With Intel’s new Haswell chip, manufacturers can choose to either build slimmer notebooks or try to optimize battery life as much as possible. Dell has clearly shown its dedication to the latter with the new Inspiron 11 3000 series. Budget notebooks don’t always have big batteries, but Dell claims the $379 Haswell version of the Inspiron 11 lasts up to eight hours and 20 minutes on a single charge.
Something I’ve been pondering for a while: if we can have high-quality tablets and smartphones at low prices, why can’t we have high-quality laptops at said prices too? Cheap laptops are almost always crap, but this Inspiron 11 actually looks like it could reverse the trend. Since I don’t really need an expensive laptop anymore, a cheap but still relatively high quality 11″ laptop is right up my alley. Is anyone aware of any alternatives?
Also, when did Dell find the design stick?
Like the look of this. It’s Bay Trail not Haswell so it might not be up to your performance requirements. Biggest downside is the small and limited storage options.
Actually, according to http://www.theverge.com/products/inspiron-11-3000-series/7332, it has a Celeron 2955U, which according to http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Celeron_Dual-Core/Intel-Mobile%20… is a Haswell chip. To be sure, it’s a very low end, but still Haswell which will probably have a pretty decent bump over Bay Trail, especially in the graphics department.
>”Also, when did Dell find the design stick?”
did? Me thinks you mis-spelled “will”
Yeah, this looks like a Mashup of the Inspiron N series of late (which was ugly and very low quality) frankensteined with an Air-like PC. Not excited at all based on the downward slide in quality I’ve seen in Dell.
Keep in mind the price point. The XPS series is much better quality.
But regardless of quality, its ugly as heck. Maybe a”style stick” is something they use to beat pretty things until they are ugly in the Netherlands? I mean, nothing ever looks great after being hit with a stick.
Edited 2013-09-17 19:25 UTC
I see virtually every model of Dell on a daily basis. As per this model, I see nothing remarkable whether with respect to price, design, or any other factor.
As for the XPS, it is actually notorious for its high-rate of failure. Sure, they’re sexy. High-end specs. But the components are complete crap and Dell is very poor at supporting them.
If you’re talking about good design in terms of a balance between lightness and robustness while being very easy to service…
then Dell have been doing that with Latitudes for years.
Toshiba Portege models make a sacrifice to get the lowest weight ultra portables if you’re a careful owner but I still prefer X-Series ThinkPads personally.
Interesting, I’ve only dealt with one XPS which worked fairly well, so obviously I’d defer to your experience. Good to know.
I almost with XPS with my last notebook, but went with a thinkpad T series instead.
I’d say that the pro line from Dell went up in quality, if anything.
No idea about Inspiron laptops though…
An laptop with a pixel count less than my tv is useless for working on, and why else would you get a laptop? If its just to consume media get a tablet.
No manufacturer really expends a dime anymore developing descent laptops, except for the ultra high end market.
Even current up-to-date mid range models still ships with TN panels, has light leaks, max resolution around 720p, lacks 5GHz wi-fi radio, no NFC, meager 2,5″ touchpads, cheap thin plastic enclosures, slow HDDs with 40mbps max, beg-me-cry batteries with less than 45KWh, too big power bricks with crap connectors, poor cooling, full of bloatware… and the list goes on.
Currently, this market is in a sorry state. The average quality of current laptop lines made by big manufacturers is something that we expect only from 40 bucks tablet market.
This is why the macbooks are doing better than some might think. I know many people who didn’t set out to get macosx or even apple … but they feel they have to just to get a decent well design well built laptop of any brand or OS.
Yes I am considering a MacBook Pro for this very reason.
…combined with an unwillingness to look beyond the 2 or 3 best-known Windows OEMS and/or do the 5 minutes of research necessary to figure out that business laptops are a much better value on the Windows side of the fence.
Macbooks only measure up favorably when they’re compared against bargain-basement, consumer-grade garbage (which is probably why that’s the comparison you see most often). Compare Macbooks against, say, a high-end Thinkpad of similar specs/price/vintage and it doesn’t look so hot anymore. There’s a line between high-end and over-priced… I tend draw that line *just* below laptops that lack even an OPTION for a matte screen, despite a $3k-plus sticker price.
And that’s only general-purpose use, I’d LOVE to see someone try to use a Macbook in the type of situation that the Toughbook is designed for.
Here we go again, the classic Apple bashing.
I have been using thinkpads for years, and always the so called high end models. I recently acquired a macbook pro (with windows, mind you), and it is certainly FAR higher quality than the x230 I paid the same price (1800$).
The x230 feels and is flimsy, has a shitty display with light leaks, and have poor battery life. I also have a T serie from 2012.
Yes macbook pro had a big premium maybe only 5 years ago, and the now defunt consumer grade macbook were always shit. But to say that current macbook pros aren’t priced right and don’t compare favorably to similarly priced PCs is just silly.
Windows 8? Can I get 7 or Linux?
It gets a free upgrade to 8.1, which is significantly better than 7 in size, performance, appearance, and basically anything that isn’t “having a start menu”.
Install an app to swap the start screen with a start menu, and you will likely find 8.1 far more to your liking than 7.
Why should one have to install a 3rd party app to fix a design issue? And what about the rest of the issues one can find in the latest edition of the toy os from ms?
Because it’s not a design issue.
It’s a search based interface like in unity, osx’s spotlight/alfred, KDE’s krunner, etc.
It also presents a large number of installed items in a manner that is easier to browse when accessing the all programs section.
start menu addons are there for people who cling to an arbitrary behaviour, just like those who can’t let go of gnome2.
Care to add what those problems are?
It has more functionality, better organisation of functionality, a cleaner appearance, lower resource usage (significantly so for disk space), they finally brought in an app store, and oh so many more improvements.
For the record, I use KDE on arch linux, but I have been needing to use win8.1 for .NET purposes, and have found it much nicer than 7 ever was.
I dont care for a “start menu” in full screen. Thats for me atleast would be a design error…
I am running win8 in a lab atm to test some vpn clients. I wanted to reinstall a client but it would not let me do so without admin rights. It just so happens that i only have one account with full rights on this machine. And even with those credentials i was not allowed ot uninstall the client. I had to find another way to do it. I never seen that in win7…
personal preference != design error
There are merits to both, it’s simply a different method. I find it better, but then I run everything fullscreened or tiled.
The software removal issue is odd, though. I’m very curious as to the cause.
Another fuckup from ms would be opening af pdf in desktop ie wupti you are in metro land. If thats not bad design i don’t know what it is.
I do know that my opinion does not make it a design error. Thats why i wrote its a design error in my world. I have yet to find just one thing i think is good in win8. Sofar i have found a number of fuckups but no ‘ah nice’ moments.
I for one find the idea of 2 desktop enviroments idiotic. And it doesnt help that worst of them is being used as a full screen start menu in the one that can be used for real work…
If your default pdf software is metro, it only makes sense that it would open in it.
Metro is fine, and will be fine for “real work” once more apps are ported.
Until then, the desktop works exactly as it always did, except that the start menu is bigger and prettier.
Why would an action in the only useful part of win8 default me into the not so useful part? The only reason i can se is to get people to use that sad sad solution they used to call metro.
it’s doubtfull even ms believes metro would be usefull for work. If they did they would have made it optionel and 8.1 would not come with a option to boot into desktop…
If you don’t want to be swapped into metro, don’t assign metro apps as defaults for opening files…
It’s only not ready because the apps aren’t there, which is a good enough reason to add boot to desktop back in, but probably not why they did it.
The point is, it is perfectly funcional and useful, including without a touchscreen. It’s just different.
You don’t need to interact with it, despite it being a much more consistent and modern interface.
The old desktop is still there, with improvements.
The underlying OS is faster and more powerful than ever.
I don’t like the company, but there is no denying they’ve definitely made some vast improvements here.
Trust me, i havent.
I call bs. It’s not ready because people dont’ want to mess around with a shitty touch interface on a none touchscreen.
I have yet to find anything i find usefull in metro, modern ui or what ever it’s called today.
Sadly i do have to interact with it. The os boots into it. As i am testing an app in diffent versions atm i have to reinstall the app quite often so i cant just add a shortcut to the desktop.
Which improvents is it you have found on the desktop?
More powerfull..?
I do not care much for Microsoft either but thats not relevant. They relased a pile of crap and thats what i have a problem with, as long as they still force it down the neck on most people via oem deals…
Then change the default from the metro app to a non-metro app?
You would have had to do the same thing for images.
I fail to see how it’s a purely touchscreen interface.
It works perfectly well with a keyboard and mouse.
It just reduces visual clutter, in order to improve appearance and aid focus.
It’s the direction *all* modern design is headed, as you would have seen on most prominent websites.
It’s a tiling interface, making it vastly superior to stacking interfaces.
I was talking about the desktop, though. They’ve definitely improved explorer and admin functionality quite a lot.
8.1 has boot to desktop, the upgrade is coming soon.
Inevitably, Visual Studio and MS Office will be moved there, though.
The operating system itself uses less resources, more efficiently.
The main improvements on the desktop are the added functionality in explorer and the improved dual monitor handling, as well as the deliciously flat theme.
It’s a pile of crap *in your opinion*.
The OS itself is leaner and meaner, with less visual clutter and more functionality.
Sure, the new environment needs to mature, gain some more applications.
However, you’ve not actually pointed out anything objectively bad about it.
You’ve simply stated that you hate it, and that “it’s crap”.
Give some reasons for the hatred of metro apart from the youth of the platform.
Once the apps are there, it’ll be more productive than the desktop due to tiling and modern design choices reducing visual noise.
Edited 2013-09-19 12:04 UTC
When using win7 my browser opens pdf files just fine. Why cant win8 just do the same..?
Aid focus? If one needs to focus on a start menu i’d say the creator made a bubu
As i nolonger have to play sysadm on windows systems i do not know much about the administration. But as a user i have found nothing has improved.
Ofcause it’s my oponion. I do not get paided to talk up some crazy shit as we could suspect others do.
What added functionality are we talking about here? The ability to switch to a touch start menu or something usefull? Please do tell. I aparently missed something…
I do not like the fact that my start menu needs to be fullscreen. I have yet to read just one good argument as to why thats needed.
I don’t care if metro is young or not. It does not help me getting my work done faster so why should i go for a change?
How can a new start menu make me more productive?
In win7 it opens pdfs in whichever application you chose as the default handler.
Windows 8 happens to have a metro application as the default handler, so you would need to associate the filetype with a desktop application.
Win8 will behave *exactly* like win7 if you just change the default app via “open with”.
When the user is looking for something, a huge cluttered list is more difficult to navigate. This method is simpler and more intuitive.
Regardless, metro is more than just the start screen. It’s also about the modern application style with the tiling window manager.
Surely you have noticed how much better the copy dialog is, the extra functionality available in explorer via task pinning, the ribbon interface’s improved feature prominence…
You did miss something. Every desktop application has more features and uses less resources.
Also, the modern interface is far more than just the start screen. It also doesn’t really have to tie with touch, it works perfectly without it.
Why do you have a start menu?
Trawling through a list is a waste of time, when it is far faster and easier to type 2-3 letters, hit return and have the correct application run via search.
The “all programs” listing is there for when one forgets the name of something, but apart from that, the tiles enable quick and prominent access just like pinned start menu apps used to.
Otherwise, it’s <meta key><type2-3 letters><return>, and you’re working.
Waving a mouse about fishing for something is very slow by comparison.
Please give a good reason for having a huge heirarchical listing when search allows one to get on with work faster.
The point of metro is to bring the dated and cluttered interface forward with modern trends.
Applications should be about *content*, not buttons and menus scattered all over the place.
We have hotkeys and gestures for that.
It’s more intuitive to have functionality reveal itself when needed, and get out of the way when it’s not.
Functionality should also be contextual, only being available when it’s actually applicable.
These sorts of movements towards iHCI are a large part of modern UI design.
On windows 7 pdf files i open on the web opens in the browser. On windows 8 it opens in metro…
So all the “live tiles” do not add clutter?
I use my windows 8 install for testing a client app not for playing around with new “innovations” from ms so no i havent seen the new copy dialog. Ribbon interface is up there with metro when it comes to design fuckups.
So finely ms figured out that they have to cleanup their code insted of relying on people to buy new hw to run their os. Good for them. But the same could be said about windows 7 if i am not mistaken
You do know that you can search in the windows 7 start menu aswell? And when do so in windows 7 you don’t need to switch to a fullscreen start menu…
If you only want functionality when its applicable i do not understand why you want to clutter your start menu with information that is not contextual. If i need to start a program i do not need a “live tile” showing pictures. That is not contextual information when i need to start a browser or what not…
I do believe we just have to agree on not agreeing on metro being a pile of bubu or usefull…
Then, that means you need to change the file association in the browser, as opposed to the OS.
Regardless, it’s just a file association to an app you don’t like.
Pity. It aids in discovery, and being hidable is better than having a menu constantly cluttering the window.
You are not mistaken.
7 is more efficient than vista, 8 is more efficient than 7, and 8.1 is even moreso.
It’s quite refreshing compared to the “progress” made from the early releases through to XP/Vista
I do. There’s no sense in just using a tiny portion of the screen for it, though.
OSX’s mission control launcher is similar, as is unity’s netbook interface launcher.
If it’s not frequently enough used to be pinned to the taskbar/dock/whatever, or have a hotkey, it deserves more focus like that.
Because it’s not just a launcher, it’s a full desktop of its own?
The live tiles replace menu items, taskbar entries and widgets.
I have almost everything removed from mine, but just like people who insist on having icons on their desktops, sticking widgets on their homescreens/desktops or leaving scores of applications on their launchers, cluttering is permissible.
Browsers are often enough used that you should probably have it pinned or hotkeyed, but the full-screen is not distracting when one is used to it.
Indeed. It would seem as though it is as useless as arguing vim vs emacs or gnome vs KDE.
At any rate, when you talk of your distaste to people in the future, you should give concrete reasons, even if they are “I liked the old way, I find it distracting, I don’t like how it looks”.
Calling something “crap” and “useless” is borderline trolling, and you have legitimate reasoning behind your distates, so there’s no need for it.
Edited 2013-09-20 09:30 UTC