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The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (7440) is a sturdy, well-built machine with enough horsepower to handle even the most demanding tasks with relative ease. However, with the advent of the ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite laptops, is it still a worthwhile purchase in 2024? Dell’s Inspiron lineup has always offered solid value-for-money options, but the machine might find itself competing with x86 laptops in a similar price segment.
This mini-review will attempt to resolve this very conundrum and list the various positives and negatives of the laptop - as of the time of writing this article.
The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is a tank, and rather well-equipped in terms of mobile performance
There’s no doubt about it - the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is a great laptop, boasting multiple features that are best-in-class. Some of the major standout features include:
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Amazing performance thanks to the Core Ultra 7 155H housed within
The Core Ultra 7 155H is more than capable of handling any workload you throw at it. This 16-core, 22-thread CPU from Intel is part of the Meteor Lake lineup of chipsets and is performant across a variety of tasks, ranging from word processing to crunching through large chunks of data.
The Core Ultra 7 155H also comes with AI shenanigans, thanks to the built-in NPU, which I found little use for.
The chipset is also quite energy efficient and was able to keep up with regular day-to-day usage, lasting about 8-9 hours. While not as impressive as that of ARM-based laptops, it is still quite respectable.
More taxing workloads do significantly deplete battery life, however, and you shouldn’t expect peak performance while unplugged.
Very good speakers and a decent webcam
One of the more pleasant discoveries I made while using the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus was its speaker system. It has sufficient bass and loudness, all while maintaining crisp, distortion-free audio even at higher volumes.
One aspect to note is that the laptop’s speakers sound best when the unit is placed on a flat, hard surface. The difference is notable, considering that its speakers are downward firing.
The integrated 1080p webcam is also of decent quality, and the image produced is more than sufficient for the odd meeting. It is equipped with a physical webcam shutter which is much appreciated. The mics are also quite good.
The integrated Intel Arc graphics is plenty for light gaming
Intel’s iGPUs have come a long way since its UHD days, and the integrated Intel Arc graphics within the Core Ultra 7 155H is perfectly serviceable. The GPU is capable of playing through esports titles such as Counter-Strike 2 and Rocket League with little to no frame drops, while comfortably maintaining a 100+ FPS target.
Modern, light games such as Genshin Impact seem to run just fine too, hitting its target 60 FPS cap even with high settings. It’s no Radeon APU though, and performance is worse in comparison, in addition to possessing some quirky compatibility errors for select titles.
Overall, for the occasional light gaming session and general productivity, the Arc iGPU is plenty capable.
Easy to upgrade and disassemble, with a solid build and sane port layout
The Inspiron 14 Plus is constructed out of an aluminum chassis. The laptop feels sturdy and well-built, exhibiting little to no squeaks or bends even under pressure.
This is further complemented by the impressive IO selection on board. Both sides of the laptop possess abundant ports, with a USB-A port on either side. The MicroSD card slot and Thunderbolt 4.0 USB-C port are extra goodies that definitely add to the overall experience. The left side comes with a barrel plug adapter, but I would have preferred an extra USB-C port instead.
Disassembling the laptop is also rather straightforward, and thankfully, it has no hard-to-reach screws. While the Wi-Fi module and SSD can be easily swapped, the RAM is soldered down with no way to upgrade it — quite the unfortunate trend in modern laptops.
The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus has a set of cons compared to the competition in 2024
The laptop isn’t exactly quiet
At 3.53 lbs (1.60 Kg) the laptop should feel light, but it doesn't. The weight distribution feels off, making it feel heavier.
This is further exacerbated by the laptop being actively cooled by a large heatsink and fan. It can get loud under extreme load, as the fans ramp up to cool the CPU. Intel’s Core Ultra series is quite power-hungry, and the heat output is a fair bit higher than AMD or Apple Silicon counterparts.
Still, for less resource-intensive workloads, the machine can be very quiet.
The keyboard and trackpad feel quite average
The Inspiron Plus’s keyboard possesses decent key travel and responsiveness but misses the tactility. Coupled with that, the keys feel mushy.
At the very least, the keyboard has a useful function row, with the handy power button fused with a fingerprint scanner, which is quite accurate and fast.
While the keyboard is usable, the trackpad is mostly a miss. The diving board style makes it rather difficult to use, with clicks in the upper half of the trackpad feeling a lot less tactile. The plastic build doesn’t help either, and it lacks the more premium feel of other laptop trackpads.
Price can be a major deciding factor
At a starting price of $999.99 or ₹1,00,194.36, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus isn’t exactly the most affordable machine out there. In a vacuum, this would have been one of the best value-for-money offerings, but tons of laptops boast compelling and sometimes even superior configurations.
Apple’s Macbook Air lineup, along with the Snapdragon X series of laptops are capable of dethroning the Inspiron, with the advantages that come with an ARM-based platform (such as stellar battery life) that can’t be easily ignored.
Dell Inspiron 14 Plus: The final verdict
The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is a fine laptop, with a solid build and enough IO to keep even the most adamant dongle hater happy. The performance is stellar, and battery life is also quite acceptable.
But with the advent of ARM-based laptops such as the Macbooks and Snapdragon X series, the future of x86 is a bit uncertain. One could argue that x86 emulators for ARM (especially on Windows) are still in their infancy and that the transition to ARM is still a work in progress, but the unfortunate reality is that x86-based laptops are living on borrowed time.
It won't take long for ARM to catch up. Furthermore, the Meteor Lake Core Ultra CPU within the laptop is set to be succeeded by the much more powerful x86 chips from both Intel and AMD. Add non-user upgradeable RAM along with recent issues in Intel chipsets, and the value further plummets.
So is the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus worth buying in 2024? The answer is situational, given the impressive development in the laptop space in recent years.
For those wanting a thin and light machine for basic usage, web browsing, and word processing, the Inspiron is an easy skip over something like the Macbook Air M1 — a machine that costs way less.
For buyers seeking an x86-based platform for compatibility reasons, the Inspiron remains a decent choice for its form factor. The value proposition does increase by a fair margin if we take sales into account.
