Dell Inspiron 13 5379 (i5-8250U, UHD 620) Convertible Review

Since nothing has changed aesthetically compared to its predecessor, we instead refer you to our review of the Inspiron 13 5368. Our impression of the case in 2016 still stands today. The plastic case lacks rigidity while there is still a large gap between the display and the base when using the device in tablet mode. It is also worth noting that the device is both the heaviest and the thickest convertible among our comparison devices.

The Inspiron 13 5379 continues the basic and somewhat dated selection of ports reported in our review of its two-year-old predecessor. While USB-C would have been a nice addition, the device does come with a full-sized SD card reader and an HDMI port.

SD card performance has marginally improved compared with the Inspiron 13 5368. While performance is still average, it is at least on par with laptops in its class. SD cards protrude only 1 mm from the case too. During testing our reference card, the Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II, achieved an average data transfer rate of just over 28 MB/s.

In terms of Wi-Fi performance, the Inspiron 13 5379 is definitively faster than its 2016 counterpart, offering send and receive speeds of almost 635 MBit/s and 600 MBit/s respectively. The Atheros/Qualcomm QCA6174 Wi-Fi card with 2 x 2 antennas is clearly well implemented here. The device comes with Bluetooth 4.2.

Dell offers no accessories specifically for the Inspiron 13 5379. Every device comes with one year's worth of free Dropbox storage limited to 20 GB. Unfortunately, McAfee anti-virus comes pre-installed as a trial version, the lack of which we praised the Inspiron's predecessor for in our 2016 review. No other programs come pre-installed though.

Every Inspiron 13 5379 comes with one year's hardware support as standard; this includes collecting and repairing the device. The cover can also be extended to four years at an extra cost.

Please see our Guarantees, Return Policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

Our test device is equipped with an Intel Kaby Lake 8th generation processor. The Core i5-8250U is supported by integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620, 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD. The combination of this hardware means the Inspiron 13 5379 is capable of more demanding tasks and could even be used to play older games to a good standard.

Our test device comes with Intel's quad-core Core i5-8250U. Processing power is limited by the Inspiron’s running temperature. The processor can turbo clock up to 3.5 GHz at 15 W thermal design power (TDP) and has a base clock speed of 1.6 GHz to save energy and reduce heat. The i5-8250U can also use Hyperthreading to process up to eight threads simultaneously.

The Inspiron 13 5379 achieved above average results in a single pass of Cinebench R15. It is just over ten percent ahead of its predecessor in a single pass, with the lead extending to almost fifty percent on multiple passes. Not everything is rosy though as our endurance tests show the limitations of having a 15 W quad-core CPU in a laptop case. Performance falls sharply after a short time before dropping further to an average after about fifteen minutes of testing. This throttling is not an issue exclusive to the Inspiron 13 5379 though as this behavior is consistent across our comparison devices with Core i5-8250U's onboard.

The Inspiron 13 5379's system performance has not drastically improved over our two-year-old 5368 test devices. It is only fifty points ahead of its predecessor in the PCMark 8 Work benchmark, while the older model even marginally beats its successor in the PCMark 8 Home benchmark. Results do fall within an expected margin though, with the real advantage of 8th generation Kaby Lake chips being their energy efficiency and power per-watt. 

The Inspiron 13 5379 runs smoothly in daily use with no visible lag or overly long load times. The performance of the Core i5-8250U in other systems can be found on our CPU benchmark page.

Dell has installed a slow Micron-1100 SSD in our test device, and as such, comparative performance is correspondingly poor. This performance gap is relative though, as programs still open quickly and the SSD is still faster than traditional HDD's

The relative performance of the Micron-1100 SSD can be found on our HDD / SSD benchmark page.

The Inspiron 13 5379 only comes with one option for graphics, that being Intel's integrated UHD Graphics 620. The available video memory and processing speed rely heavily on the RAM with which the UHD Graphics 620 is equipped; dual-channel RAM reaps huge benefits. Our test device only comes with single-channel though, which means that the GPU will not perform at the peak of its powers. This could be rectified through retrofitting dual-channel RAM.

The Inspiron 13 5379 is well behind the competition in the 3DMark benchmarks. The GPU performance gap that single and dual-channel RAM causes is clear when comparing the device to the Acer Spin 5 or the Lenovo Miix 520. While the gap is not huge, the effect that the choice of RAM has on GPU performance is striking. It is therefore worth bearing in mind that the 5379's GPU performance could be improved with a simple change of RAM. The performance of Intel's UHD Graphics 620 can be compared on our GPU benchmark page.

The Inspiron 13 5379 performs as expected when gaming. Old games, such as Bioshock Infinite, will run smoothly at medium quality. Casual games found on the Windows Store also proved no problem for our test device. Our test results further demonstrate the issue of pairing the UHD Graphics 620 with single-channel RAM. Our comparison devices equipped with dual-channel RAM achieve up to fifteen percent better FPS when gaming than the Inspiron 13 5379.

The performance of Intel's UHD Graphics 620 in other games can be compared on our games benchmark page.

The fan in our test device is silent in normal use. Accordingly, our microphone will only measure ambient sounds. The fan only comes on when needed and turns off as soon as the device has cooled down. The fan also adjusts its running time according to the time needed to cool the device and does not just stay on for a fixed amount of time. While the fan remains quiet at 35 dB(A), its whirring sound could be annoying for some.

The Inspiron 13 5379 has a relatively balanced sound, but one which has no bass, and a low maximum volume. Our editorial staff was left with the impression that the sound tended to become tinny when listening to the device for extended periods of time. In daily use, the device could still easily be used for occasional audio playback though.

Frequency diagram comparison - checkboxes are selectable and de-selectable

The Inspiron 13 5379's energy consumption is on par with comparable devices. When idle the maximum power consumption is under 9 W. This rises to just above 42 W under load. While this is close to the maximum wattage of the bundled 45 W power supply, there should be no issues when charging the device when it is operating under load.

While the Inspiron 13 5379 has markedly improved battery life over its predecessor, it still is only average compared to the competition. The more energy efficient Core i5-8250U helps the 13 5379 last five and a half hours in our Wi-Fi test, an improvement of ninety minutes over the Inspiron 13 5368. On the other hand, the Lenovo Yoga 720 and the Acer Spin 5 last significantly longer than the Inspiron 13 5379.