Dell Inspiron 16 Plus review: premium price without the luxury

Note that when you configure the Inspiron 16 Plus, your choice of GPU will affect how much RAM you can configure and how fast it is. Only the RTX 4060 can equip up to 64GB of faster DDR5 RAM (theoretically, at least, since it’s not yet an option for purchase).

A design that doesn’t fit the price

For a midrange laptop, the Inspiron 16 Plus falls a bit short in its design. That begins with the all-plastic chassis, which you typically find in laptops costing well under $1,000. In fact, I haven’t reviewed an all-plastic laptop in quite some time.

It’s not that plastic is inherently bad — it’s that you expect metal at these prices. The Inspiron 16 Plus’s bottom chassis and keyboard deck are firm enough, but the lid gives in to light pressure and there’s some distortion in the display. The slightly more expensive HP Envy 16 has a more rigid, all-metal build and gives off a higher-quality feel. The Dell is also plainer in appearance, which again isn’t a bad thing when minimalist designs are increasingly the norm. Even so, the Envy 16 is more attractive.

The Inspiron and Envy are almost identical in their dimensions, with similarly sized display bezels (the Dell’s bezels are plastic, which contributes to the lower-end feel). The Inspiron 16 Plus’ plastic build does provide one advantage, and that’s in a lower weight at 4.54 pounds versus 5.12 pounds.

I wasn’t terribly fond of the Inspiron 16 Plus’ keyboard, which felt a bit loose to me. It has deep enough travel and plenty of key spacing, but I prefer the snappier keyboard on the HP Envy 16. Certainly, it’s quite a bit behind the best keyboards on Dell’s XPS machines and Apple’s MacBooks. The touchpad was smaller than it could have been, with plenty of available palm rest space for a larger version, but it was responsive and its buttons were precise and not too loud.

A mix of Thunderbolt 4 and legacy ports make for good connectivity. I’d like to have seen one more of the former, and for some reason, the RTX 4060 version comes with a miniSD card reader rather than the full-size reader on the other models. Wireless connectivity is fully up to date.

Overall, the Inspiron 16 Plus performs well for a midrange 16-inch laptop. It will power through demanding productivity workflows while meeting the needs of most creators. One downside is heat; the Inspiron 16 Plus got very hot during benchmark runs, on the top of the palm rest and on the underside of the chassis. And that’s with the (sometimes annoying) fans running at full blast.

The Inspiron 16 Plus performed relatively well in our suite of gaming benchmarks, falling a little short of the HP Envy 16. but not by much. And of course, the HP equipped a faster CPU, making the Dell’s performance in Civilization VI that much more impressive. It was also faster than the Dell XPS 15 with the RTX 4070, but in that case, the GPU was significantly underclocked.

You’ll get solid 1080p gaming out of the Inspiron 16 Plus and can stretch that to 1440p if you turn down the graphical detail.

You don’t expect great battery life from a laptop with a large, high-resolution display, a fast CPU, and a discrete GPU. There are exceptions, such as the Dell XPS 15 with its decent longevity and the Apple MacBook Pro 16 that lasts forever on a charge. But if you can make it to lunch, you’re hitting the average for this class of devices.

The Inspiron 16 Plus was hard to gauge. First, it lasted longer in our web-browsing test than it did in our video-looping test, which is unusual. And it wouldn’t complete the PCMark 10 Applications battery test that’s the best measure of productivity longevity. Going by the numbers we have, I’d say battery life is just OK, and it won’t come close to lasting a full day on a charge.

The Inspiron 16 Plus will eventually offer two display options, both 16.0 inches at the productivity-friendly 16:10 aspect ratio. The Full HD+ IPS panel at 60Hz isn’t available yet, but will theoretically lower the price. My review unit was equipped with the high-end display, a 2.5K IPS display running at a speedy 120Hz.

According to my colorimeter, the Dell panel wasn’t as bright as the HP Envy 16’s display with the same specs, but it offered a significantly higher contrast ratio and just slightly wider colors. Both displays had excellent color accuracy close to the DeltaE of 1.0 that means color differences can’t be viewed by the human eye.

That makes the Inspiron 16 Plus’ display very good for productivity users but without the wide color gamuts demanded by creators. The problem is that there’s no better option, while the Envy 16 has a 2.8K OLED display available that is likely to offer extremely wide colors. You’ll spend more for that option, but at least it’s available.

Audio duties are performed by a set of quad speakers, two upward-firing above the keyboard and two downward-firing on the bottom of the chassis. The sound was crisp and clear at full volume, with nice highs and mids, but almost no bass. The biggest problem is that the audio just didn’t get very loud. It’s fine for the occasional YouTube video and such, but if you want to enjoy your streaming media and music, you’ll want to plug in a good pair of headphones.

The Inspiron 16 Plus falls just short of being a laptop that I can comfortably recommend. It provides good performance for all but the most demanding creators, but it doesn’t offer a display option that meets their needs. It’s priced like a premium laptop, but it’s not built like one. You expect a metal chassis and lid when you’re spending around $1,500 or more, not plastic.

If you’re a productivity user who wants a really fast laptop, then it’s an option. But so are many other 16-inch machines. The HP Envy 16 is close in price with a similar configuration, but it feels like a more premium laptop. In the end, I’d say to pass on this one unless its price comes down considerably.

Editors’ Recommendations