List Price: $549.99
Sale Price: $399.99
Today's Bonus: 27% Off
Model Reviewed: i17RV-818BLK
I purchased this laptop when it was on sale for 399.99 on the Back to School promotion. Primarily if you are looking at this model you are interested in the 17.3" screen size at the cheapest price possible without moving down to the Pentium line. This laptop comes with the i3 3227U CPU which has 2 physical cores and 2 virtual cores with no support for dynamic overclocking (Turbo Boost) clocked at 1.9Ghz.
First, unless you can deal with the horrible load times I would suggest any SSD you can aquire such as Samsung Electronics 840 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Single Unit Version Internal Solid State Drive MZ-7TE120BW. If you need more space for whatever reason you should get a cheap aftermarket 2.5" HD enclosure to supplement file storage. I would recommend just putting the HD that came with the laptop in this: SANOXY® 2.5" USB 2.0 SATA Hard Drive HDD Case Enclosure. Secondly this laptop only comes with 1 4GB DIMM, and you should purchase a cheap 4GB SODIMM DDR3 1600 CL11 module. This significanly increases performance esspecially if you are going to be doing any light gaming. Here is a suggestion Crucial 4GB Single DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 SODIMM 204-Pin 1.35V/1.5V Notebook Memory Module CT51264BF160B but any 4GB DDR3 1600 CL11 SODIMM will work.
With the minor upgrades out of the way, we can take a look at this laptop. The screen measures 17.3" and is a TN panel 1600x900 which has the same flaws any TN panel would have (poor viewing angles). The hinges are very tight, you have to hold the base down to open the screen which is a good thing in my opinion. The laptop has a more solid feel than other sub 500 dollar models out there. This may be because of the textured plastic being thicker but it is noticable, the textured plastic prevents fingerprints and scratches.
Customers have access to the underside in which the WiFi, HDD, and Memory can be upgraded if needed. The laptop comes with 2 memory slots with one being populated. The keyboard is not backlit, but the keys seem to be between a macbook and older springy ones. I own a Retina MacBook Pro 15" and the keys are similar, so Dell has come a long way from an older Studio 15 (1557) model I had. Those keys would fall off easily and felt terrible to type on.
Comes with 4 USB ports 2 of which are USB3.0, the only cavet here is that they are not color coded. It is nigh impossible to tell other than the small icon above with SuperSpeed listed.
With the iGPU (Intel HD4000) you can play World of Warcraft on Medium settings at 1600x900 averaging 30fps. Turning off shadows, SSAO and using low particles, low water maxing out View distance, textures, etc. dramatically increases framerates. 60+ in 5 mans 40+/in capital cities. Torchlight & Torchlight II can be maxed out with the exception of shadows at native resolution. Diablo III does not perform that well for me, even at the lowest settings there are times when it will drop below 30fps.
The laptop never gets too hot to touch and even while running Intel Extreme Burning Utility or running loops of Heaven 2.0 it can sit comfortably in your lap.
Highs:
Good price for a 17" laptop with i3 (399.99)
Lows:
You should probably consider a SSD and memory upgrade.
Notes:
ALL gaming tests were done with 2 sticks of memory, with just single channel memory that the laptop shipped with you will probably not be satisfied with any games that these types of laptops usually play.
Amazon states that this is a 1366x768 screen which is incorrect, all 17" Inspirons ship with 1600x900 TN panels.
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purchased this for my son, he loves it. just wish it had a real manual with it. didn't come with any instructions. but it works nicely.Best Deals for Dell Inspiron 17 i17RV-818BLK 17.3-Inch Laptop (Black Matte
I had another brand before and just never got to appreciate it. I like this Dell very much. My husband recommended Dell as he has had his for sometime. I would recommend it.Honest reviews on Dell Inspiron 17 i17RV-818BLK 17.3-Inch Laptop (Black Matte
I am really impressed with the build quality of this Dell laptop. It has a very bright and clear screen and the keyboard and touch pad are very good. I added 4 GB of RAM to bring it up to 8 total and it speeds through most applications. It is not meant for any serious gaming and for the price, you should not expect that. I have owned two Dell desktops, but never a laptop. I figured for $399 and another $30 for the RAM, I'd give it a shot. I could not be happier with this computer and I recommend it highly.
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