Dell Inspiron 15R N5110 Notebook

3DMark Vantage - P3840

3DMark 11 - P888

SiSOFT SANDRA 2010

Processor Arithmetic

Dhrystone (ALU) - 34.5

Whetstone (iSSE3) - 24.5

Processor Multimedia

Integer (x8 iSSE3) - 62

Float (x4 iSSE2) - 85.8

Memory Bandwidth

Int (iSSE3) - 9.45

Float (iSSE2) - 9.46

Dirt 2 (1366x768, all High, DX11-On) - 35FPS

General and Multimedia usage
The N5110 may be built well, but it's also quite heavy to lug around. At roughly 2.65kg, it’s not really light and you’ll certainly feel the weight in your backpack. It’s ideal use would be at home, perhaps as a desktop replacement. The glossy screen makes quite a difference when viewing web pages, photos or videos, everything seems richer and more vibrant. I quite enjoyed using the keypad and while the feedback from the keys feels a little spongy, it's not a deal breaker in anyway.

Keys have a good feedback

 
The trackpad was very problematic, though and refused to work properly. There is quite a bit of lag when you use it and many times it would just behave erratically. We tried re-installing the drivers, but didn’t have much luck. Another odd thing we noticed, was that both the display adapters (Intel and Nvidia ) are active which is something we usually see in Optimus enabled notebooks. After a little digging around, I found that the GT 525M does indeed support Optimus, but it’s up to the manufacture to implement it. Dell doesn’t seem to have bothered with this and it’s a real shame, since the resulting product could have been so much better.

Swappable faceplates

HD movies look really good and the sound is not bad, either. The speakers are placed in the front towards you and are SRS certified which makes them really good for music and movies. The sound does tend to distort a bit at high volumes and the bass is virtually non-existent. The vertical viewing angles aren’t the best, but the horizontal angles are good enough for watching a movie with a couple of friends.

Finally, I wanted to try Intel’s WiDi technology, but sadly you need a WiDi compatible box to be connected to the the TV first to pair both of them.

Battery Life
The N5110 is fitted with a 6-cell 48Whr battery, which managed to give us a battery life of just 1hr 30min in Battery Eater Pro. This is with the notebook set to ‘Balanced mode’, Wi-Fi off and the screen brightness set to full. If Dell had used Nvidia’s Optimus technology, we could have seen a much better battery life.

Verdict
The configuration we received works out to Rs.40,150 from Dell’s website and is inclusive of shipping and delivery costs, which is a very aggressive price. With this kind of feature set and components, you’re set for the next two years, at least. Dell has taken an already popular series of notebooks and just made it even better by offering a better processor, USB 3.0 and a discrete DX11 graphics card – all for a lower price as compared to its predecessor.

My main problem with this is the annoying trackpad, average battery life and lack of Nvidia’s Optimus implementation, which is what’s stopping the new N5110 from being a real steal.