Whether you are looking to use it as a kids’ training-wheels laptop or as a secondary machine to add to your stock of hardware, the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 is a solid option. Its design speaks for itself and its performance is among the best you can get within its price range.
But since consumer reviews and opinions about this PC have been divided for quite some time, you should read this unbiased review that aims to settle the debate once and for all. So without further ado, take a look at the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 and find out what it’s all about.
Full Review of the Dell Inspiron 11 3000
To review everything the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 has to offer, it is important to break its features into small bits for easier, deeper analysis.
1. Design
One of the things that really stand out about the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 is its design. This machine comes in a sleek, sturdy design with the matte Dell logo on the center of its glossy lid. The power button is deftly located on the top right corner of the laptop’s full-sized keyboard.
An analysis of Dell Inspiron design features wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the choice of colors you have when buying this laptop. You can have the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 in red, blue, or white colors. However, you should consider giving the white version a wide berth because this hue tends to show all kinds of scuffs.
Weighing just 2.4 pounds with a thickness of 0.8 inches, the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 is an ultraportable notebook. It is thinner and lighter than the Acer Chromebook 11 N7 which weighs at 2.8 pounds with a thickness of 0.9 inches. It’s closest to the Lenovo IdeaPad in terms of dimensions. However, it’s a little thicker than the IdeaPad by 0.1 inches.
The SD card reader, the power port, HDMI and USB 3.0 are all located on the left side of the notebook. On the right-hand side are the Headphone Jack, USB 2.0 port, and the Noble security lock ports.
2. Display
The display of the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 has been one of the main talking points of many reviewers. After a few tests were conducted, it was found that some of the criticism aimed at this notebook’s display may be well-grounded. While it can get the job done, it isn’t the best display for entertainment.
To assess the display of the Dell Inspiron 11 3000, several movie trailers were played so as to check for any color distortion. Unfortunately, the results weren’t that pleasing. Luke Cage’s headboard in The Defenders trailer looks too dark on this notebook’s screen, and Rand’s iron fist renders with excessive orange.
While it’s not a surprise to find a resolution of 1366 X 768 pixels in an average notebook, it’s a reminder of the phrase “you get what you pay for”. But despite the display’s wanting resolution, it is still good enough for writing and reading both online and offline.
For purposes of comparison, the color display of the Dell Inspiron 11 3000, the Chromebook 11 N7 and the IdeaPad 110S were all tested. The colorimeter used to measure color display indicated that the Inspiron only produces 67% of the sRGB spectrum. The Ideapad and the Chromebook posted better results, with 70% and 72% respectively.
As you can see, this is definitely not the laptop for outdoor use. Its panel can only emit a brightness of 196, which is dimmer than that of the Chromebook and the Ideapad 110 S, which registered 235 and 213 units of brightness respectively. That being said, the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 is mainly a business machine, so you shouldn’t expect it to have the display of a gaming laptop.
3. Keyboard and Touchpad
The Dell Inspiron 11 3000 doesn’t have the perfect keyboard, but it is good enough for solid typing. The Typing Master 10 app was used to conduct a typing test, and the results weren’t that bad. The keys’ actuation force of 74grams, which is within acceptable limits, was pretty impressive (an actuation force of at least 60 grams is acceptable).
The only problem with the keypad was the 1 mm travel depth, which is lower than the 1.5mm average. While deeper key travel was desired, at least the deck didn’t flex, unlike that of the IdeaPad 110S.
The 3.9 X 2.1-inch touchpad of the Inspiron 11 3000 is also pretty amazing. It’s sensitive enough to accurately track your input and recognize the three-finger navigation gestures of the Windows 10 app. It may feel a little stiff at first, but once you get used to it, you will have no problems with Inspiron’s buttonless touchpad.
4. Audio
You probably know that headphones should deliver quality sound, but would you expect a laptop of the same price to have great audio? Well, you better believe it because this is one of the best sounding laptops in its price range.
The audio of the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 was tested in a spacious conference room and it filled it with clear vocals, sweet synths, and accurate bass. You should keep the Dell Audio utility presets for the best audio quality.
5. Performance
The Dell Inspiron 11 3000 is more of an average performer. With a Celeron N3060 processor and a RAM of 2GB, this is probably not the laptop you’d want to multitask with.
After testing the performance of the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 in a number of ways, it was revealed that the most apparent indicator of the laptop’s performance was the reduced speed when several tabs were simultaneously opened on the Google Chrome browser. In addition, there was a noticeable stutter when five Youtube tabs were opened all at the same time.
To compare the performance of the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 with that of similar laptops, the Geekbench 4 performance benchmark was used. It earned a total score of 1813, which is close to the IdeaPad 110S’s 1847. Both laptops have the same RAM and CPU specifications.
The JetStream score of the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 was also compared to that of the IdeaPad 110S and the Chromebook 11 N 7. The IdeaPad came out on top in this regard, with a JetStream score of 57.2. The Dell Inspiron 11 3000 and the Chromebook registered a tie of 49 points.
Another performance test performed on the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 was the speed test. To do this, 4.97GB multimedia files were transferred to the Inspiron 11 3000 and the speed of transfer calculated. This speed was then compared to that of the Ideapad 110 S. This is one of the areas that the Inspiron shone against a machine of similar capabilities, posting a speed of 84.82 MBps against the Ideapad’s 73.75 MBps.
Although the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 performed well on the speed test, it was below average when it came to gaming and image editing. It only supported lightweight games such as the Candy Crush Soda Saga and allowed minimal image editing.
But this did not come as a surprise considering the kind of processor and RAM the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 sports. You wouldn’t expect a cheap laptop with a Celeron processor and 2 GB of RAM to have mind-blowing graphics, would you?
6. Battery Life
The Dell Inspiron sports one of the best batteries in its price range. It beats the IdeaPad 110S and the Chromebook 11 N7 hands down, with a battery life of over 13 hours. So if you thought having a low-end processor was all bad news, think again, because it’s one of the reasons the Dell Inspiron has a long battery life.
7. Webcam
The .9 megapixel webcam of the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 is barely adequate for Skyping. Although you would be recognizable in the selfies you shoot with this laptop, there would be tons of visual noise on the background.
During testing, green surfaces showed blotches of distortion, while red surfaces and clothes had too much yellow. If you are looking to use the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 for video calls, you might want to mount a better webcam.
8. Heat Regulation
Don’t let its hot shade of red fool you: The Inspiron 11 3000 stays cool even when performing heavy tasks. After streaming a 15-minute long HD video, the touchpad’s temperature only rose to 74 degrees Fahrenheit, while the underside heated up by 87 degrees. Both temperatures are well below 95 degrees, which is the maximum comfort threshold for machines like the Inspiron 11 3000.
9. Warranty and Software
The Dell Inspiron comes with Windows 10 software, which includes a fully stocked Microsoft Suite. It is one of the advantages of choosing the Inspiron 11 over the similarly priced Chromebook. While the Chrome OS offers the same performance as the Inspiron 11, it lacks the full Microsoft Office Suite, which is often a necessity in most schools and offices.
The Inspiron 11 3000 may come with just 32 GB of storage, but there’s a silver lining to it – the small storage space doesn’t allow Dell to load the notebook with much bloatware.
However, it does come packed with everything you’d expect from a Dell notebook, including the SupportAssist system and the Power Manager Lite settings utility. Other software included are Sling, Candy Crush and Minecraft, which you might want to get rid of to free up precious storage space.
The Dell Inspiron 11 3000 come with a limited one-year hardware warranty. Under Dell’s standard warranty, you are required to supply the box your machine came with before the company pays for shipping. Standard Dell warranty terms and conditions apply.
10. Configuration Options
You will notice that throughout this review, the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 is mostly compared with the Acer’s Chromebook 11 N7 and Lenovo’s IdeaPad 110S. This is because the two laptops are the Inspiron closest competitors, and have similar specs to this notebook.
The table below summarizes how the Inspiron 11 compares to the Chromebook 11 N7 and the Ideapad 110s by rating their ease of Use, build quality, assembly time and warranty.
On a rating scale of 1 to 5 stars, the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 is worth at least 3.5 stars. Of all its aspects, the display ranked lowest and was responsible for the relatively low rating. If you’d like a better display, you will have to make do with the restrictions of the Chrome OS because the Chromebook 11 N7 offers the best alternative in terms of display. Lenovo’s Ideapad is also a solid option, but its battery life is shorter than that of the Inspiron 11 3000.