灵越13 7352特别版晒单Inspiron 13 7352 Special Edition: A Show-and-Tell

DELL New Inspiron 13 Special Edition

Inspiron, the series Chinese users know inside and out as Dell’s Lingyue line. As convertibles came into their own, Inspiron too rolled out the value-minded Inspiron 7000 series of convertibles. On display today is the third-generation product of the 13-inch convertible line, the Inspiron 13 7352 Special Edition. The 7352 brings no hardware upgrades; rather, it resolves, to a fair extent, the usability problems its predecessor the 7348 was criticized for, which is also what earned the 7352 recommendation awards from Hardware.com and ComputerShopper…

dell001#

Specs#

The 7352’s hardware differs in nothing from the 7348’s; for completeness I list it here all the same.

Processor 5th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-5200U processor

Memory 8GB DDR3L 1600MHz (8GBx1)

Hard drive 500GB 5400RPM SATA hard drive

Display 13.3-inch HD (1920 x 1080) Truelife LED-backlit touch display with wide viewing angle (IPS)

English backlit keyboard

Wireless Intel® 7265AC + BT4.0 [802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.0, dual-band 2.4&5GHz, 2x2]

Camera HD (720P) webcam with dual array microphones

Battery 43WHr 3-cell lithium-ion battery

Ports Full-size HDMI™ 1.4a port, 2 USB 3.0 ports (1 of which supports Power Share), 1 USB 2.0 port, security slot, media card reader (SD, MMC), 1 headphone/microphone combo jack

Weight 1.66 kg

Thickness 19 mm

Shopping Around#

This story has to start with the previous computer, the HP 6100tx. The 6100 was a good machine, with zero compromise on performance—a second-generation i7 and a 6770m graphics card with 2G of VRAM, plus memory and hard drive you could swap yourself. But the thing made zero compromise on size and weight either: a body of over two kilos, plus a power brick of roughly another kilo tagging along for the fun of it, made taking it out a genuine test of stamina. When it was newly bought, the battery could still hold out a few hours, and once in a while the charger could stay home to lighten the load. Now, after five years of use, the battery is pure decoration; leave the charger behind and it will go on strike for you within minutes. Past all endurance, on a certain sweltering afternoon I resolved to abandon the old missus and go looking for new happiness. The selection criteria were accordingly simple:

1, Thin and light

2, Long battery life

3, Mainstream specs. For a while I was thoroughly taken with ASUS’s newly launched UX305 ultrabook: a mere 1.2kg and only 12mm thick, landing at just five thousand and change via a Taiwan proxy buyer. A pity it ran a CoreM processor; after test-driving CoreM in a store, I judged it unequal to my ever-growing work (read: posing) needs, and let it go. Next I set my eye on HP’s Spectre. Also a rather fine machine: around 1.5kg, about sixty-five hundred by proxy purchase. One user measured the battery at around ten hours, and I was sorely tempted.. a friend happened to own one, and that touchpad of boundless enormity truly was a shock ..besides, having used HP computers for nearly ten years, I fancied a change of taste. So again I let it go… After all that wandering, my gaze naturally drifted to the XPS13. And my, the XPS really is fine.. (yes, as a simple country boy I am, in truth, tempted by pretty much everything I see before my hand reaches my wallet..) bezels that narrow.. I crawled the forums and found it does have its small problems… but with looks that stunning I was frankly ready to forsake everything and buy it.. then I searched the price on Taobao and JD… even buying it from overseas was steep, and so, once again, I let it go.. Along the way I also looked at some supremely ugly acer convertible, and at the yoga, but neither of their looks did much for me, so we’ll pass over them here. And then, while idly loafing around the forums, I came upon some user’s post showing off the Inspiron 7348, and was struck dumb. Well damn: not only were this thing’s looks genuinely decent, the specs it gave were downright generous too. And it landed for a mere five thousand kuai (this, it seems, being the point). Smitten on the spot, I rolled over to Taobao to search for stock. No 7348 to be found, but what I did find, in stock, was the 7348’s upgrade, the very star of this post: the 7352. Impatience won.. never mind that it was an official refurb, I placed the order at once

Looks#

Mine is the official refurb, and it has already seen some use, so there’ll be no pretend unboxing.. I must say the refurb accessories are handed out very casually indeed.. all you get is a charger… plus one thin little warranty booklet… so no family portrait of the box contents.. let’s go straight to the machine itselfThe A cover. Judging by the A cover alone, you would honestly never connect it to the previous two generations. Not only has the material changed, the once-rounded styling has been reworked along with it. The predecessors’ glossy silver finish gives way to a matte black verging on deep gray, said to remedy the long-criticized paint-flaking problem. The new material, though, is a true fingerprint collector: one careless touch and it’s stamped all over with prints, and they aren’t easy to wipe off either..Here’s a straight-on shot. Yep, this is what it looks like. The color cast in this photo is fairly mild, so it’s quite close to the real color.A close-up for the logo. You’ll notice the predecessor’s rubber logo has been replaced with metal, which reads far more upscale.It’s clearer from the side: the logo is recessed. Still doesn’t light up, though. Eh, why did I say still.A look at the right side. You can see an SD card reader and a USB 2.0 port, followed by the volume keys and the power button. Compared with its predecessor, the new model drops the stylus that used to stow away inside the body, and the speakers have been moved as well. More on the speaker relocation later.Every port has its function labeled; I actually think leaving them unmarked would look cleaner and more graceful.The power and volume keys. You can see the gaps run fairly wide; the workmanship is not especially fine. The buttons also press with too much resistance and too little travel, so they don’t feel great either. Understandable, though: accidental presses do have to be guarded against.The inconspicuous hard drive activity light. Hands up if you’d ever notice this thing..Now the left side. Most of the ports gather on the left of the body: 3.5mm two-in-one audio / USB 3.0 / HDMI / power / security lock. Naturally, even for a not-terribly-thin ultrabook, an RJ45 network port remains withheld. And what’s changed from the predecessor is, once again, the speaker placement.The two USB 3.0 ports, labeled in blue lettering. For what it’s worth, their actual transfer speed is a good deal faster than the so-called 3.0 on my HP of five years ago.A close-up of the power jack. Come to think of it, why am I giving this thing a close-upThe gunmetal-gray hinge. Just as quick to get grubby, but far easier to look after than the A cover. The previous generation’s seems to have been a rectangle, while this one is no regular shape at all. Does the change of shape actually help with the rotating?The D cover shows the full structural departure from its predecessor. A great big REFURBISHED label spells out this laptop’s identity.. you’ve been usedThe preinstalled Windows8 Pro is still served up, thoughThe cooling exhaust has been moved downward, so that in most use the airflow no longer blows straight at the user, or at the A cover.Because the edges now get a diamond-cut style treatment, the speaker outlets could be moved downward, avoiding the blocked-speaker situations that could arise when the machine is flipped and rotated in use. It leaves the laptop’s sides that much cleaner too.Perfectly ordinary bottom screws, and not a warranty-void sticker anywhere on the machine. Very easy to open up.. presumably DELL knows everyone will crack it open and slot in an SSD..Finally, a one-yuan coin for scale; the thickness is, well, what it is..—that’s it for the exterior, now let’s open it up…Getting Macbook Pro déjà vu yet.. it resembles one even more than the last generation did..The front view; seen this way the computer always looks awfully thick.. the D cover’s cut is probably to blameThe side view; from the side it actually looks rather slenderScreen on for a look. The bezels are still very wide, mainly for gripping in tablet mode, I suppose..A close-up for the hinge. In its working posture, the gunmetal-gray hinge truly does sit far more harmoniously with the C deck than the previous generation’s.The Windows key; though yours truly finds that even in tablet mode this key hardly ever gets used.. most of the time it goes.. well damn, frozen again, why won’t the screen respond to my taps, sheesh, fine, press the windows keyThe keyboard. After comparing, yours truly finds no change in feel or materials from the previous generation.You can see the height of the keycaps.You can see DELL has handled the keyboard rather carefully: the protective ring around the edge (protecting what, I couldn’t tell you) gets its own treatment where palm meets keyboard.It really does look like a macbook, hey, and that can’t be a good thing, can itDELL gives the keyboard backlighting in two brightness levels, but after shooting them I found the photos show practically no difference, so one picture will have to do.The touchpad. Compared against my buddy’s machine, it turns out the touchpad isn’t actually so small after all =。=… The click feels rather stiff, though you rarely need to click it anyway. The whole touchpad is a matte finish, which means that when two fingers glide across it, the sensation is faintly tingly, faintly numbing, altogether odd..And while we’re here, a close-up of the C deck’s little metal edge. Yours truly genuinely finds that edge gorgeous…

Transforming#

Right, time for me to begin trans(pose)formingFirst, 180-degree mode. Not that yours truly has ever used it this way.. I honestly can’t picture the use caseThe thickness in 180-degree mode. Like this it does look quite svelte…270-degree mode. Though honestly this is practically 300 degrees already.. Anyway, this is the mode I use most of all: movies on my lap, and at long last I can wave goodbye to the exhaust vent. Thumbs up MAXThe back. Very harmonious, no? Moving the vent has also greatly improved cooling in 270-degree mode.Tablet mode. Then again, a 1.66-kilogram tablet: using that is really daijoubu?The thickness. Hey now, it looks even thicker..One genuinely irritating problem: screen lift. Press it down and there’s a bit of a creak; whether that’s just my unit, I couldn’t say.

Accessories#

Well, aren’t the accessories really just the one charger…The charger shrinks from the previous generation’s 65w to 45w, and with it comes a drastic reduction in size. As the photo shows, it’s not even palm-sized.Still the wide 110-240v input range, manufactured by Lite-On. The bundled 125v power cord, though, I still haven’t dared to use..

Miscellany#

Here’s a battery-life readout, so you can all see how the battery life has changed ..that damned glare.. no, I’m not reshooting it… Lastly, since the hardware is entirely unchanged from the previous generation, I’ll skip the tests.

Verdict#

Design: : The styling change this generation deserves the word stunning. The diamond-cut edge treatment looks remarkably stately, and the whiff of cheapness is much reduced from the previous generation. Even carried into Starbucks for a spot of posing, it won’t lose face to the macbooks and x1s of the world. And the paint-flaking that plagued the previous generation has been well and truly fixed.: The A cover’s finish still leaves room for improvement. The D cover is extremely hard to remove, and for no reason at all it too is a magnet for fingerprints!In use: : The 360-degree rotating screen vastly expands what this laptop is for: bed, desk, car, the great outdoors (in no particular order), all now fair game. Eight-plus hours of battery under moderate use is beyond reproach for a laptop at this price and spec, and heat is kept in check nicely too; you rarely get a chance to feel the chassis’s warm affection. : The glossy display can drive you up the wall in tricky conditions. Tablet mode carries a certain chance of screen lift. Beyond that there don’t seem to be many faults left. If pressed, the single-channel memory does cost some performance.—All in all, for four-thousand-odd kuai you get a laptop you can play with every which way, so it would be bad manners to go asking for a bicycle on top. Those with a factory-sealed complex can buy the brand-new version for roughly five hundred more. Spending a further thousand on the i7 version to buy about 10%-20% more performance is, in yours truly’s personal view, not really necessary. Against the same-spec previous-generation 7348, the new model runs about a thousand dearer; that one is a to-each-their-own call. The gap is mainly looks and battery life, and yours truly’s advice: buy whichever your eye favors.