Dell Inspiron 15 Plus laptop review: Close to being the perfect all-rounder

The Inspiron 15 Plus' competitors include other multimedia laptops with the GeForce RTX 3050 (Ti), such as the Asus VivoBook 15 Pro, the Asus Zenbook Pro 15, or the in-house Dell XPS 15 9510, but some of them are considerably more expensive. Our comparison charts also include the 16-inch sibling model, the Inspiron 16 Plus.

With a footprint of just 35.6 x 22.9 cm (~14.0 x 9.0 in), the Inspiron 15 Plus is among the more compact all-rounder laptops. A build height of 1.9 cm (~0.8 in) is also quite low, giving the Dell device a slim appearance. The situation is similar when it comes to weight: 1.9 kg (~4.2 lb) is very moderate for a 15-inch device, and it can (still) be transported comfortably. However, the case's biggest strength is its stylish design: The silver surfaces, which are partly made of metal (lid, top), look sleek and elegant at the same time, and they cut a fine figure in any situation or environment (office, university, etc.).

The Inspiron 15 Plus doesn't perform quite as well in terms of workmanship. Unfortunately, a few inconsistencies can be identified in the details. For example, the touchpad in our review sample didn't fit perfectly, and the lower right corner protruded a bit. Moreover, the lid's paint was already slightly damaged out of the box. Dell should improve its quality control accordingly (in our experience, the manufacturer often has problems here).

There's little to complain about in terms of sturdiness. Although the base unit can bend in the middle area under strong pressure, the "case flex" is kept within limits during normal use. The lid offers a tolerable degree of stability.

The hinges do a good job. Opening the lid, which raises the base unit (better air flow), also works with one hand. The lid is held firmly in place when open, and it's relatively unaffected by vibrations on the surface.

Ports

The port configuration makes a mixed impression. On the one hand, the Inspiron 15 Plus offers a modern Thunderbolt 4 port (USB-C with DisplayPort support and Power Delivery), but on the other hand, the 15-incher lacks an RJ45 port and a Kensington Lock. A total of three USB ports (2x Type-A 3.2 Gen 1), and one audio jack is also a bit limited. At least the Dell device is equipped with a full-fledged - if very slow - SD card reader.

The distribution of the interfaces isn't optimal. Since the back doesn't contain any ports because of the device's design and hinges, and the rear area of the sides is occupied by air vents, the ports are located quite far to the front, which can lead to motion restrictions when using an external mouse on both the left and right sides.

As mentioned before, Dell has installed an extremely slow card reader. Around 21 MB/s for transferring photos isn't even on par with USB 2.0, and together with its 16-inch sibling, our review unit ranks at the bottom of the test field. In comparison: The Zenbook Pro 15 achieves a solid 81 MB/s, and the XPS 15 a first-class 224 MB/s.

The Inspiron 15 Plus does very well when it comes to Wi-Fi performance. At a distance of one meter (~3.3 ft) from our new reference router, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000, the Intel Wi-Fi 6 module (AX201) achieved a good average rate of 1,413 Mb/s in our reception test.

In terms of quality, the 720p webcam isn't anything out of the ordinary. As is often the case, there are problems with color accuracy as well as image sharpness. However, the privacy shutter should be praised: The webcam can be conveniently covered using the slider.

As a security feature, the Inspiron 15 Plus comes with a fingerprint sensor that is conveniently integrated into the power button.

In addition to some info booklets, the laptop is of course accompanied by a mandatory power adapter. The 130-watt model weighs just under 400 grams (~0.9 lb), and its size of 15 x 7.5 x 2.5 cm (~5.9 x 3.0 x 1.0 in) isn't overly bulky.

Users who want to access the interior of the Inspiron 15 Plus first have to remove nine small cross-head screws and pry the bottom cover out of its anchoring. The picture under the hood is the usual one: The Wi-Fi module, RAM slots (2x SO-DIMM DDR4), and mass storage slots (1x M.2 2230, 1x M.2 2280) are just as accessible as the battery and the cooling system (see photos).

The base warranty only covers 12 months. When configuring the laptop, however, this period can be extended to up to three years for an additional charge, and Premium or Premium Plus support can be added.

Apart from the aforementioned workmanship flaws, there is hardly anything to criticize about the touchpad. A surface of 11.5 x 8 cm (~4.5 x 3.2 in) is quite a lot for a 15-inch device, and it also allows you to move the cursor across longer spaces without having to reset your finger. The rather smooth finish chosen by Dell also ensures good gliding properties. The pad's precision is satisfactory as well.

The only thing that Dell should polish is the multitouch support. The gestures supported (e.g. zooming) were occasionally a bit awkward and sloppy in the test. Finally, the two click surfaces at the bottom draw attention with a strong, but also quite loud feedback.

While several other budget all-rounders show significant weaknesses when it comes to image quality, the Inspiron 15 Plus features a decent display.

The 15 Plus is a true mid-range laptop. The components are well balanced in the case of our review configuration, although only offering 8 GB of RAM is already reaching the limits, and it would be best to expand it to 16 GB of dual-channel RAM.

Different profiles are hidden in the preinstalled "My Dell" software under "Performance", "Settings", "Thermals". All of our measurements were performed using the "Optimized" mode, which is active by default. Optionally, the "Cool", "Quiet" and "Ultra Performance" modes are still available.

The low-priced version of the Inspiron 15 Plus is equipped with a hexa-core processor (12 threads via Hyper-Threading). The Core i5-11400H is based on Intel's Tiger Lake generation, which is no longer completely up to date. It has 12 MB of L3 cache and a maximum clock rate of 4.5 GHz.

Although speeds remain fairly constant in the Cinebench R15 loop test, the Core i5-11400H can't match the hexa-core competitor from AMD, the Ryzen 5 5600H, in terms of performance. As expected, the more expensive Core i7-11800H octa-core chip is completely out of reach. The same happens with the Ryzen 9 5900HX. However, the Core i5-11400H is perfectly sufficient for typical multimedia tasks, and it delivers a balanced performance.

The poor memory configuration is one of the reasons why the system performance is only good enough for the last place in the test field. Thanks to a faster CPU and 16 instead of 8 GB of RAM, the 16-inch Inspiron 16 Plus sibling model is more than 20% ahead in PCMark 10.

As expected for a modern laptop, an M.2-based NVMe SSD is used for mass storage. The 512 GB version of the built-in Micron 2450 delivers a decent performance in our benchmark course. In an ideal scenario, sequential speeds of over 2,100 MB/s (read) and 1,300 MB/s (write), respectively, are possible. Users who need more storage space in the long run can add a second M.2 drive to the device.