To say that Dell has been doing a decent job as off late would be the understatement of a century. The newly privately held company has proved itself to be a worthy opponent in the consumer laptop market for over a year now. Case and point; its latest flagship mid-tier laptop under the name of Dell i5368-1692GRY.
This new laptop features a Full HD display, sixth generation Core i3 processor and the latest generation RAM, amongst many other advantages. Today we're going to take a long hard look at this model as we review the Dell i5368-1692GRY. Wanna tag along for the ride?
Pros: Full HD 13 inch display, Skylake Core i3 CPU, DDR4 SDRAM, lightweight design, Windows 10, extremely competitive price.Cons: no DVD reader, integrated graphics means it's not suited for gamers.
Dell i5368-1692GRY Convertible in review
A superb display with a premium design
One of the most attractive features of Dell's new laptop is undoubtedly its display. It comes with a 13.3 inch Full HD LED touchscreen with TrueLife technology and wide viewing angles. This translates into the perfect laptop for both editing lines of code as well as watching high definition movies.
To add to that marvelous display is the lightweight design of the laptop (3.4 pounds), built with an aluminium body that screams "premium laptop" all the way. Also, though the keyboard is not backlit, it's actually pretty comfortable for typing during long periods of time.
As you probably know, this isn't your average laptop either. It's actually a convertible laptop which means you can flip the screen and have it over the keyboard to use it as a tablet or just leave it half way to create a nice stand that can come in handy when you wanna place the laptop in, say, the kitchen.
How's the performance on this thing? What are its limitations?
Performance on the Dell i5368-1692GRY is pretty fluid thanks to its sixth generation Intel Core i3-6100U processor. This is a dual core processor that works at a maximum speed of 2.3 GHz with 4 threads and 3MB of Intel's latest generation Smart cache.
In an effort to translate this into "normal terms", we could say this is a great processor for a wide array of tasks such as editing pictures, watching movies, editing documents, skyping with friends and even coding and compiling through a virtual machine. That said, it's not a top of the line processor like a Core i7 but for everyday tasks it works pretty well.
Coupled to that CPU we've got 4 GB of RAM and here's where things get real interesting. See, we're not talking about your standard DDR3 RAM but about the latest generation DDR4 SDRAM running at 2133 MHz which is significantly faster than the previous edition and much more efficient when handling multiple apps at a time.
If you've been on the lookout for a new laptop you might've noticed that most of them still come with DDR3 RAM which makes this fact all the more impressive considering we're looking at a very affordable laptop over here and not a top of the line model where you'd expect something like this.
That said, we're still limited to 4GB and we would recommend upgrading to 8GB, an option that Dell has made available to the end user. 4GB will be good when handling 3-4 programs running at the same time but for more "hardcore usage" it would be recommended to upgrade to 8GB either at the time of purchase or somewhere down the line if you notice that 4 GB isn't enough for your usage.
What games can I play?
Gaming on the Dell i5368-1692GRY is not something Dell had in mind when engineering this machine, something obvious when you consider it boasts an integrated Intel HD 520 Graphics card. This is a very good graphics chip for stuff like image and video editing but it's on the low end for gaming purposes.
Some games like Overwatch and World of Warships will deliver a decent performance on low settings but the latest and most demanding titles should not be played on this laptop unless you wanna be truly frustrated.
How much storage am I getting? How many hours of battery life?
With the Dell i5368-1692GRY in review you'll get a 1TB hard drive running at your standard 5400 rpm. That should prove more than enough for most users. However, if it's storage speed you're after we would recommend upgrading to an SSD module. These are quite a bit more expensive than traditional hard drives but if you're the type of person who hates waiting on your laptop to boot up and boot down you'll be thankful of the upgrade.
In terms of battery life, the i5368-1692GRY features a 3 cell battery and - though there's no official word from Dell- we gather that with this set of specs you could easily expect around 5 hours of battery life depending on what you use most.
Which are the available ports? Anything else I should know?
As we've come to expect on convertible laptops, there's no DVD tray available. However, we've got 3 USB ports, an HDMI output, SD card reader and you standard audio jack. We would've liked an ethernet port but it's not particularly standard amongst convertibles for obvious mobility reasons.
There's also dual band WiFi ac (2.4 GHz & 5 GHz) connectivity as well as Bluetooth and a high definition HD webcam.
Closing statements and opinions...
In wrapping up our review of the Dell i5368-1692GRY it's clear why this convertible laptop has made its way to the top sellers list. It's got a sleek design, a Full HD display, latest generation RAM for optimal multitasking and a powerful processor for everyday performance. Battery life is ok and storage is more than enough for most users.
Overall, we can't see ourselves recommending any other model for someone looking to buy an affordable convertible laptop that doesn't make millions of compromises like so many others do. Sure, it's not a laptop meant for gamers or graphic designers but for most people it will be a great performer at an even better price.