Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (2023) Review: The Price Is Right

Dell’s Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7630) for 2023 is the latest attempt to mainstream the convertible laptop. 2-in-1 laptops come in two shapes and sizes. They are either the ones with detachable keyboards (which you usually have to purchase separately) or the ones with a 360-degree hinge that lets you use the laptop as a tablet or in ‘tent’ mode to consume content. The Inspiron 16 2-in-1 falls in the latter category.

With a 16:10 aspect ratio, the latest 13th-gen Intel chips, quad speakers, and a 4K Ultra HD+ display, there’s only one question: can the Inspiron 16 2-in-1 stand out in a world of clamshell laptops? I’ve been using this laptop, in India and abroad, for over two weeks now, and came away fairly impressed.

Design: Clean And Premium

From the moment you unbox it and open the lid, you realise you’re getting something most others aren’t. It may look like a clamshell laptop (and therefore boring), but the Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is far from it.

The clean and premium design may deceive others, but once you see it for yourself, you’ll like what you’re getting. It may have an aluminium-heavy body (and therefore on the heavier side at 2.11kgs), but you’re getting a sturdy build with the lack of any flex. The 360-degree hinge is rock solid. Rotate it any which way and any number of times and don’t worry about it breaking.

Display: The Star Of The Show

The star of the show is the display. The 16-inch FHD+ (1920x1200 resolution) display stands out with well-spaced keys, a large touchpad, speakers on either side of the keyboard, and a fingerprint reader on the power button in the top right-hand corner.

Whether you’re watching the latest season of Succession, or binging on Netflix’s latest Indian show Scoop, you’ll be in for a treat. The display is vibrant with rich colours and good viewing angles. Even casual games like Trackmania Nations Forever will shine thanks to the FHD+ display.

There’s even an option of a UHD+ OLED display with a 3840x2400 resolution. Both displays are touch, as is common with all convertible laptops.

Ports:

Thanks to a larger footprint, Dell was able to cram in plenty of ports for all your needs. There’s 1 HDMI 1.4, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, an SD card slot, two Thunderbolt 4.0 ports and an audio jack.

Daily Usage: Chugging Along

The best way to describe the Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 for my daily office work was this: chugging along. The laptop simply performed. It never stalled, nor did it give the impression that I could push it beyond its boundaries.

Thanks to an Intel Core i5-1335U (13th-gen) processor coupled with Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics, the laptop can stream music, browse the web, get lots of typing done, and be ready for a photo editing session.

Play some heavyweight games, try and edit a video, and this is where you start to see the limitations of this machine.

With just 8GB of memory, there’s only so much you can do. With the higher-spec model, you can do so much more. If you’re going to get an Inspiron 16 2-in-1, then do yourself a favour and buy the model with an OLED display and 16GB of RAM.

Sadly, the solid state drive (SSD) is limited to 512GB of storage at purchase.

Battery Life: A Full Workday

One thing I liked about the Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is its battery life. The 6-cell 84WHr easily lasted me a full workday of streaming video and typing out article after article.

Some Downsides

Here’s a bullet point list of what I didn’t like about the Inspiron 16 2-in-1:

- It’s bulky. So throwing it into a backpack will mean added bulk when travelling.

- On the base model, there is no Windows Hello facial recognition capability. Only the OLED model gets that feature.

- There’s a 1080p webcam on the Inspiron 16 2-in-1 along with a physical privacy shutter button but it is strictly average.

- I constantly had this problem wherein I would close the lid of the laptop and upon opening it again, the laptop would not resume but instead do a full restart. Therefore I would lose all my open programs and browser tabs.

- Even putting it in sleep mode for more than five minutes triggered this problem of restarting instead of opening from where I left off.

- The typing, whilst it was speedy, didn’t give me the satisfaction like some of the competitors’ laptops did.

Verdict: The Price Is Right

There isn’t much to say except that Dell nailed the pricing. To start a laptop of this calibre for under Rs 1,00,000 is a commendable job in today’s market. There are plenty of laptops that I liked reviewing this year - Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Pro, Asus’ ZenBook S 13 OLED and others - but they all cost a fair bit more.

The Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has excellent battery life and a good display. It’s a good choice for its target audience. The 360-degree hinge means you can use this laptop in more ways than just one, which is always a bonus.

All in all, at this price point, the Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a compelling offering. Just don’t take the competition lightly when making a decision.