stay away from the Inspiron 14 5480. This is a light-weight laptop, offering the best battery life, running a full version of 64-bit Windows 10 operating system.

To conclude, the Dell Inspiron 14 5480 is Easy on your back, and your wallet, and definitely one of the best value for money notebook available in the country with a compact and light design.

Best Mobiles in India

Read More About: dell laptop reviews news

Best Phones

Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Yes No
Settings X
X