Dell Inspiron 15 3505: Ryzen office laptop with low stamina

Dell hides the components of its 15.6-inch office laptop inside a slim, matte black plastic chassis. The case is lacking in terms of rigidity: The lid and the base unit are too susceptible to twisting from the corners.

Although the installed Ryzen 5 3450U APU offers enough performance for office and web applications, it falls short of its potential. Dell has prioritized low heat and noise levels over maximum performance. Additionally, a part of the performance potential is left on the table, since the RAM (8 GB) only runs in single-channel mode. Dual-channel mode can be enabled by installing a secondary memory module.

The storage configuration (256 GB) should be enough for many common use cases of the 3505. In the case that the storage of the installed NVMe SSD (M.2-2230; M.2-2280 models are also supported) is insufficient, it can be swapped for a higher-capacity drive. Alternatively, a secondary 2.5-inch storage drive can be installed in the notebook. A mounting frame and a SATA connector are available within the chassis.

The battery life is poor: The Inspiron reaches a disappointing Wi-Fi runtime of around 4.5 hours and thus cannot compete with the battery life of most modern laptops. With the same 42-Wh battery, the Intel-based sister model lasts close to 7 hours. The Wi-Fi transfer speeds are somewhat lackluster as well. The cause of the slow speeds is not hard to identify: The Wi-Fi module of the Inspiron only supports maximum transfer speeds of 433 Mb/s.

More information and benchmark results can be found in our detailed review of the Dell Inspiron 15 3505.